Pairing: The Sentry/Bob/Robert Reynolds/The Void x Gender Neutral!Reader
Story Summary:
Reader has been a vigilante for the last year–exposing corrupt elite, fighting off street thugs, speaking out against the government tightening its iron grip on superheroes. All of it while also working a full time job at a cat cafe. When arrested by the New Avengers and given the choice between prison time or joining the team, they join the team. They think it’ll be full of the self-righteous assholery of everyone else in power, but as they get closer to the team, they realize that everyone is just as trapped as them.
When a new villain makes an appearance to try and kidnap Reader for reasons they won’t detail, the team has to worry about the safety of their two most unstable members and prevent them from falling into manipulative hands (besides Valentina, of course).
What happens when Reader is kidnapped by this villain? What lengths are the team, and especially Bob, willing to go to to get them back?
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Tldr: Reader is the living embodiment of sunlight while Bob deals with Void & Sentry while simultaneously keeping each other alive by trauma bonding like neglected shelter dogs
Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, implied/referenced self-harm, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced drug use, implied/referenced torture, canon-typical violence, human experimentation, manipulation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat
Author’s Note: I'm going to do my best to make this feel as if Reader is really part of the team with dynamics with the whole team and not just Bob. This will really revolve around the importance of having people in your corner.
Some notes about Reader just to clarify:
Reader is afab, but there won't be any gendered pronouns when referring to them.
There's only a few memories that are pre-established purely for the sake of having content for the shame rooms at some point. When Reader mentions the lack of memories, it's to leave their story open for your interpretation. I won't mention it much.
Reader has sunlight based powers that come with its own set of rules and limitations that'll be shown through the story.
Reader has chronic pain because they're an ex experiment. Whether from HYDRA or from another sick freak will be left up to you. The experiments are directly related to their powers.
Reader has autistic tendencies.
Bob has both DID and Bipolar Disorder because that's how I've interpreted it. Don't like, please don't read.
Chapters
I Touched Grass And It Broke A Government Facility
Summary: you’re both at a gala and sneak away for some much needed private time
Warnings: oral sex, p in v (wrap your willies guys), semi public
Word Count: 1.6k
You were never one for parties.
They pressed in too close—the endless chatter of the nobility, the acrid tang of alcohol lingering in the air, the music threading through everything just a bit too loud. It always seemed to scrape against every last nerve until you could barely pay attention to your own thoughts. You lasted as long as you could, but inevitably slipped away from the crowd, away from the lights, away from the noise.
You stepped onto a quiet balcony overlooking the gala below, where the noise dulled into something distant and bearable. No one noticed, you were sure. No one ever did.
Bruce did.
Even as he laughed beside a high-ranking nobleman, something easy and practiced, his attention had shifted. His piercing gaze tracked you as you vanished through the archway leading to the upper balconies, lingering just a moment too long before he excused himself with a forgettable lie about champagne.
He followed you. Not close enough to be detected, but close enough to watch the way your fingers twisted into the dark blue silk draped over your frame. He watched the way your gaze drifted over the dancers below—distant and thoughtful as though you were searching for something you could never quite reach. He lingered for a long moment before stepping out of the shadow of the curtain.
“You disappeared,” he said, his tone casual. It was more like he was commenting on the weather instead of his soon-to-be spouse vanishing from their own party.
“Just needed some air,” you replied without looking at him. You kept your tone measured….controlled, even as something restless curled tightly beneath your ribs. You didn’t look at him. Not yet. Your gaze stayed on the dancers below as they laughed and spun in an effortless way that you had never quite learned. He followed your gaze, then flicked his attention back to you. He took in the stiffness in your shoulders and the way you pressed your lips into a thin line.
“Would you rather be somewhere else?” he asked without mockery. His tone sounded genuine. That, more than anything, made you turn.
The soft blue light from the chandeliers framed him, catching the sharp line of his jaw. It softened the edges of his expression, and your eyes lingered on his mouth for the briefest moment before you pulled your attention to his eyes. Even as images of his lips against your skin began flooding your thoughts, you did your best to push them away. Now definitely wasn’t the time.
“The library,” you admitted softly, trying to picture the soft rustle of turning the pages. You tried to focus on whatever you were in the middle of reading, but your gaze dropped to his mouth again.
He chuckled, low and unguarded. The sound slipped through the tension in your chest, unraveling the knot in the middle of your ribcage.
“Something funny?”
He shook his head, though his own gaze dropped to your mouth for a moment. “No, you’d just rather be surrounded by books than people.” He paused, his eyes raising to meet yours. “And you’re marrying me of all people, Mr. Charity Gala Extraordinaire.”
Silence settles between you. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just something full of tension and unsaid words. You turned back to the balcony, folding your arms over your chest as the images in your mind continue—his mouth against your neck, his hands roaming your body sent a pool of warmth through your stomach. You tried to lose yourself in the music, swaying lightly on your feet. He stepped closer, his familiar smell of expensive cologne and something distinctly him envelops you. You could feel the heat of him at your back without quite touching. “You’re sure that you’re okay?”
You nodded, and then without thinking too hard about it, you leaned back into him. “I’m alright,” you murmured. His hands found your waist as if they belonged there—fingers spreading steadily and warm through the silk. The contact was careful at first, almost restrained. You tilted your head back, brushing a soft kiss against the line of his jaw.
He stilled.
Just for a second.
Then his grip tightened, his hands shifting lower and settling at your hips as he leaned in. He returned the gesture with something deeper. His lips found the space just beneath your ear, his warm breath skittering against your skin. A shiver rippled through you before you could stop it. He felt it. Of course he did.
He traced his nose along your neck, taking a slow inhale before his teeth grazed lightly over sensitive skin. It wasn’t enough to hurt, just enough to make your breath catch and your thoughts scatter. Tingles break out along your arms, your fingers tightening on your biceps imperceptibly. Your breath catches for just a moment.
“Bruce,” you whispered, your voice unsteady now, betraying just how much this was affecting you. “They’ll hear us.”
His answer came close, too close, a murmur against your skin. “Then don’t give them a reason to listen.” The curtain shifted softly as he guided you backwards, pressing you into the shadowed space behind it. The wall met your spine, cool against the warmth building under your skin. He followed, close enough that there was no space left to pretend.
He slotted his leg between yours, just enough that you could ride his thigh if you were truly desperate enough for friction. Brushing his lips against yours, heat pooled between your legs as his tongue glided across your lower lip as a plea for entrance. You open your mouth, greedily gulping down any noise as he gently ground his leg against you. Your tongues mingle as his fingers cling to the silk between you, his free hand cupping your face.
His grip was far from controlled now.
You stifle a groan as he adjusted the silk to bare you to him, his lips trailing from your mouth down your jaw and along the column of your throat. He brushed his fingers against you, relishing in the fact that you were already soaked. A ghost of a smile against your throat told you that he was enjoying this far too much. “All this for me?” he murmured against your skin, the warmth of his breath ghosting over your neck. He applied deliberate pressure to circle your clit with his fingers. You leaned heavier into the wall, stifling any noise you wanted to give him.
Heat pulsed through you, meeting him at your core. He slipped a finger inside, curling in just the right spot. Clinging to him, you curl your fingers in the fabric of his suit. He pumped his finger into you, slipping in another one to curl faster against the spot that makes you see stars.
“Don’t stop,” you mumbled against his shoulder. “Gods, please don’t stop.”
He carefully peeled himself away, disentangling himself from you before dropping to his knees. He adjusted your leg to rest on his shoulder. Heat rushed to your face as he looked up at you through dark eyelashes. You nodded in silent approval before he surged forward. Licking a filthy stripe through your folds, his lips attached to your clit as he sucked.
You gasped, your fingers tangling in his perfectly quaffed hair. You held onto the dark locks with a grip that bordered on desperate as he brought you closer to your own pleasure. Your hips bucked against his mouth as a needy noise came from the back of your throat. You slapped a hand over your mouth, effectively silencing you as his tongue swirled over your clit.
“Bruce,” you whined, leaning your head back against the wall.
He hummed against you, glancing up to you with half-lidded eyes. His hum sent a bolt of heat up your spine as your legs shook. He could tell you were close, his tongue swirling again before he attached to you again with renewed fervor. Pleasure built until you shattered around him, your hands pulling him closer against you as you essentially rode his face through the orgasm.
When he pulled away and sat back on his heels, his chin glistened with your slick. He grinned at you, surging forward to capture your mouth in a heated kiss. You tasted yourself on him and it made you shiver. Taking your hand, he guided you to the balcony, glancing down at the nobles below that clearly weren’t paying attention to the couple above them.
He caged you in against the railing, moving the silk out of his way as he bared yourself to him again. His fingers made quick work of his belt, undoing it and pulling himself free of his pants. He didn’t give you time to admire him before he spun you around to face the unsuspecting crowd below. With movements that border on something between reverence and ferocity, he buries himself in you torturously slow. You felt every inch by torturous inch until you took him fully. He groaned against your shoulder as he boxed you in against the railing.
He began to move.
Each thrust held both care and desperation for his own release. His balls slapped against your clit, sending a shiver of pleasure up your spine. He braced himself against your shoulder, one hand planted firmly against the railing as the other snaked to your hair, pulling your head back just enough to give you an order. “Don’t make them look up, Darling.”
His thrusts turned desperate as he chased his own release, hitting just the right spot to make you see stars. The filthy sound of skin slapping against skin filled the balcony as the symphony crescendoed. Another orgasm ripped through you as he followed soon after, his hips stuttering as he spilled inside you.
He dropped the silks back into place, pressing a kiss to the back of your neck. “You did so good for me, Darling.”
A/N: I had this half-way written and then I moved and I haven't had internet in 2 months. I've been actively writing this at work
Last Part || Next Part
Hologram by Poe the Passenger
They say that heroes get remembered by the youth
That legends never die, 27, you’re used up
I try to resemble the truth, but it’s fading.
It’s fading
Blue light danced across the darkness of your eyelids, bright and interrupting whatever sleep railroaded you. Forcing your eyes open as if coercing a wrecked door from a totaled car with the jaws of life, the lights gradually came into focus. The clean lines of a medical HUD was on the nearest screen—vital signs, scans, numbers that scrolled faster than you could read. When you tried to sit up to get your bearings, the restraint against one of your wrists clinked against the rail.
High-tech healing, low-tech handcuffs apparently.
Leaning back into the flimsy pillow, you huffed an irritated sigh while the memories of the last time you were awake flashed through your mind: following the truck, fighting the government-sanctioned heroes, the crash, and then screaming at the heroes before going unconscious. Turning your attention to the clock above the door, all you could do was stare at the little red hand making its way around the face until three men entered the room. They were dressed head to toe in armor with guns holstered at their sides.
“All this for me?” you asked, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m flattered, really.” You fought the urge to cross your chest since you’d look stupid if you tried thanks to the handcuffs. None of the men moved for a solid minute until the biggest of them stepped forward.
He was helmeted and imposing as he loomed over the bed. “You gonna come quietly, or do we need to cuff you to the chair?” he hissed, reaching for the cuffs. He paused just before reaching for whatever keys he might have.
You grinned. It was a wolfish thing to convey you’ll resort to biting if they do anything reckless. “Nah, I’ll be a good noodle.”
The man’s head bobbed in acknowledgement—or to roll his eyes. It wasn’t entirely clear as he reached for the cuffs, keeping you held to the bed, unlocking them. Once freed, you rubbed at the spot on your wrist where the metal bit into the skin. You weren’t held all that long, but it was irritating nonetheless.
“Up. We don’t have the time for you to fuck around,” the smallest man grunted, holding a gun trained on you. His hands were shaking ever so slightly, and you couldn’t help the small swell of pride that these big ass armed men were scared of you.
“Where we goin’, Chief?”
When none of them answered, you rolled your eyes and swung your legs over the side of the bed. You test your balance slowly because you don’t trust your legs after the sedative. They held you up, even as the deep ache in your back and hips returned full force. Walking out of the room surrounded by the men through the medical wing was a blur of labcoats and varying shades of blue scrubs buzzing around the space. They tend to wounds, chatter at one of the big desks in the middle of the hallway, and grab supplies from locked medicine cabinets. The space is full of noise and the unmistakable scent of rubbing alcohol and cleaning chemicals.
You shivered against the cold of the medical wing.
The men led you to an elevator with glass walls that you suspected were reinforced. They did their best to avoid crowding you, but the small space in the elevator made that relatively difficult. You stay back against the wall that faced the street below—people walking their daily commutes while you get escorted by guards to an unknown place. Similar to a little kid seeing a two story mall for the first time, you shoulder your way to the front to look down at the lobby buzzing with people. Scientists, guards, people in business attire, and parts of the cleaning crew shining the dark floors to a pristine shine that would make the vainest of people stop to view their reflection.
Then the elevator dipped further beneath the floor and you were left in the clinical blue glow of the inner mechanisms of the building. You shrugged your way to the back of the elevator again and took a deep breath as it finally stopped. The doors slid open noiselessly as the men prodded you forward into a gray and silver hallway lined with doors. Leading you past open doors, you move by rooms full of computer screens with live feed of the entire building and people scrolling on the interactive screens.
They led you into a room with a single metal table and three chairs—one nearest the back wall and two nearest the exit. One of them was occupied by a woman wearing a gray shawl with shoulder-length dark hair and blonde bangs. She turned towards the door as soon as you were ushered in, standing when you stumbled inside. She smiled, oozing a maternal personal that felt like she was trying far too hard. She fussed over you, shooting a glare to the guards as she slipped an arm around your shoulders. “Hello, my name is Valentina. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of formal introductions.”
“If you think I’m giving up my name because of some motherly act, you truly don’t do enough research on whoever ends up on your doorstep.” You shrugged out of her reach, taking a seat before she saddled up to you again. “Why am I here?”
“Alright, that’s a fair assessment,” she chuckled softly as she took a seat across from you. “I just want to ask you a few questions, Sunny—can I call you Sunny?”
“No.”
Valentina seemed to grow a little annoyed by your blatant refusal, but proceeded anyway. “Do you have any medical conditions, allergies, or medications we should note?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” you snapped, folding your arms over your chest.
“Alright, then were you injured during the incident that brought you here?” she asked, pulling a small notebook out of a bag at her feet. It was almost as if she was going to take notes on you.
“You mean when one of your glorified lapdogs tased me and then I got sedated against my will?” you fired back, irritation flaring to life in your chest.
“I apologize for Yelena being trigger-happy. She gets excited to use her spider-bites.” Valentina looked up from her notes that she hadn’t been able to take yet. “Can you describe in your own words what happened that night?”
“I was following a lead,” you began, your tone clipped. “Then your team of lapdogs destroyed the evidence and tased me. Happy?”
“What was the lead?”
“None of your business.”
“I’m trying to help you here,” Valentina said, the motherly facade slipping ever so slightly the more she got annoyed with your refusal to answer simple questions.
“There are people going missing on the street level, and no one gives a fuck. That truck was the closest lead I had and your fucking lapdogs destroyed everything when it crashed.” You leaned back in the chair to put distance between yourself and Valentina without standing. The walking and the prolonged laying position left a dull ache at the base of your spine and a stiffness in your posture.
Valentia scribbled down what you said, eventually looking up at you as if to ask for more details. When you didn’t elaborate, she straightened. “Do you work with anyone?”
“No,” you lied, because you’d be damned if you ratted out any of your allies to some tightwad working for the government.
Valentina’s expression made it clear that she didn’t believe you, but she moved on. “Tell me about your powers.” Her tone gives a not-so-subtle warning that she wasn’t in the mood for more bullshit.
“I manipulate light.”
“Just light?” she asked, writing it down. “Can you create light where none existed, or only existing light? Can you make yourself or others invisible by manipulating light? How long do the effects last? Can you carry or store light energy for later?”
“Calm down with the questions, I can only answer so many at a time. Jesus.” You raised your hands in a placating gesture to get her to slow down. “I can control photons and the energy they represent. I can compress them into solid objects like weapons or tools, concentrate them into thermal energy, and can sometimes convert parts of my body into photonic tissue or surround my body with a photonic shell that amplifies my strength, speed, and endurance.”
“And my other questions?”
“I make light, so yes I can create light where none existed because photons exist.” You rolled your eyes before turning your gaze back to Valentina as if you were explaining simple elementary math. “Yes, I can create minor illusions of invisibility, but it’s hard to concentrate on it if there’s movement. The effect length depends on how much energy I’m using or what I’m using the light for.”
Valentina wrote all of that down eagerly, as if you were revealing the secrets of the universe. “Have you ever been studied or monitored while using your power?”
That one, you hesitate. She didn’t need to know that you were an experiment for some freak and that was how you got your abilities. That was your information alone. “No.”
Valentina pursed her lips but continued on. “Do you realize that if you continue operating outside of government oversight, you’ll become an active target to subdue by any means necessary? How important is it to you that your family or associates don’t become targets if your identity becomes known?”
That caused you to falter for a moment. You, of course, had thought about the consequences of becoming a vigilante before making connections within the city. You’d been a fresh face in New York, alone and free. Now you had people you cared about: Terrence and Cherry, your contacts in the neighborhood app. You couldn’t afford to let them become targets.
“Is that a threat?” you asked, eyes narrowing.
“No, it’s a promise,” she said, checking her nails like she hadn’t just threatened to expose your identity to the country.
“What exactly are you suggesting,” you pried, your voice dripping with hesitation.
“Simple. You work for me, and you don’t get arrested for working outside of oversight. We sweep this under the rug and you live here in the Watchtower.” Valentina clasped her hands in front of her on the table. “You’ll get routine medical testing, reporting requirements, and operational oversights by me.”
Working under Valentina felt like signing away your soul to an overenthusiastic demon, but you didn’t really have much of a choice. You had to sit in the palm of her hand or you would go to prison and everyone would know who you are.
At least as a New Avenger or whatever, you could keep your identity a secret, right?
Summary: You're on a mission and everyone royally fucks it up
Word Count: 3.2k
Warnings: canon typical violence
A/N: I made dnd character sheets for the thunderbolts for this
Last Part || Next Part
Chains on Me by LaLion
Don’t know why I feel empty
This mind of mine, a penitentiary
It keeps these chains on me
Losing sleep, 40 dollars for the whole damn week
Getting hollow, it keeps these chains on me
Logically speaking, you knew that not every job was going to be the most exciting task in the world. You kind of expected this job to keep your attention piqued instead of nearly putting you to sleep though. Shifting your legs underneath you for what felt like the thousandth time, you leaned on the edge of the roof to check for the armored truck.
Still in the compound, just like it was fifteen minutes ago.
“This is so boring, Pierre,” you groaned as you regarded the fat pigeon pecking at the gravel on the roof. You knew that it wasn’t the same pigeon on your night patrols—no that’d be ridiculous. You still called them all Pierre though. “If I had someone that talked back to me, I feel like this would be far more interesting. You propped your chin in your hand as you leaned forward. “You ever wanna be part of something just so you aren’t alone anymore?”
Pierre cooed softly, tilting it’s head this way and that. It returned to picking up whatever crumbs it was finding in the gravel.
“Of course not. You’re almost never alone, right?” You laughed bitterly. “You have all your pigeon friends and the old ladies that throw you food.” You muttered to yourself as if the pigeon would answer. You shifted your position once more because one of your legs started going numb and Pierre took off. You watched him until you couldn’t make out his fat little sillhouette anymore.
Sighing heavily from your hidden spot on the roof, you pulled out your phone to scroll through PulseCode, a secret app that a lot of the vigilante network used to track suspicious activity before the police could respond. There were the usual reports of stalkers that usually turned out to be the average dude passing by, a few peeping toms that were already dealt with, and then a few genuine concerns that others had claimed for the night. You were in the middle of reading a fourth missing person’s report when a notification popped up through the app.
Foxtrot: Hey Sunshine, that truck you asked about has got to go. I’ve seen some shady shit before, but this one looks bad. Marked as haz-waste, there’s something more fishy about it. Rumor has it that some multi-headed kingpin is on the rise, so get rid of whatever is in that truck. Call me if you need a hand.
You glanced back over the ledge, your eyes narrowing at the truck. You remained low and out of sight when you saw a handful of men secure the truck and pile inside. Four men—shouldn’t be too hard to take care of. The gate leading into the compound slid open with a mechanical screech as if it hadn’t been oiled since before the French Revolution. Hurriedly shoving your phone in your pocket, you hopped from your roof to the next one as the truck moved.
Once it got harder to follow as it gained speed, you pressed a button just under the collar of your suit. A mesh attachment connected to your ankles and wrists beofre you took that final step off the roof. While diving for the truck, you noticed a motorcycle and a dark van trailing after the truck—same as you.
Foxtrot didn’t tell you about anyone else looking into the cargo.
Thanks to the mesh gliders you made for stealth operations, you land on top of the truck with a soft thud once it hit the outer edge of the city. You turn to regard the van and motorcycle that’d been following it since you jumped from the roof. You’re grateful for the thick plated mask and glasses that obscured your identity and you hope it gave you an intimidating presence.
Holding out one of your palms open to the road, you let the warmth fill your hand as you summoned the light you could call upon. Just before you let it go, the truck swerved to avoid something on the road that forced you to stumble on the roof. The bolt of light hurtled between the van and motorcycle.
Unbeknownst to you, the van carried Alexei, Walker, Yelena, and Ava while Bucky drove the motorcycle. Bucky glanced once at the team as if to convey that the plan hasn’t changed just because of potential powers they didn’t know of.
Yelena huffed and leaned out the window, perching precariously to aim the gun at the truck. She shot twice—once at the back of the truck, and once that clips you in the ribs. You hissed against the impact, but silently thanked whoever invented bulletproof armor.
The motorcycle saddled up to the side of the truck, trying to stay in its blind spot while Bucky aimed his own pistol at you. More prepared now, you were barely able to dodge the bullet and glare down at him.
Alexei sped up to sit on the other side of the truck while Ava phased to the roof of the van to jump to the truck. Walker followed close behind her, pulling himself to the roof of the truck and adjusted his stance while rolling his shoulders. He advanced forward to meet you in the middle, lashing out with his shield like a battering ram. It hit against your crossed arms, connecting against the armor and you could feel the reverberation through your bones. While you’re semi-distracted with the raging bull in front of you, Ava hurled a knife toward you that buried itself between the armor on your shoulders.
Hissing in pain, you grabbed the knife, yanking it out and launching it back at her….and missed when two men climbed onto the roof from the passenger side of the truck. They’re enormous, hulking men that stomp forward with guns poised in their hands. One of them aimed at the van with Alexei and Yelena inside, and the other shot at the trio on the end of the truck. Ava phased at the last second, leaving you in the line of fire. It hit you in the center of your stomach, blocked by your bulletproof kevlar suit.
Stomping forward, you landed a blow against the first thug, putting all of your strength behind it which knocked him off balance and into the road between the truck and the motorcycle. Bucky managed to swerve at the last second before potentially running him over.
Hitting the other thug twice, you allowed your power to roll through you and extend from your fingers to stun him. With him on his side, you turn back toward the duo on the roof with you.
Yelena aimed again, but you were moving too much as you engaged with Ava and Walker. Bucky couldn’t get a clear shot once he was close to the truck again and was unwilling to accidentally shoot either of his teammates. You send a kick to the giant man’s chest forcing him to stumble backwards. However, that only opened him up to launch his shield at you. The breath was knocked out of you as the shield collided with your chest. Agony bloomed in your chest, spreading outward towards your elbows as you staggered backwards a few steps.
The van inched closer to the truck, and you braced yourself
as you held your hand out towards the van. You let the liquid sunlight pool in the middle of your hand. You felt it shoot from your palm and hit the middle of the windshield.
Everything that happened next, happened in slow motion. The van swerved and clipped the back of the truck. It swerved, throwing you off and into a ditch on the side of the road along with the duo on the roof with you. Something let out an audible snap as you rolled several times in the dirt and grass. You tasted the metallic tang of blood filling your mouth before you spit it out to the dirt beside you.
You heard the crash before you saw the fire.
Staggering to your feet, you managed to avoid the two people you’d been fighting on the truck to stand in the middle of the road. The motorcycle screeched to a stop. You turn, the familiar heat in your chest spreading toward your arms. Your cheeks warmed as you regard the man on the motorcycle.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” you asked, the voice modulator on your suit masking your voice.
“Excuse me?” he asked, finally turning his attention to you instead of the fire.
“Do. You. Know. What. You’ve. Done?” you repeated, slower this time as if he were dense.
“Enlighten me.”
“That truck had evidence. Evidence I needed to catalogue for whatever shitshow is going on in the city. This was the first break I’ve had in months, and you and your fucking friends just destroyed it.” You get up close to him, jabbing a finger into his chest. Alarm bells ring throughout your head, but you didn’t give a single shit at that point. Everything you had been working on for the missing person cases just crumbled to dust in front of you, consumed by flames.
The man looked toward the wreckage, his expression laced with guild. “We didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t! The government doesn’t give a shit that innocent people are going missing, and this was the first big break in months!” Any consequences are on you!” You were yelling at that point. Your voice carried over the crackling of the fire, the bending of metal as it expanded in the heat. You were about to continue—screaming, starting a fight—your entire body tensed and vibrated with electricity. Everything goes dark as you saw the blonde woman from the van standing over you with electricity sparking between her wrists.
☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀
As the needle pierced the flesh in the crook of his elbow, Bob avoided looking down at it. His stomach roiled and clenched as the nurse praised him for doing the bare minimum of not passing out. It wasn’t that he was afraid of needles. Hell, he used to do it himself to get high.
That was the problem though.
It reminded him of getting high.
He didn’t want to do that anymore, not really. Sometimes though, something happens and it made him want to use again because being high was better than dealing with whatever emotional bullshit he was supposed to be using healthy coping mechanisms for. Whatever.
Sure, his mandated therapist had given him a list of alternatives for when he felt like using, but a lot of the items on the list felt childish and stupid. So he usually settled for sitting at the counter in the penthouse kitchen, scribbling swear words until the feeling passed.
The nurse must have noticed the scrunch of his nose because once she was done, she offered him a soft, reassuring smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes. It was the same way that everyone looked at him.
Pity.
Sympathy.
Fear.
As soon as she wrapped his arm in the crinkly tape, she told him to leave it on for fifteen or so minutes and then left to grab the doctor. He was supposed to meet the guy once a week for labs and for an evaluation on whether or not he was going to lose his shit in the near future.
We all lose our shit eventually Bobby, the familiar voice in the back of his mind cooed, its voice coiling around his mind like a snake coiled around a rabbit. The use of his dad’s old nickname for him made a weight settle in his stomach before shoving the feeling down until he could talk to Yelena or Bucky. Hell, even John was better than stuffing everything back down again.
Shut up, he snapped mentally, Nobody asked you.
You don’t gotta ask me shit. I’m always right here, the voice, the Void said. It seemed to curl around his mind, emphasizing its point.
The soft click of the knob turning drew Bob’s attention from his unwelcome headmate as the tall, slender man entered and took a seat across from him. Bob perched on the exam table. “Good morning, Robert. How are you feeling today?”
“I’m okay,” he murmured, picking at the skin around his fingers.
“What did we say the rule was?”
Bob rolled his eyes, but fixed Dr. Penn with a glare as he answered. “I have to use an actual emotion that I’m feeling.” He hated this. He didn’t want to acknowledge his emotions. The more attention he brought to them, the louder the other two got. “I’m frustrated.”
“With what?” Dr. Penn asked, taking out a pen and a little notepad from his chest pocket.
Can we please wipe the floor with this motherfucker? Void’s presence pressed in on Bob uncomfortably. He could feel its hands around his throat as if it was a reassurance when it only made his chest tighten.
Please shut the hell up for once, Bob internally muttered. “Being babied by the team. I’m treated like I can’t even clean up after myself and I hate it.”
“I see. Have you tried to talk to them about how it makes you feel?”
“Have you tried getting them to do anything you want them to do?” he fired back. The practiced calm that Dr. Penn held onto made him want to punch something, but he couldn’t tell if it was him, Void, or the ominously silent Sentry.
“It’s not about getting them to do something. It’s about acknowledging that something they’re doing is making you upset.” Dr. Penn scribbled something down in his little notebook.
“No. I haven’t talked to them. The only person I really talk to is Yelena and sometimes Bucky. They’ve been busy.”
Before Bob can finish, there was a commotion outside the door—shouting, alarms, Yelena’s voice cutting through the noise demanding for Dr. Penn. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Robert.”
Bob craned his neck as Dr. Penn slipped out of the room to try and get a glimpse of what was going on, but he couldn’t see anything through the door. After several minutes of twiddling his thumbs, Bob stood and stretched the stiffness from his limbs. He slipped out the door, following the commotion from a handful of nurses on duty whispering among themselves.
Someone started screaming.
Bob rushed to the door where Dr. Penn had just administered a heavy sedative to a stranger’s arm. They’re dressed in dark armor, the same getup from the video Valentina left with the team yesterday—which meant that the team had actually succeeded in bringing Sunstrike in.
The nurses were trying to cut through their kevlar without much success to address whatever wounds were being rattled off. A separate nurse is tending to Yelena who has a cut bleeding from her forehead and a split lip. Yelena was giving the nurse a rundown of what happened, but Bob wasn’t paying attention.
His focus was set on the rise and fall of the stranger’s chest, the way the nurses were exposing skin as they decided to just manhandle the suit to yank it off. He felt like he was intruding, so he backed away and turned to walk toward the elevators. Dr. Penn would be preoccupied for a long time and Bob didn’t feel like waiting around to continue their conversation.
Entering the elevator, Bob exhaled and pressed the button for the penthouse that served as the communal area for the team. The elevator crawled past the floors at what felt like a snail’s pace, leaving Bob to run through what happened over and over again. He felt like a pervert for watching the nurses essentially undress Sunstrike. Void unhelpfully supplied commentary.
Bob finally stepped out of the elevator into the massive open space of the penthouse. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows stream mid-morning light into the common area, filling the space with soft light. Black couches sat in the center that were worth more money than Bob had ever had in his entire life. The bar was stocked with more alcohol than he could name, and Alexei was already raiding it.
He beelined it for the kitchen to grab a package of mini muffins and popped one into his mouth. He wasn’t even halfway through chewing the first one when the rest of the team walked in looking worse for wear. John was dirty and bruised. Ava was covered in dirt and dust, and Bucky looked the least fucked up out of all of them, but was preoccupied with his phone to notice Bob. Ash and blood smear over their uniforms while they wear exhausted expressions.
“Hey, everything okay?” Bob asked after swallowing the muffin.
“Everything’s fine, Bob,” Yelena said after a moment of extended silence. “Just almost got our asses handed to us by that vigilante.” Bob noticed the bandage above her eyebrow, and that her lip was still bleeding.
“They dodged bullets! Fought like snake!” Alexei added through a mouthful of something he raided from the kitchen. He said it like a proud father and not someone who almost died because of the van crashing.
Bob took Yelena’s wrist and led her to the couch before rummaging through the first aid kit he kept in the drawer in the coffee table. He never kept first aid kits before because he never needed them, but now it almost seemed like the team was always hurting themselves and refusing to see medical. “Bob, I am fine. I don’t need your first aid kit.”
“Shut it and sit down,” he told her, more confident than he was when they first met. He knew that she probably wouldn’t kill him for it.
Yelena grumbled and plopped down on the couch to let Bob look at her lip. “It could have been a lot worse. Sunstrike—or whatever the fuck—crashed the van. Threw some ball of light and blinded Alexei. We crashed into the truck they were on and freaked out.”
“Freaked out?” he asked, dabbing her lip with an alcohol swab.
“They started yelling about missing people and the truck being a big break.” Yelena winced against Bob’s fingers, and he tried to be more gentle. He felt like a big oaf with little coordination in his fingers.
“Well what was the truck?”
“I dunno. Looked like an armored money truck, yknow, the ones businesses use to transport money.” Yelena shrugged as Bob finished cleaning her lip. He inspected it like he was looking at a particularly stubborn thread on a sweater.
“And what was in it?” he asked, leaning back.
“Dunno. It was on fire, Bob,” she said, shrugging again. “You done?”
“Yeah, I guess. But what about the missing people?”
“I’m looking into it. There’s a dozen or so missing persons in the last few months, but none of them have any connections,” Bucky interrupted as he sat down across from them. He was scrolling through his phone as the missing persons files were sent to him. “Seems like they’re just missing. Possible runaways.”
Unmedicated Sunshine. Chapter One: Mission Granted: Don't Fuck It Up
Pairing: Bob Reynolds x gn!Reader
Summary: Val calls a team meeting to discuss a vigilante. You go to work where Bob and Bucky come in to adopt a cat, but is it really a cat?
Word Count: 3.9k
Warnings: none for this chapter unless you count chronic pain
A/N: Yippie I got chapter one rewritten
Last Part || Next Part
Drugs by Eden
“I can’t love when I can’t even love myself.
Things I would rather be, thoughts in the back of my head
But I’m addicted to hurting.”
If it wasn’t for Valentina’s voice cutting sharply through his phone, calling the team to assemble in the living room, Bob might have managed to call it a good day.
He had helped Yelena make pancakes that morning—but saying helped was generous. He’d stood at the counter stirring the batter long after it probably didn’t need stirring, just to make sure he didn’t mess anything up while she handled the stove. No one got burned. That felt like a win.
Walker and Ava had given him a new coloring book too. Intricate patterns, swear words woven into delicate fonts like it was some kind of joke. He’d laughed, maybe a little too hard. Coloring usually made him feel childish, but the more complicated designs quieted something in his head. The lines gave him boundaries.
Stay inside.
Focus.
Don’t drift.
He sat by the window in his bedroom, basking in the natural light filtering through the reinforced glass. Rain pattered against the panes, soothing the turmoil that often followed him around. The day prior offered the last of the sunlight that New York would offer for the next six months, and he was feeling it.
His fingers trembled slightly as he rifled through the clothes he’d dug out of his closet, busying himself with reorganizing his closet. He itched for something to do that didn’t require much brainpower.
Repetitive.
Rhythmic.
Soothing.
Three sharp knocks pulled him from his lack of thoughts, letting the wave of fatigue he’d been holding in wash over him. “Yeah?” he called out, folding the last of his pants onto the hanger before making his way to the door. Standing in the doorway of his suite is Yelena in all of her intimidating glory. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her lips are pressed into a firm line. “What’s wrong?
“It’s Valentina. Apparently she has a job for us,” she hissed, already dragging Bob halfway down the hall, not even giving him a chance to close his bedroom door. They crossed the living room he had yet to decorate except for the beanbag he kept near the window. She righted him as they reached the elevator and stepped inside.
“A job?” he asks, his voice climbing higher. “But I’m—I’m not supposed to be on missions yet, y’know, because of the whole—”
“Void thing? Yes, yes, I know. But Valentina wants everyone there for the briefing,” she interrupted with a dismissive wave of her hand. It wasn’t meant to be unkind or snippy, but Valentina always got under Yelena’s skin in a way that Bob understood all too well.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss, leading them into the common area on the penthouse floor that served as the communal areas—the kitchen, the living room, an office area where Bob liked to play a few computer games when everyone else was off on missions. Alexei was behind the bar rooting around the bottles for something to drink despite it only being ten in the morning. Walker lounged on the long, gray couch in an old blue hoodie that only appeared to be oversized because it was worn out. His back is flush against the couch with his arms folded over his chest while Ava sits next to him with a small, metallic cube in her hand that she was taking apart. It flickered with faint electricity against her touch.
An audible sigh drew the group’s attention as Bob and Yelena took the empty spots on the couch. Bucky stepped out of the elevator with Valentina ranting behind him about appearances. Mel was behind them, clutching a clipboard as she made an excuse to stay out from between the two of them.
Smart choice, honestly.
Valentina hushed the group as Alexei rejoined the team by plopping down on the end of one of the cushions. “Alright, we’ve received your first actual missions,” she said, tossing a small round disk onto the coffee table where it flickers to life with a glowing green light. A holographic projection emits from it with a long informational file only labeled “Sunstrike” in big, bolded letters.
“What the hell is a Sunstrike?” Walker asked as he forced himself into a stiffer position for whatever this threat could be.
“Not a what,” Valentina replied, pressing a button before the holograph flickered to a new image. “A who.” The person depicted in the photos wore a black sparring suit wielding a baton. “They’re a vigilante. Your job is to either bring them in, or bring them down. Your choice, really. Don’t fuck this up, or it’ll be your asses on the line, not mine.” The screen changed again to a series of information that offered no help.
Name: UnknownAlias: SunstrikeAge: UnknownSkills: Martial Arts Proficiency, Acrobatics Proficiency, Potential Regenerative Abilities, Weapons Design Proficiency, Computer Skills including Hacking, Programming, and EngineeringPotential Superpowered Abilities: Minor Regenerative Ability. No confirmed supernatural abilities.Weapons: Citizen-grade Baton, Standard Size Knives, Flashbang Granades
“Why exactly is the government interested in some no-name vigilante?” Walker piped up, skimming through what little information there was. “They’re probably some dumb kid doing dumb kid shit.” He leaned back into the couch and pursed his lips.
“Because they’re acting without direction from the head haunchos on the hill. The government doesn’t like that,” Ava quipped, not removing her focus from the small device in her hands. There was a small crack as she took another piece off without actually breaking it.
“I’m more interested in how this so-called-nobody-vigilante got their hands on flashbangs,” Bucky said, narrowing his eyes at the hologram.
“Look, it doesn’t matter why this has been assigned to you. All that matters is that you do it because I told you to.” Valentina gestured to the team and then looked pointedly at them. “This is what it means to be an Avenger, so do it.” She left the group with the holographic file so that they could go through it as she stalked back to the elevator. She grumbled about how she doesn’t get paid enough for this with Mel muttering confirmations behind her.
Bucky swiped through the file, stopping on a video that he paused frame by frame to analyze every twitch of the vigilante’s body. The team fell silent as it played, each member watching with rapt attention. The video itself is nothing special—obviously filmed by a random bystander on the street based on the quality and the talking in the background. They were fighting with a tall street thug in oversized clothing. Their only weapon, per se, was a baton, keeping the enemy at arm’s length while the thug lashed out with a knife.
“They overcommit to the first move,” Ava piped up, watching them swing for the thug.
“They hit too hard and go in too fast,” Yelena said, backing up what Ava pointed out. “They fight like they think the first punch decides everything.”
“They don’t leave themselves an exit,” Ava added.
“Not to mention that they get hit and stay where they are. They take a hit and don’t reset after one.”
“Absorbing damage they don’t need to.”
Ava and Yelena bounce off of each other a few more times, babbling about power modulation and defensive recovery. It makes Bob’s head spin for a moment before he notices something. When they inevitably grab the thug by his shirt and throw him, their grip adjusts just the tiniest bit. He stops Bucky from going further, rewinding it and playing it again in slow motion.
“That wasn’t a reflex. That was a correction,” he said, leaning forward.
Bucky played it again, his eyes following the movement. “They were protecting his head, making sure it wouldn’t bounce off the concrete.”
The whole room went quiet as they turned to Bob. “How’d you notice that?” Ava asked after a long moment of silence between the team.
“Their hands. I saw them adjust their grip,” he said, his face flushing with the attention.
“So what is plan for takedown?” Alexei asked, his energy ramping up with every passing second. Standing from the couch and pacing, he leans over the back of the couch in the space between Ava and Walker. She hunches her shoulders as if preparing for a sudden onslaught of noise.
She’s not wrong either.
☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀
The soft, pitter patter of the rain against your bedroom window was the only sound you listened to for hours until your alarm blared through the empty silence of your small apartment. You’d been awake for hours, but the thought of leaving the warmth of your blankets sounded like a torture similar to pulling teeth without Novacaine. The cold always aggravated everything, especially when it stormed. Bone deep aches and silly string for connective tissue, it made you feel more like a sentient marionette rather than a functional member of society. Burrowing deeper within the fabric of your comforter, you groaned theatrically.
The long overnight rooftop patrol the night prior had worn you out. Some nights, there’s almost nothing to do except listen to the droning voice of the news anchor screaming about delinquent wannabe superheroes on the giant street screens. Other nights, you barely got a moment to breathe between calls over the police scanner app. The night prior happened to be an unhappy medium of both. Perching on the roof of an apartment in the center of downtown, you ran into a minor wannabe gang that you overheard talking about the movement of some important cargo from a lab somewhere near the edge of the city.
Bingo; it’s exactly what you’re looking for.
So you thought anyway.
Those idiots were wrong about the day. You spent all night chasing leads only to see the slow march of the security guards around the perimeter of the facility. All Night. You grew impatient and decided to do what you do best: hack the facility’s system. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t as secure as it could have been. You learned that the cargo is some kind of collection of blood, and what they were using it for, you couldn’t find within the system. Bullshit.
You did find out that it was being moved the next day—or today—in the middle of the night.
That meant that you had to pretend that you weren’t actively suffering the consequences of overdoing things again to work your shift at the cafe.
You grab the sage green button-up with the cafe’s logo and slip it over your head; your fingers brush the logo, a cat curled up beneath a twisting tree with a few lanterns. Whiskerwood was written beneath it in slanted embroidered cursive in warm brown thread. Sliding the knee braces on, the small amount of relief from the compression made you huff a sigh.
Glancing at the smartwatch on your wrist, you swore and swiped the brown messenger bag from its spot on your couch that served as the only decoration in your living room besides the dozen or so plants you scattered about the room. You slipped out through your front door, quickly locking it behind you settled your nerves like a weighted blanket.
It was a short walk to the cafe and you were the first to arrive like always. Punctuality wasn’t actually a virtue of yours, but getting somewhere even two minutes late was enough to send your entire day through the shitter.
Whiskerwood Cafe is a tiny cat rescue cafe a handful of blocks from where the Voidfall took place—the supernatural event that sent all of Manhattan into an endless loop of interconnected rooms that forced you to relieve all of your worst regrets and memories. You weren’t spared from it, and you wake up screaming, covered in a thin sheet of sweat more often than not these days.
Digging the set of keys out of your bag, you unlocked the door with a satisfying clunk before bustling over to the keypad behind the front counter to disarm the alarm for the front door. You took a deep breath when the keypad blinked to signal that it’d been disarmed. Turning on the lights, you began your morning routine of flicking on all the machines, making sure everything was on for Terrance before he showed up.
Terrance was the owner of the cafe, along with his wife, Cherry. They opened the cafe a few years ago when they realized how high the list was at the shelter for cats that were inevitably put down due to lack of room or resources. They’d graciously given you a chance even though you had no idea what your prior work history was—if you had any at all. You honestly have very little memories before three years ago when you found yourself in an alley, soaked to the bone in the freezing rain.
You barely remembered anything except bits and pieces of whatever mental barrier you have with a metaphorical brick.
Weaving through the secondary glass doors that led to the rescue section of the cafe, you were immediately greeted by a handful of cats and kittens with a choir or loud burrups and mrows as they all vied for your attention. They weaved between your legs as if they were the beneficiary to your life insurance while the artificial grass crunches beneath your shoes. It took a little over an hour of taking care of the cats before Terrance showed up.
He shouldered the door open gently as he carried a few brown paper bags covered in grease and dribbled by the rain. The smell of the greasy, fried food from your favorite diner wafted through the lobby as he bustled by to make it behind the counter. He was a middle aged man with blonde hair peppered through with white, baby blue eyes that made everyone fall for him. They always seemed to be searching for something—something to do, someone to help. He immediately clocked the dark circles beneath your eyes and the tight, weary smile you offer through your process of accounting for every cat within the rescue.
“Another long night?” he asked, setting the food on the counter. He pulled out a huge, tin-foil wrapped burger and a large order of fries from the bag and gestures for you to pause long enough to eat.
“Kind of. Studying, yknow?” You didn’t mention how you’re not actually studying as you grabbed the blended coffee you’d made yourself and greedily sucked it down. It was bittersweet with the espresso shot biting though the caramel and sweet cream.
Then you move onto the food.
It’d been a few days since your last meal with actual nutrients and not just the metric fuckton of sodium from the instant ramen you buy in bulk. You inhale the greasy burger like a starving dog. Terrance kept his eyes on you, his eyebrows drawn together in concern.
“You know that if you took breaks like a normal person and actually gave a shit about your health, you’d be almost human instead of the zombie you seem to be now?” He retorted, attempting a joke that he didn’t know wasn’t funny.
Not given how you weren’t entirely human anymore.
“Can’t graduate without studying,” you shrugged as you finish off the burger and save the cup of fries for later. They were real potatoes and not just the processed shit that goes bad when it got cold. You busied yourself with starting the routine of feeding the cats their morning portions. Grabbing one of the massive mixing bowls from the dish rack, you made your way back to the rescue section to dole out the food.
You’d been banned from using the coffee equipment for customers after you forgot to lock the blender lid in place and coffee exploded everywhere. It’s not that you’re stupid, because you absolutely aren’t; you’re just forgetful…sometimes.
Sometimes, it was like trying to function through the haze of intoxication even when you didn’t partake in anything stronger than the occasional drink after a long day. Other days you felt fine and like you were getting better, only to backslide and want to disappear a few days later.
You went about mixing the wet and dry food and began the arduous process of filling the bowls scattered about the cat playroom. It was a mind-numbing process, or it would be if not for the little bastards running under your feet. You stopped to check in a few of the cat houses with a bowl of pate to find Sophie—the fifteen-year-old tortie with big green eyes and no teeth curled up against the wall of the cat house. She was the oldest resident and usually followed you around the rescue.
Terrance cleared his throat to grab your attention to ask you to cover the register for the small influx of customers in the lobby. Hanging up the apron, you quickly wash your hand and take over the register. You were efficient in your method of working with the customers with the same opening and a smile plastered on your face. Then finally, the last two customers step up to the register—two men roughly the same height with shaggy brown hair. One of them, the more intimidating of the two, wore a thick leather jacket covered in droplets from the rain and a pair of black gloves. The other was wearing an oversized zip-up hoodie and jeans. The one in the leather seemed overworked and overtired with dark circles under his pale eyes. The nervous one stood slightly behind him, worrying at his fingers.
“Welcome to Whiskerwood—where cats nap and every cup holds a little magic. What can I get started for you?” You recited the same line over and over with every customer as you were supposed to, even if it felt too long and overused.
“I’ll get a Milk of the Mooncat with an extra shot of espresso, and he’ll get a Fairy Tail Fizz,” the one in leather said, his voice was gruff. He gestured to the other man when he mentioned the Fizz.
“Would you like to try one of our new Whisker Toasties? We have tomato-basil or cinnamon apple,” you offered, tilting your head with a fake smile. You tried to remember that you were supposed to be upselling, even if you couldn’t care less.
The men seemed to have a silent conversation before the shy one nodded. “Sure, we’ll get two of the apple ones,” the older one replied, offering a weary smile.
“Can I get a name for the order?”
“James.”
“Alright, James. Your total is $12.57,” you said, turning the card reader towards them before turning around to start making the toasties—miniature toasted sandwiches in the shape of little cat faces while Terrance started on the drinks.
Once Cherry stepped up to the register, effectively kicking you off line, you returned to the cat playroom to continue your own duties. The two men from the line enter soon after with their items and sit near the big windows. Sophie was laying in the nervous one’s lap while he fluffed her fur. It was as if he knew exactly how she liked to be loved on.
You smiled to yourself as you flitted about the room to fill the rest of the food bowls for the cats. While doing so, you overheard some of the conversation, freezing in place when you heard your name. Not your legal name of course, but your other name: Sunstrike. The bowl of food dropped from your hands with a loud clatter that echoes through the room. Both men turn to you, breathing hard as you startled them.
“Sorry, sorry, slippery fingers,” you mutter as you kneel down to scoop the fallen food back into the bowl while a handful of the cats swarm.
The nervous man from before stood up from his spot, setting Sophie down carefully as he made his way over to help you with the food. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m alright. Just…tired and a little jittery from the coffee,” you lied, offering a polite smile. Your knuckles tighten around the edge of the bowl, but you did your best to relax, especially since the two men were talking about Sunstrike.
Before they can ask you anything else, you took the bowl and all but scampered from the room, busying yourself in the back of the cafe. You could hear Terrance talking to the two men at the front, and then he called for you to grab the adoption papers in the back. You grab them from the back office, making your way to the front and set them on the counter.
The nervous one pulled out an ID and the money to adopt one of the cats. Sophie was getting adopted.
☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀
Sophie curled into the back corner of the carrier, small and unremarkable. That was important. Unremarkable things get ignored. Through the ventilation holes, she tracked movement in fragments: polished shoes, black denim, the sharp crease of a leather jacket sleeve. The one on the left smells like cold air and city streets. The other smells like paper and nerves.
They lower her into the car between them.
Doors shut. An engine hummed. Conversation began.
Good.
The one in the black jacket produced a device. The screen flashed with chaos—civilians scattering, impact points, angles of entry and exit. Sophie didn’t care about the violence. She cared about how the men reacted to it.
“No confirmed powers,” the jacketed one said. Gruff. Controlled irritation. He was used to being obeyed.
The nervous one, Bob she learned, leaned forward. His heartbeat shifted. Slight acceleration. Focused.
Sophie stilled completely. Even her tail went still.
“They don’t clear the area,” the gruff one said. “They fight through it.”
Bob’s gaze tracked the footage carefully. Not reactive. Analytical. “They adjust their angles.
Interesting.
Sophie blinked slowly, as if bored. She wasn’t bored.
The gruff one huffed. He did that when he was unsettled. Sophie noted that, filing it away. “They don’t disengage.”
Sophie’s ears twitched. Compulsion. The word rippled outward, not from the men, but from the back of her mind. A familiar presence stirred, watching through her eyes, listening through her ears. The connection hummed like a second pulse.
Ego, the gruff one suggested.
Bob disagreed. He defended the vigilante.
Another note.
When the care shifted lanes, Sophie let out a brief, annoyed yowl. Perfect timing. Bob immediately leaned closer, fingers slipping through the carrier vents.
Soft touch. Careful. He checked on her before returning to the conversation. Another note.
“I think people are dangerous when they think they don’t have an exit,” Bob said at last. That one landed differently. The presence in the back of Sophie’s mind sharpened. Focus narrowed. The instructions threaded through her thoughts: observe him. Measure him. He wasn’t like the other.
Sophie pressed her face into Bob’s fingers, purring just enough to keep him engaged. Harmless. Endearing. Gathering proximity. Her eyes stayed half-lidded, but her ears remained locked on every word.
Val wanted containment. Quietly.
Bob wanted something different. An opening. An exit.
Sophie curled back into herself, feigning sleep. She sent what she had collected—tone shifts, word choices, the way Bob defended the unknown vigilante without realizing he was doing it. Information traveled along the tether like warmth through a wire.
Unmedicated Sunshine. Prologue: I Touched Grass And It Broke A Government Facility
Pairing: Bob Reynolds x gn!Reader
Summary: This is the story of your escape
Word Count: 709
Warnings: human experimentation
A/N: I'm rewriting Unmedicated Sunshine because I didn't like where it was going, so bear with me.
Next Part
Body Terror Song by AJJ I’m very sorry that you have to have a body One that will hurt you, and be the subject of so much of your fear It will betray you, be used against you, then it’ll fail on you, my dear But before that, you’ll be a doormat, for every vicious narcissist in the world Oh how they’ll screw you, all up and over, then feed you silence for dessert
They built the lab underground.
Not because the sun was dangerous, but because it was useful.
Down there, daylight was rationed. Measured. Delivered to you in controlled doses through mirrors and reinforced shafts. You had learned the architecture of light before you learned its name. Dawn wasn’t something that happened, it was something they scheduled.
You don’t remember how you were recruited. That part is blurred around the edges like a photograph half-burned. A consent form. A medical study. A promise for pain management. They said that they were researching Solar-Spectrum Modulation—how certain wavelengths affected inflammation, neural signaling, tissue repair.
They said that you were an excellent candidate.
They said your condition had made you interesting.
The lab smelled like antiseptic and cleaner. Everything hummed on a vibration that made your head spin. You were positioned beneath a lens ray that split sunlight into precise bands. No warmth, just brightness pressed into you in calibrated pulses. They tracked your vitals, your pain levels, how your pupils reacted when the spectrum shifted toward ultraviolet.
At first nothing happened.
Your pain stayed unmanageable. You could barely walk without assistance. Your joints protested every movement, every test.
Then things started responding.
Reflections lingered too long. Shadows sharpened. The edges of objects in the room bent subtly toward you, like light was reconsidering its path. A technician dropped a pen once and it fractured into three visible positions before it hit the ground.
They stopped calling it treatment after that.
They called it the presentation.
You were prepared for it like a specimen. Clean clothes. Attached monitors. The observation room is filled with silhouettes behind polarized glass. They aligned the mirrors for a perfect artificial dawn. The full solar spectrum funneled down into a column around you.
You remembered the stillness before it hit.
The light came down. Not hot, not burning, just impossibly clear. Something inside you answered it.
The room fractured into prisms. The glass observation wall spiderwebbed from the inside out. Light bent around your hands without you meaning to. A blade-shaped flare cut a clean line through a reinforced steel door. Someone shouted. Someone else dropped behind the glass.
Then the ceiling shifted. For the first time, the containment shutters had opened too wide. A seam of real morning broke through the shaft above you.
It was different.
You had been fed curated light. Filtered light. Processed. Tuned. Measured.
This….this was wild.
The first true sunlight hit your face and it felt like being named. The lab exploded in brightness. Mirrors cracked. Monitoring screens burst into white. Every surface became a weapon or a shield at your subconscious command. You didn’t think about escaping. You thought only about reaching the surface.
You don’t remember the exact path you took. Corridors had warped around you. Security footage showed a hallway collapsing into glares and refractions. Doors ripped themselves cleanly off the hinges in straight, luminous slices. Cameras became blind with light.
When you broke through the final access hatch, the world above was still waking up. Grass damp with morning dew. Air that wasn’t recycled. The sun was just cresting over the horizon. The first unfiltered sunrise on your skin wasn’t painful.
It was overwhelming.
Your body shook. Not from fear, but from the sheer scale of it. The sky was enormous and light stretched for miles without a ceiling to catch it. You felt every wavelength in your bones. Your joints burned. Your vision blurred with refracted halos. But beneath your pain was something steadier. Rhythmic.
Belonging.
The lab had tried to isolate sunlight. They tried to teach it to be obedient.
Up there, standing in the open morning, you realized something they hadn’t accounted for: you don’t control the sun.
I've seen some of these WIP Presentations, and I decided to make one for my Bob Reynolds x Reader fic that I'm working on. I'll reblog this with an announcement when I post the first chapter. Please, if you have any questions about the wip or have any requests/questions in general (esp about headcanons about Bob or the rest of the team), feel free to send me an ask :D
Alright, so these are my personal headcanons for Bob because I have experience with addiction recovery, dealing with the aftermath of drugs, bipolar disorder & borderline personality disorder and an abusive home-life. I'm a little bit frustrated with the infantilzing and uwu-fication of Bob.
This is by no means a "My way or the highway" list. These are personal headcanons. Take it or leave it as you want to
TW: Mentions of drugs, abuse, mental illness, implied nsfw, mentions of SI
Bob's skin isn't perfect and smooth. He picks at his skin (likely his face, arms, and nailbeds/cuticles) when he's bored, upset, or even when he's just not paying attention. He has track marks and old cuts from physical fights he's gotten into.
Bob is twitchy and nervous, but he isn't stupid. He notices things because of his experiences with his dad. He learns to differentiate the footsteps of the team, he watches their face for microexpressions, pays attention to body language while pretending he's not.
He's frustratingly independent and rarely asks for help. With his dad being an ass and his mom turning to drugs too, he had to learn to take care of himself really early. He won't ask for help until he's on the verge of a spiral because that's just what he knows.
Related to that one, he gets frustrated as hell when people force their help on him. He's not cruel by any means, he's just irritated and snappy, but it makes him want to break things, and his emotions are already unstable because of the recovery & withdrawals--add Void and Sentry to the mix and that's a recipe for disaster.
Listen, some drugs make you unbelievably horny and meth is one of them. He might not be a god in bed, but he's by no means inexperienced. He might be nervous the first couple of times because he's sober now and he hasn't been sober since middle school, but once he finds his rhythm, he gets more confident.
He hates being babied and treated like a child. Yes, he's sober now after so long and everything is bright and shiny and new. Yes, it's overwhelming and overstimulating, but the first time the team tries to baby him after they're not fighting/running for their lives, he's quick to remind them that he's more than capable of doing things on his own.
He's also scared to get close to people. Part of his guilt is turning on his previous friends by stealing from them to get his next fix. When you're hooked, you don't give a shit about who you're hurting as long as you're getting your fix. He holds the team at arm's length the best he can because he's worried about turning on them again.
HOWEVER, he's still clingy as hell though. He tends to follow Yelena around (not romantically. Neglected Shelter Dog Trauma Bond) because she's familiar, especially in new places with people he doesn't know. It's to keep himself grounded mostly.
I'm convinced that even if he did try to turn back to the drugs in a moment of relapse, because of the serum, it wouldn't work. His body metabolizes the drugs too fast for them to work. He's not-so-secretly grateful for this because it represents (for him) that he can heal a little easier.
Bob doesn't cook or bake. His meals typically consist of either A) instant ramen, boxed mac&cheese, and frozen dinners or doordash, or B) whatever the team is feeding everyone. He eats a fuckton because of his super soldier metabolism, but he doesn't have the energy or motivation to cook.
Another hc that I have is that while also representing his bipolar disorder, Void/Sentry also represents DID with Void being the traumaholder/persecutor and Sentry being mostly an insider but also acting as a manic protector for Bob.
Bob is a snarky little shit the more he's around people. I mean, he called Walker an asshole because Walker was being...well...an asshole while smirking when he got shoved into the wall. And then confronting Valentina as Sentry? I'm convinced he doesn't actually have any self-preservation and is actively looking for ways to get the adrenaline high
While he might not deal with the physical aspects of the addiction cravings as much, he still gets the emotional craving of wanting to use whenever something happens. It's sort of like when you've dealt with SI for long, and you know you're healing, but you still get that "I wouldn't have to deal with it if I weren't here" thoughts whenever something happens--major or minor
Summary:Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of crack with lacquer mixed with powdered gold Altair has only known an underground lab for the last five and a half years. That is, until he escapes and ends up in the avengers' tower to endure the torturous road to healing. This is his tale: confronting his past, forging his future, and finding himself along the way. Bucky has been freed from his Hydra brainwashing, but he still feels like a ticking time bomb, especially while everyone looks at him as if he is. However, the newbie in the tower makes him feel normal, useful. How far will he go to keep feeling it? - Or: my therapist suggested writing about my own trauma personified being loved
Word Count: over 2k
Warnings: human experimentation, blood, implied abuse, suicidal ideation, Trauma
A/N: I promise Bucky is going to be a snarky motherfucker, but there was a lot of him trying to be professional here. He's a tired old man
Also, the blip *did* happen, but everyone is alive because I said so
The soft clicking sound of the thin red hand of the clock moved around the face at a snail's pace. Bucky sat in the cushy leather sofa against the wall with his hands clasped against his stomach and his feet planted firmly on the ground. The short black-haired woman that had served as his therapist for the last month stared at him as the seconds crawled by. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and the tapping of his foot against the floor. Waiting impatiently for the pointless session to be over with, he glanced at the overcast sky filtering gray light through the window.
"James..." His therapist--Doctor Maggie Ellis--started after fifteen minutes of silence. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "You know that these sessions are mandated, which means you actually have to speak to me, right?" Her dark eyes remained on him as she moved the notebook from her lap to the large brown desk behind her. She crossed her ankles and set her hands on her knees. "You can't avoid this."
"I can definitely try to," he quipped, picking the lint off of his jeans that wasn't there. He talked very little in each session, and when he did it was usually a smartass comment or a reluctant answer. He'd caused four other therapists to request to be released from his case because he just didn't see the point in talking to them. Ellis though, she had lasted longer than the others.
"No, you really can't. Unlike the other therapists you've had, not talking to me will have consequences. People are frustrated, and they're tired of you dancing around the subject." She stared at him expectantly before grabbing the notebook once more. There were more words on it than Bucky thought there should be, but he wouldn't be the one to point that out. "Tell me something you did this week or tell me about something that's bothering you. Literally anything. Otherwise, I have to report that you aren't cooperating."
Bucky sighed and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling until the back of his head rested on the back of the couch. He sat up again to rub his shoulder where the prosthetic connected. The cold weather and storms always messed with his shoulder and old damage from Hydra and the military. "I hate the cold." When Ellis stared at him and gestured for him to go on, he continued. "It aggravates all the old injuries from my time...doing things. It reminds me of the cryostasis and staring out of the tiny window in the pod to watch the scientists freeze me over and over again. It..." he trailed off, unsure how to articulate how he was feeling or thinking. There were so many things that ran by him that it was hard to focus on a single thought long enough to be coherent. "It sucks."
"How do you feel about the cryostasis?"
He chuckled; it was a bitter sound full of disdain. "How do I feel about it? Angry, I guess. Angry and violated. The cryostasis always came after the brainwashing." He paused, debating himself about continuing with his next thought. "Sometimes...sometimes I wish I could be wiped one more time, so I don't have to remember all the awful things I did." Bucky picked at his pants again and avoided eye contact with Ellis. He despised eye contact; it always felt too personal, too revealing after everything he'd done. He felt like if anyone looked too closely, they'd see the piles of bodies of the people he killed in his eyes.
"If your memory was wiped again, what would you want to do?" Ellis asked, scribbling diligently in her notebook. She glanced up at him and waited for his answer with rapt attention.
"I'd love to go to one of those science conventions again, like the ones Howard Stark used to throw before the U.S. joined the war." He surprised himself with his answer, but it was the first thing that came to his mind. He really loved the excitement and awe of the crowd imagining what the future could have been like instead of the absolute crapshoot it was now.
"What about them appeals to you?"
"The hope. Everyone was so hopeful about what we could have all accomplished together back then. Being here now feels like a rope unraveling in the middle of an eight-way tug of war contest." There had been plenty of political unrest since the rest of the world returned from being Blipped, not to mention a new health crisis that seemed to pop up every other week to cause devastation while governments sat on their ass collect checks while sipping on gold-infused martinis.
"What gives you hope?"
It took him a long time to respond. He had to go through the metaphorical filing cabinet in his brain to find an answer. "People." He truly believed in the power of people. Individuals coming together for one common goal was effective, and with the whole world at odds, it was important for people to come together. It was important to have those you could rely on. He had at least one person, but no one else trusted him. When they looked at him, all they saw was a ticking time bomb waiting to be detonated.
"Can you expand on that?" Ellis adjusts her position on the chair once more, crossing one knee over the other.
"I don't know...just...people," he said after a long moment of silence. Glancing at the clock hanging above the door, he saw that the session was almost over. He just had to get through the last few minutes, and he'd be free to wander the compound. Maybe he'd take a walk around the outside of the building, wander through the trees to the shoreline, skip rocks. Who knows.
"Well, we have a few minutes left for today. Is there anything else on your mind?" Ellis asked, moving the notebook to the desk and closing it. When Bucky shook his head, she gave a small nod to allow him to leave. Nodding back, he stood and walked out of the room into the cool air of the hallway.
He meandered down the hallway along the enormous bulletproof windows letting the natural light into the building. Several people bustled by him in the employee uniform--a tight black shirt with the Avengers logo design on the front and black pants--chattering to each other. Bucky tried to avoid paying attention to the gossip, but he still caught bits and pieces about the med wing being off limits to everyone except designated personnel.
He shook his head when his thoughts began to wander to the med wing.
When he arrived in the main living space of the compound, he spun in a slow circle taking in all the bookshelves and tech desks surrounding him. The ceiling stretched far above him ending in metal beams that likely supported the roof. Natasha sat lounging on the red leather sofas in the center of the room with a magazine on her lap. She turned the pages languidly, skimming the pages and pretending to pay attention to the latest gossip. Clint stood in the kitchen with his wife while his kids sat at the long table with plates in front of them. He had moved them into the compound to keep an eye on them as he came out of retirement.
Tony sat hunched over a desk with a screen in front of him, likely perfecting whatever idea he'd had now. Bucky couldn't make anything out based on the schematics, but Stark looked like he had it in control. Peter sat at the desk next to Tony's tinkering with his webshooter's trigger. He had mentioned something about a block when he'd arrived with Stark's head of security.
Wanda skimmed through the books on the second floor. Her fingers brushed against the spines of the books and tomes along the second shelf as she searched for something. Vision floated along beside her, likely talking her ear off about some niche information that only he knew since he was essentially a computer.
The circular platform overlooking the entrance was occupied by Steve who stood still with his arms crossed over his chest. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes never left the lawn. He was lost in thought.
"Everything all right, Steve?" Bucky asked as he stepped onto the platform next to him. He turned to scan the grounds out front to see what Steve saw, but he gave up when he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary outside.
Steve hummed and turned toward him as he was pulled out of thought. "Oh, yeah. Just thinking."
"No, I know that look. Something's wrong. What is it?" Bucky frowned at him, noting the tension in his jaw and the tapping of his fingers against his bicep.
Steve glanced around the room as if he were caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He shook his head. "I can't give you any details, but once everyone gets here, there's going to be an announcement." He pulled Bucky closer to the massive windows that stretched to the ceiling. "You have to be in here for the announcement. It's not about you, but we're going to need all the help we can get."
Bucky's mind swirled with potential explanations. Was it another super soldier? Was it a Hydra agent? Was it Zemo--did he escape? Better yet, did Zemo die? Bucky stayed quiet and kept his inquiries to himself. Steve probably had a hard enough time keeping it to himself that Bucky didn't want to make it harder on him. He nodded at Steve and moved to the couch for the announcement to be made.
He sat on the couch opposite of Natasha and flipped absently through a magazine full of celebrity gossip. He had started to recognize some of the more popular ones, but a lot of them meant nothing to him. There was some kind of scandal about an affair on the front page, but he had no interest in learning about it. The news played quietly in the background as the news anchors chattered away with each other about new executive orders from the newest president--a corrupt celebrity granted the highest position in the nation spouting nonsense over and over again.
Bucky set the magazines down when the brothers sauntered in. Thor was walking slightly ahead of Loki--practically skipping-- and talking about his moves on the battlefield with Stormbreaker while Loki had an expression of being tortured on his face. The brothers had more or less set aside their differences to rule New Asgard together, and their time was split between the Avengers compound and their people. Loki took care of the calculation part of the job while Thor took the role of Battle Master very seriously.
Sam entered the common room a few minutes later in a track suit, his face slick with sweat. He'd obviously just been on a run. He collapsed on the couch next to Bucky and offered his closed fist for a bump before taking his earbuds out. "What's up man?"
"Same thing as always." Bucky returned the fist bump and moved over to give Sam room.
Before Sam could reply, the hulking figure of Bruce hurried into the common area with heavy footsteps. Ever since he had merged with Hulk, he seemed much more comfortable if not slightly insecure of his sheer size. Tony moved the goggles he was wearing to the top of his head and nudged Peter to give Bruce his attention. Natasha set the magazine down as Clint told his kids to head to the lawn outside with his wife. Wanda and Vision made their way down and sat on the couches next to Natasha. Steve met Bruce in the middle of the room as Loki and Thor took a spot on the couches as well.
"Alright everyone, we have...some news to share," Steve said as he clapped his hands together once. Everyone glanced between each other and then returned their attention to Steve and Bruce. "Fury gave us a heads up about a situation that happened in Wyoming. A man was rushed to the hospital after being shot just outside of the national park."
"What does that have to do with us?" Nat asked as she draped her arm on the back of the couch to pay attention.
"The man isn't human. Fury said that he told him about a facility that he escaped from. He's being hunted by whoever had him to take him back. Fury thinks that he's in danger and needs protecting while he heals and might be a potential team member." Steve glanced at all of them expectantly.
"So we're playing babysitter for this guy? Who is he? A king or something?" Tony asked with a frown as he crossed his arms. "Don't we have better things to do with our time? Like actual threats?" Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group.
"Whoever this guy is, Fury thinks that he's an asset. He also thinks that the threat to him is big enough to warrant our protection," Bruce explained, quieting the murmurs. He shifted on his big bare feet as he examined the group. "He's got a long recovery ahead and will need all the help he can get."
Steve steps forward, setting a hologram projector on the table. He pulls up an extensive list that Bucky recognized as injuries. Steve scrolled through the list slow enough that the others could see. "This kid has been through hell, and I expect everyone to help with shift watches in the med wing. It's off limits to everyone but a couple of nurses, and us to avoid attention getting out."
"If you guys have questions about anything not related to his health, feel free to reach out to me. Any medical questions can be deferred to Bruce."
Summary:Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of crack with lacquer mixed with powdered gold
Altair has only known an underground lab for the last five and a half years. That is, until he escapes and ends up in the avengers' tower to endure the torturous road to healing. This is his tale: confronting his past, forging his future, and finding himself along the way.
Bucky has been freed from his Hydra brainwashing, but he still feels like a ticking time bomb, especially while everyone looks at him as if he is. However, the newbie in the tower makes him feel normal, useful. How far will he go to keep feeling it?
-
Or: my therapist suggested writing about my own trauma personified being loved
Word Count: over 4k
Warnings: human experimentation, blood, implied abuse, suicidal ideation, Trauma
A/N: (1) I'm pretty notorious for not finishing fics, but seeing as this is technically an assignment from my therapist, I'm hoping I might actually finish it. yell at me when I take too long. (2) This fic is SUPER canon divergent. Do I know what's going on? No. No I don't.
The man shivered underneath the thin, scratchy blanket that had held him more often than anyone else. He absently picked at the red stains on the edge nearest to his face, lost in a world all his own. In his mind, he could run farther than the pristine white walls would allow him. He could sprint through trees, through the soft spring grass, and through the ice-cold river near his childhood home. Confined to four walls that appeared to move closer and closer when he wasn't paying attention, he ate slop that passed for food injected with whatever shit his captor deemed necessary. His only hobbies were counting the sprinkled ceiling tiles and trying to step directly in the middle of the pristine hospital-tiled floor.
He sighed and rolled over to face the wall, imaging himself back on his family's farm with the warm sun caressing his skin as it began its journey below the horizon. He almost felt the long grass tickling his bare feet as he sat on a sturdy wooden fence; the rough wood beneath him scraped the backs of his legs exposed by his shorts. He laughed with a faceless figure perched next to him in a white floral dress. Their voice sounded like bells in the breeze as he pointed at the sky with a carefree grin plastered to his face. He could hear the soft snuffling of the pigs lounging in the mud behind him. The smell of the feed and the grass made him dizzy with yearning. It was so close that he practically touched the sky.
A red light flashing above the locked door distracted him from the daydream and he groaned before burying his face into the cold, ratty pillow under his head. He knew it meant that he was being summoned for another torturous session with her. He also knew that if he wasn't on his feet by the time the door opened, the backs of his legs would kiss the batons.
With a deep sigh, he sat up and swung his legs off of the board of metal bolted to the wall that served as his bed. The lumpy plastic mat beneath him that served as his mattress desperately needed replacing, but he didn't expect a new one anytime soon.
He rose to his feet just before the clunking of the lock mechanism echoed throughout his empty room. The heavy metal door opened with a groan and in the doorway stood two men in dark uniforms filled up the doorway.
The guards were on the younger side, probably his own age. One of them was a redhead with a face full of freckles. The other had long black hair pulled into a ponytail with a matching trimmed beard. Altair could see the hint of a tattoo peeking out above the collar of his uniform. Both of them stood a full head taller than him, and they could overpower him with no effort on their part--especially with the help from the tasers strapped to their belts. Sometimes Altair wished that they would just shoot him and put him out of his misery.
Briar would lose her prized dog, though.
The redheaded guard prodded him in the ribs with his baton. "Come on, Stitches. Poison Princess wants you in the lab." The nickname they gave him hung heavy in the air. Altair attempted to avoid looking at the scars littering his exposed arms from various sessions with Briar, but his fingers still found the puckered skin of the back of his arms as he folded them across his chest.
Falling into step with the men, he shivered against the cool air moving through the corridor. His thin gown did little to block out the cold; it remined him of a hospital gown without the exposed back. The two men more or less ignored him. They chattered on and on about a date that Beard had complete with obscene gestures and hip thrusting that looked more like he had a bad cramp since he continued forward during the thrust. Altair cringed behind them.
Something clicked together in the back of Altair's mind. He was acutely aware of their biggest mistake: letting him walk behind them. They weren't ever supposed to have Altair behind them because it meant that he could attempt to escape from them. Briar had fired other guards over less serious infractions. A shiny plastic keycard caught his attention dangling from Beard's belt. It would be so easy to swipe it from him and hide it in the folds of his gown.
Not taking the time to argue with himself, he delicately unclipped the card from the guard's belt and clipped it to the inside of his gown behind the breast pocket. He shook out his arms and adjusted the gown to look as natural as possible, which was fairly easy because of his malnourished body. Sweat began to bead on the small of his back, his heart pounding in his ears as they traveled closer and closer to the lab where his worst nightmares occurred.
He needed to calm his hammering heart down. If it was too fast for Briar's tastes, he'd be sent back to his room where there wasn't a card reader to let him out. He needed to be in the lab so he would be alone for a few minutes to run. He needed that window of time.
He wiped his forehead, slick with sweat from both the exertion of the long walk and his own frayed nerves. He willed himself to calm down. He thought again of the daydream from laying in his bed. he pictured the setting sun illuminating the green of the leaves of the trees ahead of him. He thought of the wood beneath him and the hundreds of slivers that he had gotten in his legs because of the age of the fence. He thought of the faceless figure next to him and tried to come up with features: a long hooked nose, full lips, and soft brown eyes brightened by the last streams of sunlight.
It worked.
As the guards opened the door to the nearly empty room, he all but collapsed onto the chair bolted to the floor in the center. The guards ensured that he was indeed in the room before closing the door and leaving him alone with his racing thoughts. He needed to pace himself. If he left too early, he wouldn't have enough time to escape before being caught once again. His mind raced with potential outcomes. He could get caught without even making it an inch out of the room. He could get divebombed by jacked men after just making it outside.
He could also get away--as far away as travel could take him.
Every outcome ran circles around him until Briar--the face that he once loved--entered the room without looking up at him. She stood slightly taller than Altair with her once frizzy hair pulled back into a high ponytail full of tight curls. Thin-framed silver glasses rested on the bridge of her nose as she examined an open file in a clipboard in front of her. "Naomi, how are you doing today?"
At the sound of his birth name, he cringed internally. He had come out to Briar before they moved away from their hometown, and after the experiments started, she made a point to use his legal name. "I'm alright."
"You know what we talked about, Naomi; you need to use actual descriptors to tell me how you're feeling." Her velvet voice grated against his nerves, as if she were an ice cream cone that he took a bite out of.
"I'm exhausted, like always. My head hurts. I'm freezing," he spat bitterly as he folded his arms over his chest, completely forgetting about the keycard clipped to his gown.
"How long did the side effects of the most recent test last?" She asked, ignoring his tone.
A few hours, I think."
She looked up at him from her clipboard with a stern expression. "Naomi, I need the exact time frame."
As if he could give her the exact time. There was no clock or watch or any other time-telling devices in his room. He only had loose paper and flimsy ink straws wrapped in rubber tubing to prevent him from trying to off himself. "When they started kicking in until after I ate. I can't tell you what time it was."
Briar scribbled his response onto the paper on the clipboard. "Any residual side effects?"
"Only a headache that I've had ever since." He picked at the hem of his gown that reached his knees while he was sitting. When he was first subjected to the lab, the shortness of the dress embarrassed him, but now he was only mildly insecure about flashing Briar.
"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the headache?" she asked, looking up at him with a neutral expression at that moment. How she could sit there and look at him like he meant nothing to her, he didn't know. He thought that she loved him once.
"Six."
She seemed to be satisfied and set the clipboard on the floor near the door. Pulling out a large clear syringe full of something dark purple. She pulled out a package with a sterile needle from her other pocket and cleaned his inner elbow with an alcohol wipe she seemingly pulled out of nowhere. She stuck the needle into his arm and he watched as the purple substance entered his body.
It burned. The substance felt like fire spreading through his body and tears welled in his eyes. Coughing to cover up the whimper that threatened to escape him, he waited until she had wrapped his elbow with the scratchy red gauze tape before moving his arm away from her. He never wanted to give her the satisfaction of seeing the side effects of the injections.
"I'll be back in a few minutes to make sure that the serum is working and then we'll proceed to the course." With that, Briar scanned her own keycard and left the room. Halfway through counting to sixty, he felt the pounding in his head worsen. He heard the blood swishing through his ears as he tapped the keycard he fumbled for in his gown on the reader. The little red light on the black box switched to green and Altair softly opened the door to check the hallway.
To his surprise, it was empty.
Slipping into the hallway, he began to trace his to the exit, following the signs on the wall pointing in various directions like a hospital would have.
Convenient.
He had almost reached the corridor that held his room when he felt the first wave of nausea hit him like a speeding car into a brick wall. Stopping long enough to empty his stomach in the hallway as quietly as he could manage, he continued forward. The path in front of him twisted and wiggled and stretched while the lights seemed to stab his eyes. With his head pounding harder and harder, he thought things couldn't get worse until the lights flickered off and turned a menacing red color as a siren started screaming into the empty air.
Doors opened on all sides of him as he stumbled through the hallway and dozens of guards poured out into the corridor behind him. The heavy footfalls seemed to slam into the ground in time with his heartbeat. He could hear incoherent yelling as he started sprinting. His legs felt heavy and numb, and the room spun as his vision filled with black static. Every sound was suddenly muffled as if someone had stuffed cotton in his ears as a high-pitched ringing started in his ears.
His body slammed into the metal door and he had enough sense to slam the keycard into the card reader. The heavy door opened into a fenced yard surrounded by thick firs and spruce trees. Altair didn't have time to stop to admire the orange-streaked clouds above him. He had to disappear into those trees.
Altair stumbled down the concrete steps and lurched towards the fence that stood at least twenty-five feet above his head. He had no idea how he was supposed to get over it, but he couldn't stop to think about it. He had to trust himself. He had to believe that he was going to make it. If he thought--for even a moment that he wouldn't make it, he'd lose his nerve and walk back into the compound with his proverbial tail between his legs.
Altair misjudged how far away he was from the fence. Lunging forward, Altair rolled on the hard ground. He was too far from the fence. Spitting out the clump of dirt and grass, he could feel the guards closing in on him. Fear flooded his system, adrenaline driving back some of the effects of the serum. Hands grabbed for his thin gown. Screaming, he wrenched himself away. Sparks flashed between him and the men who held him. Several of them dropped to the ground and started seizing. Those who didn't have a hold of him started murmuring amongst themselves. Taking advantage of the pause, Altair bolted for the fence. He didn't stop until he collided into the fence with a fistful of the chain-link in his hands and began climbing.
A surge of energy seemed to hit him and only got stronger the further he advanced up the fence. When he reached the top, he risked a look back and saw three of the men writhing on the ground next to the fence. Another guard gingerly reached out to touch the metal with the end of his baton and sparks flew before he staggered backwards.
The fence was electrified.
Altair was climbing on the electrified fence as if it were off. He didn't feel anything expect energy filling him up. He felt like he was able to run for miles without stopping. He felt on top of the world.
Jumping from the top of the fence, he felt the fabric of his gown pull against him and a loud rip filled the air. Landing in a heap of his own limbs with pain shooting through his arms and knees, he barely noticed the gown split down the middle of his back. His head was pounding and he swayed on his feet as he stood up. Taking in a lungful of air, Altair set off into the forest at a sprint. Twigs scattered on the ground poked at his bare feet. He tried to avoid the rocks protruding from the dirt, but the light from the setting sun was fading fast and the canopy of the trees above him already blocked a majority of the light.
His lungs burned. A cramp in his side pulsed in time with his breaths. The world tilted in front of him as if he were on a twirling roller coaster. Another wave of nausea rolled through him and he fought back the urge to vomit again. He had to keep going. He couldn't afford to stop and give the men behind him time to catch up. He could almost feel the heavy footfalls of people following him through the dirt under his feet.
He veered hard to the left, he weaved between the trees until his legs collapsed from under him. Sprawled on the ground, he rolled over onto his back and stared at the canopy of tree needles above him. He spotted the first glimpse of stars in the darkened sky. Giggles bubbled up from his chest. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks to collide with the ground beneath him. He brought his hands to his face and laughed harder than he ever had.
He was free.
It took him a few minutes for the giggles to die out. Clearing his throat, he stood up and slid the gown off of him before turning it around to act as a robe. He avoided looking down at his body, the scars a painful reminder of what he just escaped.
Escaped.
The dark sky gradually paled as the night turned to early morning. As the moon grew closer to the horizon, the sky faded into a soft purple. The first rays of sunlight reached out from behind the mountain in the distance. Altair's legs shook with each step he took through the trees. Dead needles, sticks, and rocks had rubbed the bottoms of his feet raw. He limped forward and stopped every so often to crouch down and listen for the heavy footfalls of anyone following him, but the forest remained silent except for the birds waking to the dawn.
He sighed. He knew that the facility was well hidden considering that he'd never been found, but he didn't think that it was that far out of the way.
A loud pop echoed through the forest as if someone had twisted a capped water bottle until the cap shot off. Something hit him in the back of the thigh, and he spun around to see what hit him. Not immediately seeing anything, he turned back around to continue walking only to be met with a searing pain through his leg. It felt like someone was pressing a hot metal poker into his thigh.
His heart hammered in his chest as he saw the dark red blood dribbling down his leg. He felt around the back of his leg and found a hole the width of his pinky finger. He lunged forward despite the searing heat in his leg and sprinted blindly through the trees until he burst out of the forest line onto a paved road. He spotted a beat-up red truck in the distance coming toward him and limped to the middle of the lane waving one of his arms and holding his gown closed with his other hand.
The truck honked at him a few times before slamming on the brake when the driver realized that Altair wasn't moving out of the way. An older woman with short gray hair wearing a blue flannel shirt scrambled out of the truck while yelling for a younger man with a beard and a brown dog in the front seat to stay as soon as she noticed the blood and hospital gown. "Hun, are you-"
"Please...please help me," he begged. He glanced back at the tree line, eyes darting back and forth before looking at the woman with as much of a pleading expression as he could muster. He had no idea how pathetic he could have looked to this stranger: a dirt-caked hospital gown, blood staining his legs, wild matted hair, tear stain tracks through the dirt on his face.
"Alright, I'll help ya into the truck bed," she wrapped his free arm around her shoulder and turned her attention to the man in the truck. "Korbin, get me the towels from under the passenger seat and drive to the hospital, fast as ya can."
Altair could feel his leg throbbing with each second he stayed on his feet. He limped against the woman as she and the man helped him into the back of the truck. It smelled like straw and old grass clippings. The woman put down a torn blanket and had Altair lay on his stomach so she could press the towels on the hole in his leg.
The truck lurched forward as the man sped off down the road. Every pothole and speedbump they hit sent agony throughout Altair's body. It was too much for him and eventually, his all-night trek through the woods and the pain of the gunshot wound caught up to him. Unconsciousness overtook him and the yelling of the woman next to him did nothing to deter it.
🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲
The noise of the small cafeteria buzzed throughout Altair's head. His long, dark hair acted as a curtain between him and the noise. He sat alone at the end of one of the four long tables centered in the room. The students behind him chattered loudly about an upcoming football game against the rival school; they rattled off the names of student players that meant nothing to Altair. Music pounded from his one functioning earbud as he tried to drown the noise out with an angsty emo band.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" A soft voice interrupted his music. Pushing his hair out of his eyes and behind his ear, he looks up at the stranger in front of him. She was slightly taller than him with frizzy blonde hair and thick square glasses. Standing in an oversized hoodie with a purple backpack slung over her shoulder, she held a tray of food in front of her.
"Uh, no. It's not," he replied softly, still staring at her.
"Can I sit?"
"Sure, if you want to." He moved his own ratty backpack off the table to let her set her tray of food down. She slid onto the bench on the other side of the table, and suddenly, the scene changed to the red and black lobby of the burger restaurant from Altair's hometown. The girl reached forward from her spot across from him and took his hand in hers.
"Naomi, come on. We could do it yknow? We could run from here and live our lives our own way. Away from your overbearing parents, away from my abusive ones. We could do it together." Her bright blue eyes softened as she tilted her head. She rubbed her thumb over his wrist.
She pulled away and Altair looked down at his hands, black bracelets adorning his wrists that thickened and hardened to metal shackles. He struggled against them, but he couldn't move. He stared at the ceiling above him as he laid there paralyzed. He could just make out the girl's curls hidden underneath a surgeon's cap as she bobbed in an out of his field of vision. She was poking and prodding at his insides while the heart monitor blared warnings above him.
Altair's eyes fluttered open. He found himself on his back facing a dim tiled ceiling. An incessant beeping filled his head. Turning his head to find the source of the noise, he discovered several people in armored uniforms standing at the door facing the hallway. At first, he thought he was back in the compound; fear for the old woman and the man who helped him flooded through him. Are they okay? Are they dead?
The heart monitor began blaring an alarm as his heart hammered in his chest. It wasn't until a short brown-haired nurse bustled into the room. She smiled at him when she saw that he was awake. "Oh! You're awake! I'll let the doctor know right away." She checked to make sure that he wasn't actively dying before disappearing between the armored guards.
Altair tried to adjust his position in the bed only to find a thick white cast covering his leg from the top of his thigh to just below his toes. He wiggled them to ensure he could still feel them. He also noticed an IV on in the inside of his elbow preventing him from bending it. The most surprising part of the discoveries is that...he really didn't care. He was pretty unbothered by his current condition now that he knew he wasn't back at the facility.
A few minutes later, a middle-aged man in dark scrubs walked in with a tall dark-skinned man in a black trench coat and an eyepatch on his heels. "Hey there, how are you feeling? You gave us quite the scare there, Kid." The man in scrubs pulled the small circular chair up to the side of Altair's bed. He gave a short nervous laugh while glancing at Eyepatch out of the corner of his eyes. "My name is Dr. Sinclair. Can you tell me your name?"
"My name is...Altair. Altair san Martín." Altair had picked his name a long time ago, and he had honestly almost given them his birth name. However, if Briar was on the hunt for him, he knew he couldn't give them that name. He watched Eyepatch turn away from him and heard him mumble something into his coat.
"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Dr. Sinclair asked after scribbling Altair's name down.
"I was shot," Altair said flatly.
"Okay, what were you doing when you were shot? And why were you in a hospital gown?"
Altair stayed silent long enough that Eyepatch frowned at him. "I...I can't tell you. Everyone would be in danger, and I don't want it to be my fault."
The doctor glanced at Eyepatch who stepped forward. "Is someone after you, Kid?"
Altair nodded, but didn't say anything. He pursed his lips when they both asked him who it was that was after him. He really didn't want to say anything, but the longer that the interview took, the more his body started to hurt and the more annoyed he got.
Eventually, they both pried her name out of him. Before Eyepatch could question him further, Dr. Sinclair told him that he'd gotten enough information. He stood firm in his decision to kick Eyepatch out of the room.
Words to use instead of “said” organized by emotion/intention 2.0
Said is NOT a bad word. ~75% of the time, it’s all you need. But here’s some alternative when you really need to spice up that dialogue!
Use sparingly for more impact - especially the more dramatic verbs.
Emotion and intent are complex! I tried to reduce redundancy as much as I could, but some words are simply going to be in multiple categories. i.e. “anger” and “loud” share a lot of words
This is a living document and will be updated whenever I think of new words.
