High Highs, Low lows, and all in between.
Chapter one: “This has making of team.”
Big Warning: this chapter contains spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet!
Premise: After defeating the void and saving the city from immense danger, the thunderbolts are technically no longer vigilantes, but an established team under the management of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. With a new found stability, the team handles minor missions, whether they occur within the city or at home.
Included within the group of ex-runaways is Y/N L/N, also referred to as Moon; a talented, yet an occasionally unstable empath and telepath, who is still trying to pick up the pieces of her mind after the teams toil with the void. With her primary mission being to watch over Bob as he heals, she must struggle with the task of keeping her own memories at bay and establish trust between herself and him. As she heals him, Moon discovers that Bob may be slowly curing her as well.
Pairing: Robert Reynolds x fem! reader
Contains mentions of past trauma/abuse from both reader and Bob, hugs, tears(not in this chapter but in the future) , mentions of mental illness and health topics etc, Bob is a cutie and reader agrees
A/N: ok first chapter. Let’s see if I still have my old writing chops😭 hope you guys enjoy! Also it is fem! Reader but anyone can read and identify themselves with y/n no matter your race or gender!! (Note: the dialogue between Bob and reader that is italicized is written that way to show that they’re talking in each other’s mind, so I imagine it would sound echo-like? Rather than normal conversation.)
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The foster home was all you had known as a child. The security were your guardians. The other children were your siblings. It was like a makeshift family. This meant by consequence, it was difficult to remember what your “real” parents looked like now. Their faces were anything but preserved. Quite the blurry photo in your memories, one could put it. Every time you tried to re-imagine them, you lost a piece of the family photo you had so delicately put together in your subconscious.
The teachers told you it was pointless. They aren’t, and we’re never gonna come back to get you. There was no reasoning in trying to imagine a family of traitors who abandoned you. Or at least, that’s what Ms.Van-Dunn had repeated to you in a semi-drunken rant. Everyone else was subtle, but during her often intoxicated spells, she made it a point to be very on the nose about the “reality” of the foster care system.
“This place will eat you up and spit you out like dog eating a squirrel,” is something she’d mutter to herself . You would soon find out that she was in fact a drunk, but she wasn’t a lier nor was she an idiot.
And that’s when you ran away, into the bitter, frigid, unforgiving darkness of the dead night. Mother Nature was cold when she was without the warmth of the sun, and you weren’t any different from Mother Nature. Your juvenile brain was sure that you wouldn’t last a night through the icy hours, but a looming guarantee of death was better than what was culminating for you at the home.
There was no way in hell that you would go back to that place.
You shivered to no end, your fingers and toes numb by this point. The moon, not even giving you her blessing of safe passage, was no where visible to the naked eye anymore. She turned her back to you too, it seemed.
As you collapsed against a blanket of snow on the forest floor beneath you, your head violently pounded, the pounding accompanied by a thick layer of warm sweat that clawed against your skin.
Before your very pupils, a red-eyed monster was born from the night. Surely it would drag you to hell, and you would go with it.
A deep gasp escaped from the depths of your quivering soul as your body leapt forward from the pillow of your bed. This newfound darkness was familiar. You were no longer trapped in the forest, but in your cozy room.
Clammy hands had finally grasped your phone, a source of light in the continuous darkness. Your gaze took time to adjust to the phones severe brightness.
6:32 am. Entirely too early in the morning for this crap.
You thanked God that you were out of your sleeping state, grateful that you didn’t have to take another moment of reliving your past. The past never helped you with anything, and time and time again its force only proved a hindrance for you.
6:35 was now the time stricken on the clock, a time for you to get started early on today’s mission. Mission being, take care of Bob.
The job itself had its own unique purpose and history. After the group-effort of taking down the void, everyone wanted to make sure the entity wasn’t trying to rear its ugly head ever again. Bob was a passive little thing, and right now, he wasn’t yet equipped to handle the remnants of mental anguish and fear that the void thrived on. The void was a poison river that was barely concealed behind the cracks of Bobs trauma. Everyone knew the return of the void meant destruction, so now the solution was trying to mentally strengthen Bob so that he could keep the void tied up in his mind. The only person capable of getting in Bobs head directly beside Walker and his sly remarks was you, a literal empath with a better sense of telepathy.
Bucky decided that your obvious job from this point forward would be to watch over Bob, just in case he had another episode. He could also use the company, considering he was alone for most of the day when you all were training.
Your telepathic abilities allowed you to read people’s thoughts and your empathy was automatic, meaning that you could immediately experience a persons emotions and its current intensity of which they were being felt. The objective of entering anyone’s mind was to talk to the persons inner psych; healing them from the inside out. This required consent of course, and you weren’t just going to peep into Bobs head without asking him first, especially after fighting the void.
It wasn’t just about protecting Bob from your thoughts. Your personal rules were also in place to protect yourself. Being an empath meant that you absorbed everything in its wake. This was without exaggeration, because you quite literally couldn’t turn your empathy off, even if you tried.
Case in point, dealing with Sentry. The fight left you with your own mental scars. After seeing the crevices of Bobs mind, and feeling so much of his raw emotions, you found your own traumatic memories replaying through the medium that was your dreams. You wondered if it was because of Bobs latent telepathic abilities interfering with your own still, or rather your unfortunate new found anxiety messing with your skills to use your abilities proficiently.
Whatever it was, there was no time to theorize about it. For Bobs sake.
Being tasked to take care of Bob also meant that you understood exactly what he needed. Bob thrived on a daily routine that contained structure, which you prided yourself on giving him. This meant that routines were religion, breakfast on time, treatment on time, training right after.
This time in the morning was now reserved for you getting up to make breakfast. You often made a dish that you joyfully called “Bobs special”, pancakes and bacon. He always said two pancakes satisfied his tummy, but you could often see him peeking at the leftover stacks on the counter whenever he was finished eating.
Bob often felt he was being a burden, even if he never really exclaimed it aloud. You could always tell though, feel it radiating from him at all times. Therefore, adding five pancakes onto his plate now every morning was your way of showing him that it was ok if he wanted more; for himself, or more of anything, really.
Along with making breakfast for him, you occasionally cooked breakfast for the rest of the team before they headed out to train for the day. You were always sure to make a loaded menu. Protein, carbs, and everything nourishing in between. This only started because John commented on how it wasn’t fair that Bob and you were the only ones who woke up to “breakfast in bed”.
“If im the one cheffing it up in the kitchen, is it really breakfast in bed?” You rolled your eyes, putting another three strips of bacon onto the greasy pan in front of you.
“You know there’s a Macdonald’s across the street right?” Ava scoffed, sipping her coffee. “Do what everyone on earth does, get yourself a coffee.”
A green eyed and practically drooling John eyed the plate of sizzling bacon across from him. “All I’m saying is some of us, and by that I mean me, wouldn’t mind a little special treatment everyone once in a while.”
After that, you considered his “drift”, deciding that feeding the rest of your hungry teammates wasn’t that difficult. Now, everyone ate like a king by 7:30.
So here you were now, fixing the bacon portion of Bobs breakfast. It was now 7:05, and you knew Bob would wake up pretty soon. Without your routine, Bob was a somewhat predictable person otherwise. If asked, you would say this is truly why you believed he would thrive on a regimen. He woke up at the same time most days, showered at the same time most days, ate at the same time most days. You learned to memorize his patterns without reading his thoughts to find them. You preferred it that way. Trust was the name of the game, and you once again doubted that Bob wanted you poking around in his inner monologue.
You put your last bit of bacon onto the glass plate next to the stove, making sure to check the time, betting to yourself that you were correct about Bobs emergence.
It was now 7:15, a bit late for Bob to be waking up now. He was probably sleeping in. After all, that’s what he needed, more sleep. That didn’t bother you. In fact, it gave you time to garnish his plate with delectable extras. You began to cut up some bananas and strawberries as decoration for his pancakes, when you heard the sound of footsteps approaching the kitchen.
The rest of the team had found themselves already awoken and ready to eat.
“Good Morning, Moon,” Alexei energetically greeted. He was already in his full get up as usual, ready to start his day. He was freshly shaven, and smelt strongly of cologne, Alexeis way of looking presentable. He reached in the fridge and grabbed a clear bottle of electrolytes before shuffling to grab a plate from the cabinets above your head.
“Morning, Alexei. Sleep well?”
“No,” John interrupted as he briskly moved past you to grab a piece of bacon off the plate. “I woke up drenched in sweat.”
“Not talking to you John.”
“What? So my sleep doesn’t matter?”
“Mhmmm, not really. Did anyone else besides John have a terrible night?” You asked.
Yelena appeared from behind the wall, hair messy and her pajama shirt wrinkled. She snatched an apple from the counter. “Not really. My dreams are usually mediocre.”
“I dreamt I was stuck in the quantum world,” Ava flatly joined, as she appeared, now moving to sit on the chairs by the bar. “But get this- he was there. Horrible.” She swiftly pointed to John, who flew back offended.
“Oh cmon, being stuck with me isn’t that bad. Honestly, dream me would’ve probably saved you from being stuck.”
John felt stares of contradiction hitting the back of his head from all angles.
Alexei puffed out his chest, “I had Russian photo shoot with a bear. He was a very cool guy.”
“Uh oh. Quick, Moon. Erase his memory before he tries to make his dream a reality.” Yelena said, chewing.
Well that makes a few of us, you muttered, half loud.
Once again, your eyes darted toward the clock noticing that neither Bucky nor Bob were present in the kitchen.
Bucky not being there made sense. Val had elected him the somewhat-leader of your new alliance, so even if he liked it or not, he had to wake up at the crack of dawn for work. He likened it to his days in congress. There was always something to be done, or read, or analyzed. Always a stack of paper work waiting for him at his office. In short, Sleeping in wasn’t an option for him.
Bob on the other hand usually tiptoed in by now, quiet as a mouse. Thanking you for his hefty plate of “Bobs special”, as if it were the first time you cooked for him again.
He deserved his space, which explained your reluctance to pry his door open and check on his sleeping form. But the feeling of dread was eating away at you. Your empathy whispered in your ear, its words muffled.
Your head instinctively darted in the direction of Bobs door. Yes, this is where the feeling was emerging from. Your empathy was preaching to you now, damn near condemning you for not walking into the distress that you couldn’t personally identify.
You casually slipped away from the conversation, leaving your teammates to converse amongst themselves. The farther away from the kitchen you treaded, the better you could comprehend the intense emotions emitting from Bobs room.
A horrid amount of guilt,
These emotions held familiarity. They were all feelings you associated with Bob. He wasn’t good at masking his inner mood, but a subconscious part of him kept the projections of his passions light.
However, these sensations were unbridled. You slowly traipsed down the hall, thinking that if you marched up to the to the door too suddenly you would absorb too much too fast. It was as if Bobs anguish was trying to suck you in, and you hadn’t even neared his room just yet.
Finally, your body pressed itself up against the door. You closed your eyes, trying to search for his entity.
Your hand began to shake as you stepped into the fog. You didn’t want to see without asking, but you felt you had no choice.
You could see Bobs dreams so clearly now. Most importantly you gazed upon him, watching his past on replay.
He explained this to you all before, reluctantly of course. This was the day he became “Sentry”. The day he was pulled apart over and over, and then discarded like a piece of litter on the city streets.
You watched from outside of his dream barrier, careful about how to take your next steps without startling him.
He attacked the attendees present within the room, his yellow eyes encased with fury. No one was spared, each individual was a target, and witness to the menacing power of The Sentry.
You searched for Bob, trying your hardest to pinpoint where he was.
It was time to call out now.
The dream sequenced startled for a brief second, before continuing.
Bob, come out. It’s me, Moon.
Your voice trembled with uncertainty, now. You tried to keep your own emotions to a minimum, aware that the intensity of your inner noise could harm him.
You took a deep breath, before opening his door, and entering his room.
His room was quite tidy, as you’d expected. As it was tidy, it was empty as well. Bob was a man of few items. The only item of abundance that existed in his chambers were books. A stack of them rested on his nightstand, bookmarks protruding from some of them.
His pain invaded your brain again, dragging you back into his aura. Though your head pounded, retreating wasn’t an option. Your feet dragged themselves towards his sleeping form, skillfully hidden under the covers.
A calm hand reached out to him, lifting the covers off of his head first before palming his tense shoulder.
Bob was layered in sweat. His face was scrunched, his body painting his discomfort.
Again, your hand trembled, and you emerged into the fog.
The same dream was playing again. This time, it was extended, showing the outcome of The Sentry’s rampage against his captors.
Enough, you decided. He didn’t deserve to be subject to this torture in his mind over and over again.
Bob? Bob it’s me, Moon. Come out. Where are you?
That’s when you heard it. Heard him.
“Why did I do this? What’s wrong with me?”
His sorrow hit you like a truck. He felt..guilty. Extremely guilty.
Bob? Where are you? I can hear you but I can’t see you.
“Those people…I…hurt them.”
You couldn’t endure this anymore. His self pity invoked too deep of a sorrow within you.
“Bob, please. Don’t do this to yourself. None of that was your fault.”
You trotted around in his mind, searching for him as the nightmare played once again. You continued toward a hidden crevice, and was met with bare feet sticking out of a darkened corner-shaped shadow.
He remained silent, almost as if he were hiding from you.
You dropped down to his level, crawling up to his cold body that shivered ever so intensely. Additional to a deep wound of culpability, was pure terror.
Inhale, exhale; a deep breath traveled in and out of your body.
Under your commanding touch, his body stilled, now.
“Bob. You’re not a monster. This is just a dream. Please, wake up.”
Crisp and clammy hands inched closer to yours. He wanted to feel you, he really did. Bob wanted to try more than anything to wake up and smell the roses, but it was so hard. Harder than anything in this world.
“You didn’t have to come for me. It’s ok, really. I’m used to these- I….i just sit here until it’s all over.”
His voice unleashed layers of his feelings that he was trying to conceal. You could feel it even deeper now. Bob was scared of himself, and he was scared of what he was capable of.
“No. This isn’t how this works anymore. We’re friends, Bob. You can’t- no. I won’t let you suffer through this alone.”
As you found your words to speak, you found his hand, grasping it between both of yours.
“But moon, you don’t understand. Look at what I did to those people,” he sniffled. “What if I hurt you guys too?”
Your response was immediate, “then you’ll still be our friend, Bob. Whether you’re the Sentry or not you’re still our friend, Bob. Nothing you do could ever change that.”
You felt his stance transform in real time. It wasn’t a big change, but just enough to pull him out of this hell hole.
“Please bob, come out and we can talk. Please stop torturing yourself. You’ve had enough.”
Without a fight, Bob listened to you. You unclenched your eyes, finding yourself back in his room again, still tethered to his side. Your eyes darted to his form, waiting for him to stir up from his slumber.
Bob blinked a few times before fully opening his eyes. He reached up to try to wipe the salty sweat from his brow, only to realize your hand was touching him.
“Bob? How are you feeling?” You softly smiled. Bob shifted to slowly face you. His blurry vision was met with your soothing features.
He finally settled his mind, able to acknowledge the ‘elephant in the room’. “You didn’t have to help me, moon. I’m sorry you had to come and get me but trust me, that’s not-
You interrupted, “Bob please. I know you want to protect all of us from yourself but…. you don’t worry about me. I’m a tough girl. You also don’t have to deal with it alone. That’s why I’m here now. That’s why we’re all here now, ok?”
Bob acknowledged your words deeply, a ping in your head confirmed he did. He understood your concern,and well, he was fatigued. So sick and tired of jolting out of his sleep, or avoiding dreamland in the first place just so he wouldn’t alert you of his inevitable distress. Maybe it was time to let other people help, even if he didn’t want to.
“….ok.” He lowly muttered, nodding. “Thank you, y/n. This really means a lot.”
Your hand seemed to gain a mind of its own, speedily leaving Bobs side and finding its way to his soft hair, brushing it behind his ears. You shocked yourself, but tried to keep your reaction under wraps. On the contrary, Bob couldn’t help but lean into the touch, fighting the urge to nuzzle into your hand.
“No need to thank me. It’s what I’m here for. Now,”
You started, standing up. “Bob’s special is waiting for you in the kitchen. Don’t want walker to finish it all before you get some. He seemed real hungry this morning.”
Bob rolled out of bed, stretching his arms and back before gearing up towards the door. “Uh oh. I’ll be lucky if theres even a piece of bacon left over for me.”
“Him leaving a piece for you? That may be the nicest thing he’s ever done. He’s getting soft on us now.”
Bob tittered as he looked down at his feet, “We can only dream.”
