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[platonicaxaxe]

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Random Fics

Bracelet - Bob X Reader

[yenyenyen19]

Bucky art dump from Twitter x)

[aquaticmercy]

Remember Me

Summary : Stuck in an abusive relationship with a Hydra general, you started a decade-long love affair with The Winter Soldier

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : SLOW BURN. Whump. Angst with a happy ending!!!. Reader met The Winter Soldier in her mid-20s, but the story started when you were 19. Violence, isolation, implied SA, cursing, implied sex, drugging. Cheating on an abusive husband, abusive family members, arranged marriage, death. Reader is mentioned to have slowed aging. Reader’s family is Red Room. Set between 1961 and CA:TWS. (Let me know if I miss anything.)

Word count : 12.8k

Note : This took a while to write, but enjoy!

On your wedding day, the dress weighed more than you did.

It was ivory, heavy satin, imported, and tailored to fit you perfectly. Because even this, even you, must be perfect. The fabric pressed against your ribs like a held breath. The seamstress had told you to stand straighter. 

You did. But even then, your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Your father stood beside you, adjusting his cufflinks. He smelled like cold metal and expensive cologne. He did not even not look at your face, and when he did, he only did it to check that you are presentable, that nothing about you might embarrass him in front of the men who have come to watch you be handed over.

You were not stupid. You knew exactly what this was.

It was 1961. They had just ordered the closing of the border and the construction of a wall surrounding West Berlin. Your father was a high-ranking Red Room officer. Your new husband was a Hydra general. This marriage was political.

You were a bargaining chip to buy an alliance in troubling times.

But you were just nineteen. Not that they cared.

The chapel was cold, all marble and iron and banners instead of flowers. Red and black draped the walls like warnings. There was no real aisle, just a straight walk forward, like a march. Everything about it felt militarized, precise, stripped of everything that should’ve made a wedding a celebration. Even the music was wrong. Too sharp. Too loud. It echoed in your chest until your heart felt like it might splinter apart.

You stood at the entrance, your breath coming too fast. 

Your mother stood beside you.

She was trembling.

Her whole body shook like she was holding herself together by sheer willpower alone. Her hands were cold when they gripped yours, her fingers digging in too tight. You could feel her heartbeat racing. You had felt it before, late at night, when she thought you were asleep and cried into the foot of your bed.

Her marriage to your father had been political too.

She had been nineteen, too, once. Maybe younger. She had stood where you stood now, bartered between men who spoke about loyalty and power and alliances like they weren’t talking about living, breathing girls.

You realized then, as you were standing there, that she wasn’t shaking because she was giving you away. She was shaking because she saw herself in you. She was watching herself disappear all over again.

“Don’t cry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Please don’t cry. They don’t like it when we cry.”

You swallowed hard as your throat burned.

You hadn’t cried yet. You were too numb for tears. Instead, fear sat heavy in your stomach. It felt like standing at the edge of a bottomless pit, knowing you were about to be pushed.

Across the room, waiting, was your betrothed.

General Viktor Dragunov.

He was thirty years your senior, hair already threaded with gray. His posture was rigid, decorated in medals earned through blood you didn’t want to think about. He looked at you like you were an acquisition. You were a property that had been negotiated, approved, and now delivered.

You were a treaty.

This wedding was about consolidation of power. Hydra and the Red Room were using you as the proof that they were now family.

Your father stepped forward to escort you. His face was carved from stone, eyes unreadable. He did not look at you like a daughter. He looked at you like a completed assignment.

You wanted to scream.

You wanted to run.

You wanted to say no.

But that had never been an option.

After all, you had been given two options:

Become a Red Room widow or marry Dragunov.

You had chosen blindly. You had reached for the option that didn’t end immediately in a grave. You knew yourself, and you knew the girls in the red room. You knew that most of the girls don’t even make it past the second year.

So you had told yourself surviving was enough. You had told yourself you could endure anything if it meant living.

Now, standing here, you weren’t so sure.

Your father took your arm with a firm, impersonal grip. You felt like a package being handed over.

Each step forward felt wrong. The room blurred at the edges. Faces watched you with scrutiny— Hydra officials, Red Room handlers, men and women who understood exactly what was happening and approved of it.

You were barely an adult.

Your hands were sweating inside your gloves. Your heart hammered so hard it hurt. You felt unbearably small, trapped inside a body that was about to be claimed by a man who had lived a whole life before you had even finished becoming a person.

When your father placed your hand into Dragunov’s, it felt like handcuffs closing around your wrist.

His fingers were possessive. 

The officiant spoke about unity. About strength. About legacy. Words like honor and loyalty were thrown around until they lost meaning. No one asked if you wanted this. No one asked if you were afraid.

You stared straight ahead, nails digging into your palm. 

When Dragunov kissed you, it was brief and public and wrong. His lips pressed against yours like a stamp of ownership. 

You did not close your eyes. You did not kiss back.

Applause followed.

And then, celebration.

As they led you away, his hand firm at the small of your back, you understood with terrible clarity that your life had ended. 

You had not walked into a marriage.

You had been absorbed into a machine.

—

You learned quickly that marriage did not make your husband a better man.

If anything, it excused his cruelty, gave him a sense of entitlement, a justification. The first years passed the way bruises do: faint at first, almost ignorable, then blooming dark beneath the skin. 

General Dragunov was impeccable in public. He dressed you like a trophy, gave you jewels that were heavy on your neck, dressed you in gowns chosen to emphasize elegance over comfort. His hand rested on your back whenever there were eyes on you, a reminder of ownership disguised as affection. He spoke of my wife with visible pride, like you were proof of his power, a medal pinned neatly to his chest for the world to admire.

People smiled at you. They congratulated you. They told you how fortunate you were.

They did not see what happened when the doors closed.

In private, he took far more than he ever gave. Your presence was expected. Your silence was required. Your body was not something he asked for, but rather, he viewed it as an object he took, over and over, with the cruelty of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.

Love, to him, was not tenderness or care.

Love was obedience.

You learned to survive by becoming observant. You learned to read his moods by the way he removed his gloves at night: too carefully meant anger he was containing, carelessly meant anger he intended to spend. You learned when to keep your eyes down, when to speak only when spoken to, when to make yourself small enough to survive the hours until morning.

He was not always violent, and that was the most disorienting part. Some days he was distant, cold, dismissive. Other days he was almost kind, as if he believed restraint was a gift. Those days were worse in their own way, because they made you doubt yourself. They made you wonder if you were imagining the worst of it, if he was truly a good man. 

He was not a good man. Because every bout of kindness was almost always followed by the days when he reminded you that your body was not yours.

So you started learning which words were safe and which ones provoked him. You learned when to keep your eyes low, when to answer only in short, neutral phrases, when to make yourself small enough to endure the hours until morning.

Some nights you laid very still and counted your breaths, waiting for it to be over.

It wasn’t long until he began to talk about children.

At first it was casual, almost conversational. He made very uncomfortable comments over dinner about legacy, about bloodlines. He made suggestive comments in conversations with colleagues while you sat beside him, smiling, your spine rigid, as he said things like, “any day now.”

You played your part. You smiled when required. You nodded when necessary. 

Little did he know, you had bribed a Hydra physician to give you experimental birth control pills— one that wouldn’t show up in your blood tests. 

You swallowed one every morning with ruthless discipline, your stash hidden under the fake bottom of your jewelry box.

It was the only control you had left.

You would not bring a child into this house.

You would not offer another life to this machine.

You would not let your body create something that could be used against you.

Months passed without a pregnancy. Then years.

Dragunov noticed.

At first, his irritation was subtle. The doctors were blamed. Tests were ordered. Examinations were conducted. You lay still while men spoke about your body in clinical tones, as if you were not there, as if you were a malfunctioning instrument rather than a person.

“Perfectly healthy,” they said. “No complications.”

That was when his patience ran out.

He became…. angry. He accused your body of withholding, of deliberate humiliation, even though he never had proof. 

His voice started rising higher and higher. His hand slammed into walls, into furniture, into the table beside your head hard enough to make you flinch. He stopped touching you in public altogether— to your relief.

“You exist for legacy,” he told you one night, standing over you like a judge delivering a sentence. His shadow swallowed you whole. “Do not forget why you are here.”

You remembered every day you woke up beside him. Every day you swallowed those pills. Every day you stayed alive out of spite, out of fear, out of a stubborn refusal to disappear entirely.

Taking the possibility of a child away from him was the only semblance of individuality you had left.

—

You were in your mid-twenties by the time the war in Vietnam was escalating.

The Red Room told Hydra that agents working for the opposing forces were moving closer. Their assets were going dark, handlers found dead in alleys with no witnesses left alive. Power was shifting, and men like your husband felt it like an itch under the skin.

That was when your husband decided you would be moved.

He brought you to a private stretch of land surrounded by violent blue water, reachable only by Hydra aircraft. A mansion of stone and glass rose from the greenery like a fortress of thorns pretending to be a home.

“I’m keeping you here for your safety,” he said, his tone reasonable, as if he were explaining the weather. He was more… gentle today. “I will be very busy. The world is becoming… unpredictable.”

You stared at him, disbelief curdling into rage.

“No,” you whispered. Then louder, “No. You can’t leave me here alone!”

He barely reacted as you screamed, words tearing out of you after years of silence. You told him you couldn’t breathe here, that you were not a thing to be stored away, that you were already isolated enough, already buried alive inside his house, his rules, his body. How dare he isolate you on an island with no human contact?

And then… you slapped him.

For a moment, you thought he might hit you back.

Instead, he laughed. It came out as an amused chuckle, like you were a child throwing a tantrum. He caught your wrist before you could pull away.

“I will make sure no harm comes to you,” he said, but you knew what he meant: no one touches what is mine.

“Besides,” He continued, gesturing toward the mansion door. “You won’t be alone.”

The door opened, and The Winter Soldier stepped inside.

You had seen him once before, at a gala the previous year. He had stood behind Colonel Vasily Karpov, like a shadow given shape, his metal arm hidden beneath a glove. Even then, the room had seemed colder around him.

Up close, he was… unsettling. Taller than you expected. Broad-shouldered, rigid, as if his body had been trained to exist only in the battlefield. His expression was blank, eyes flat and distant, not resting on anything in particular. The metal arm was uncovered this time, catching the light.

He did not look at you.

He did not bow.

He simply stood, waiting.

“He is assigned to you,” your husband said, with unmistakable pride. “He will keep you safe.”

You let out a sharp, incredulous laugh before you could stop yourself.

“What?” You gestured vaguely toward the man like he was an absurd decoration. “So he’s my bodyguard now?” You scoffed. “Does he bite?”

Your husband laughed with you, like you’d made a charming joke. He stepped closer, hand lifting as if to pull you into him, to try and kiss you.

You shoved him away.

The Winter Soldier didn’t react. 

Your husband’s smile thinned, but it did not disappear.

“He does not bite,” he said lightly, as if discussing a hobby. His hand settled possessively at your waist anyway, fingers digging in just enough to make the point. “He kills. So behave.”

The Winter Soldier finally looked at you then. There was no hunger in his gaze. No judgment. No interest.

And yet, standing there on that island, trapped between a husband who owned you and a weapon wearing a man’s face, you felt curiosity spark for the first time in years.

Because, for the first time since your wedding day, someone had been placed between you and him.

Even if that someone was The Winter Soldier.

—

The mansion was built to feel untouchable.

Stone terraces stepped down toward the sea like a throne carved into the island itself. Glass walls reflected the sky so perfectly that sometimes you felt as though you were walking through air, suspended between water and nothing at all. It was beautiful in the way merciful prisons often are, designed to distract you from the fact that escape was impossible.

The silence was the worst part.

It wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind that rang in your ears, that made you too aware of your own breathing, your own thoughts looping endlessly with nowhere to go. There were no radios, no music, no laughter. 

Just the constant awareness of being watched by the Winter Soldier. At first, you only noticed him the way one notices a shadow. He stood at a respectful distance, eyes constantly moving. He never leaned or rested. Never turned his back to the jungle or the water or the house.

He was always between you and danger.

Or maybe between you and freedom.

You took to walking the beach because it was the only place that felt safe. The sand was coarse, the sun was harsh. The ocean stretched endlessly, a vast, open wound of blue that made your chest ache. You stood at the water’s edge and imagined walking straight into it, imagining how far you could swim before your body gave up.

You wondered if he’d follow.

He always stopped several paces behind you.

Day one, you said nothing.

Day two, you tried pretending he wasn’t there. You kicked sand into the surf, let salt spray sting your eyes, breathed deeply just to remind yourself you still could.

By day three, the emptiness started clawing at you.

“You don’t need to hover,” you said one afternoon, staring out at the horizon. Your voice sounded too loud in the open air. “I’m not exactly fast.”

He gave you no response.

You turned your head slightly. He hadn’t moved.

Day four, irritation started to creep in.

“Do they wind you up every morning,” you asked, drawing a slow circle in the sand, “or do you just… stand like that naturally?”

Nothing.

You laughed then. It was short and humorless. “Right.”

That night, you dreamed of screaming and no sound coming out.

By day five, you were tired of being the only human presence in your own life.

You sat down hard at the edge of the beach, dress hitched up to your knees, toes digging into the cold, wet sand as the tide crept closer. The sun was low, red bleeding into the water, turning the ocean copper. It looked like a wounded animal.

“You know,” you said quietly, “this place would be beautiful if it wasn’t a cage.”

You didn’t expect an answer. You hugged your arms around yourself. The wind pulled at your hair, tangling it around your face.

“I don’t even know why I’m talking,” you muttered, cursing at yourself. “You’re not here for conversation. You’re here to make sure I don’t disappear into the ocean and embarrass him.”

Then, out of nowhere, he… answered.

“I know.”

His voice was rough, and stripped bare. You hadn’t expected him to sound like that.

Slowly, carefully, you turned your head.

He was still standing where he always did, but his head was tilted slightly now, gaze fixed on you. Despite looking closer in age to you than your husband, he felt old in a way that didn’t make sense.

“You… talk,” you said.

He said nothing else.

But after that, you refused to let the silence reclaim him.

You talked about everything, but small things at first. The way the salt dried your skin. How the wind sounded different at night. How the water scared you and soothed you at the same time.

Sometimes he didn’t respond at all.

Sometimes, he surprised you.

“Don’t go in past your knees,” he said one morning, voice flat, almost mechanical.

You glanced back as you dipped your toes in the water. “Why?”

“Undertow.”

You blinked, then smiled. “So you’re not just decoration.”

His mouth curved upward, just barely.

You learned him in fragments. You noticed the way he scanned the tree line every few minutes. The way his metal fingers flexed when helicopters passed overhead. The way he always positioned himself between you and the mansion when your husband called.

You never asked his name. You never asked where he came from.You knew better than to dig where blood still hadn’t dried.

One evening, when the sky was filled with clouds, you said, “Do you hate it here?”

His answer was immediate. “Yes.”

You laughed. “Me too.”

Another day, you asked, “Do you ever get tired?”

“No.”

The closest you came to crying was one night when the waves were loud and the darkness was inescapable.

“You’re the first man in my life,” you said, eyes fixed on the black water, “who hasn’t treated me like he owns me.”

He turned toward you so fast it startled you.

“I… won’t,” he said, and this time, he had to carefully consider his words.

By the end of the month, he walked beside you instead of behind you.

—

One night, a familiar nightmare dragged you under like a riptide.

You were back in the chapel again. It was always the chapel. 

The marble was too white, banners too red, the air thick with condensed breaths. Your dress was crushing your ribs, heavier than your body, heavier than your voice. You tried to move and couldn’t. You tried to scream and your throat locked 

Then his hand closed around your wrist.

Dragunov. Then, your father. Every man who had ever owned you. Their fingers were tightening, pulling you in two different directions while everyone watched.

You gasped….

And shook awake with a scream that ripped itself out of you before you could stop it.

Your body jerked upright, heart slamming so violently it made you dizzy. The room swam, shadows stretching along the stone walls, moonlight cutting across the floor. Your lungs burned and your hands clawed at the sheets as if you were still being dragged.

Before your mind could catch up, the door swung open.

He was there.

The Winter Soldier had his metal arm raised, eyes blazing as he swept the room for threats that didn’t exist. 

You could hear his breathing, and you suddenly realised he was one second from killing something.

From killing someone.

Then his eyes finally landed on you, curled in the bed. 

You were shaking, wide-eyed and gasping like a wounded animal.

He lowered his arm slowly, as if it took effort. “Are you okay?” he asked.

You should have said yes.

You should have nodded, told him it was nothing, and watched him disappear back into the hallway where he belonged.

But… you couldn’t bring yourself to.

“No,” you whispered, your throat hurting. “Nightmare.”

Oh. 

He understood.

He nodded once, already turning away, defaulting back into distance, into safety-through-separation.

No.

No no no….

“Wait,” you said, louder than you meant to.

He stopped in his tracks..

You were suddenly aware of everything; how cold the room was, how the thin silk slip clung to your skin, how exposed you felt without the armor of dresses and jewels. Your body wouldn’t stop trembling, as if the nightmare had soaked into your bones.

“I don’t want to be alone,” you said, as if it was terrifying to admit.

Right. 

Then, softly, he said… “Okay.”

He stepped back inside, positioning himself by the door like a sentinel.

It should have been comforting.

It wasn’t enough.

You hugged your knees to your chest, teeth chattering, your breaths still coming too fast. The bed felt too big. The shadows were too close. 

Your skin felt like it didn’t belong to you.

He noticed.

You saw it in the way his posture shifted, how his eyes tracked the way you folded inward on yourself. 

Then, he made… a decision. 

Carefully, he moved closer until he stood beside the bed.

“Can I…?” he asked, glancing at the mattress, then back at you.

No one had ever asked you for permission before they touched you. 

Not your father. Not your husband. 

You nodded.

He sat down, the bed dipping under his weight as heat radiated from him. He hesitated again, always waiting, always giving you the choice, and when you leaned into him, he hesitated for half a second before his arm came around you.

His human arm wrapped around your shoulders, pulling you against his chest. He kept the metal arm carefully away, as if afraid it might hurt you. His heartbeat was steady beneath your cheek, a solid rhythm that your own body instinctively tried to match.

Before you could stop it, something inside you gave way.

You cried, and it was not pretty, it was not quiet. Your face twisted into his shoulder as years of fear finally found a place to go. Your hands fisted into his shirt like you were afraid he’d vanish if you let go.

He just held you tighter, one hand coming up to rest at the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair like he was memorizing you.

“I’m sorry,” you choked. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” he said softly. 

It was? 

This was okay to him?

“Can you stay?” you asked, voice breaking. “Just… just for tonight.”

“Okay,” he said again.

You shifted carefully, easing you both back against the pillows, adjusting the blankets around you. You pulled him down, curling down into him instinctively, your body fitting against his like it had always meant to, like your nervous system recognized the safety in his touch before your mind could.

His arm stayed around you, protective but not possessive. His chin rested lightly against your hair. You could feel his breath, slowing yours down by sheer proximity.

For the first time in years, your body relaxed.

You fell asleep with your cheek pressed to his chest. And when morning came, he was still there.

—

After that night, something changed between you.

He still stood guard, still scanned the tree line, still followed orders. 

But he also stayed closer. He sat with you longer. At night, when you couldn’t sleep, he would sit at the edge of the bed when you asked.

You stopped dreaming of the chapel.

Instead, you caught yourself watching him when he thought you weren’t.

You noticed how his brow furrowed when he was thinking, how his eyes narrowed when helicopters passed, and how impossibly gentle he was with small things. 

With you. 

Fuck.

You had spent your life being taken from, claimed, decided for. Desire had always been something done to you, never something that you had.

Until now.

You felt it when his shoulder brushed yours, when his voice softened just for you; when his fingers lingered on you a second longer than necessary as you walked too close to the sharp rocks by the beach. You felt it in the way your chest tightened when he left the room.

You found, to your surprise, that the soldier had a personality.

He chuckled at your corny jokes, but never at your self-deprecating ones. He tapped his foot more when you played 30s music on the vinyl, and loved beef stew when you cooked them in the kitchen with the overstocked pantry.

He was human underneath all that. Just like you. 

So you talked to him. You poured your heart into your conversations. Your troubles with your husband, your father. How you barely saw your mother anymore. Once you even told him that despite growing up in the Red Room, you were always interested in international relations. “In another life, I would be a diplomat,” you said, “If not, I think I’d teach international law in a city like DC.”

He nodded encouragingly.

One night, you both sat by a fire by the ocean. The water was restless, waves breaking hard against the rocks below the terrace. Your knees were pulled to your chest, a blanket draped loosely around your shoulders.

He was cleaning his knives, and you were watching his hands instead of the sea.

“Do you ever,” you said quietly, “wish you were someone else?”

He didn’t look up. “Every day.”

Your throat tightened.

As a bout of silence stretched, you could feel his breathing. Your heart was pounding so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

“I have a question,” you said.

He turned toward you immediately. He was always attentive, always ready. “Okay.”

You stared at your hands, and at the faint tremor in your fingers.

“If I asked you to do something,” you said cautiously, “Can you please tell me no if you didn’t want to?”

He hesitated, as if it was the first time he was allowed to refuse something. “Yes.”

You swallowed.

Your pulse thundered in your ears. 

This was dangerous. 

This was reckless. 

This was the most honest thing you had ever considered doing.

“Can I,” you whispered, finally looking up at him and meeting his eyes, “kiss you?”

The world seemed to stop.

He froze, not like a soldier, but like a man who had never been asked that question before. He stopped breathing for a second and searched your face, like he was making sure this was real. 

That you were real.

“Your husband sent me here to protect you,” he said quietly. “You’re my mission.”

“You know I don’t love him,” you said, a sad smile playing on your lips.

Oh. Right.

All he did was… nod.

So you leaned in, close enough that you could feel his breath on your lips. He didn’t move until you did, until you closed the distance the rest of the way, your lips brushing his in a kiss so soft it felt unreal.

He sighed against your mouth.

Then, carefully, so carefully, he kissed you back.

It was hesitant and reverent and achingly tender, like he was afraid of hurting you, like he understood exactly how much this meant. His hand came up to cradle your cheeks, thumb resting lightly against your cheek, but never pressing and never demanding.

You melted into him.

When you pulled back, your forehead rested against his, your breaths tangled.

“I…,” he started, then stopped before trying again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” you said, voice tone despite the tears burning behind your eyes. 

—

Over the next couple of months, he slept in your bed every night.

It just… happened, and neither of you ever suggested anything else. His presence had become a constant, steady as the tide. You learned the shape of him in the dark: the breadth of his shoulders, how he held you, how he always waited for you to settle before letting himself relax.

One night, neither of you could sleep.

You laid half on top of him, one leg draped over his thigh,cheek pressed to his chest. His arm rested around your waist, rubbing slow circles on your skin.

You shifted and…. you felt it then. 

You could feel him clearly under his trousers, his pants getting tight. It was the unmistakable evidence of how tightly he held himself in check, how long it had been since anyone had touched him like that. 

His body went rigid, as if he were bracing for rejection.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, already starting to move away.

You pushed up onto your hands, stopping him without force. “Don’t be.”

He looked up at you, eyes dark in the light, waiting to be told what to do.

“Can I… help you?” you suggested. “Only if you want me to.”

It should feel wrong. You were a married woman, for fuck’s sake. 

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked away, then back to you, like he was recalibrating everything he thought he knew about touch.

He shouldn’t.

He knew he shouldn’t.

“Yes,” he said finally.

It sounded like permission and need and disbelief all at once.

You moved carefully, shifting until you were straddling him, the warmth of him unmistakable beneath you. He froze again, not because he didn’t want this, but because no one had ever let him want anything before.

“Is this okay?” you whispered.

His hands hovered at your hips, unsure, waiting.

“Yes,” he said again, rougher now.

You settled fully, the contact drawing a sharp breath from him. His hands finally found you then, tentative at first, like he was afraid you might disappear if he touched you too firmly. When you leaned down and kissed him, it was slow and deep and unhurried. Nothing was being taken from him, nothing was being rushed.

When you peeled off his clothes and he took yours off, you could feel the want radiating off him. You felt it in the way his body responded to you, in the way his breath hitched when you moved, the way his grip tightened just enough to say don’t stop.

You realized, distantly, that this was the first time your body wasn’t being used as currency or obligation or proof of obedience.

You were choosing this.

He was choosing you.

“This feels…” he started, then stopped, voice breaking. “Is it supposed to feel like this?”

You smiled through the tightness in your chest. “I think so.”

Afterward, as you collapsed against his chest, boneless and breathless. He wrapped both his metal and human arm around you immediately. 

You lay there listening to his heart slow beneath your ear, both of you stunned by the same thought:

So this is what it’s meant to be.

—

Morning greeted you softly, filtered through pale light and the hush of the sea.

You woke up first.

For a moment, you didn’t move, afraid that the Winter Soldier might vanish if you acknowledged him. His arm was still around you, breathing deep against the back of your neck. In sleep, he looked younger, like less of a weapon. He was just a man, his pretty lashes resting against his cheek.

You turned carefully, easing yourself so you were half draped over him, your fingers brushing his jawline.

He stirred awake anyway.

His eyes opened, panicking for half a second… until they focused on you.

You leaned down and kissed him.

It was gentle, impossibly intimate after everything that had passed between you. He exhaled into it, hand tightening at your back.

Then, as if reality started keeping in, he pulled back just enough to look at you. 

“There’s something you need to know,” he said, swallowing hard.

Ah. Of course. Too many truths in your life had come with consequences.

You lifted your head to look at him. “Hm?”

His grip tightened, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment, like he was bracing himself, then finally turned his eyes to you. 

“They wipe me.” he continued, holding on to whatever sentience he had left from that chair. He knew he was missing most of his life, and he knew why, but he didn't know what. “If anyone finds out...” He swallowed, eyes darting to your face. “They’ll wipe you from my memory.”

Your chest constricted painfully.

What kind of sick fucks could do this to a man?

“I can survive a lot of things,” he said, more urgently now. “But I don’t want to forget you.”

You had lived your life under secrecy already, hidden pills and bruises folded neatly into obedience. 

This was different, but it wasn’t unfamiliar.

“No one will ever find out,” you promised, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth. 

Besides, you both knew the other half of it without saying it.

No one could know because your husband could never know.

If Dragunov found out, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. You would be dead, and the Winter Soldier would be blamed, broken down, stripped of whatever fragile autonomy he had left.

—

When your husband finally decided the crisis was over, he didn’t ask if you wanted to leave the island.

He informed you.

Six months had been long enough, he said. Long enough for the world to calm down. Long enough for him to remember that you existed, and that you belonged on his arm, in his home, as proof that nothing had been lost during the chaos.

You watched the island recede through the helicopter window, the water swallowing the place where you had learned what safety felt like for the first time in your life.

—

The townhouse welcomed you back with open doors. You and your husband’s bedroom was untouched, preserved like a shrine. Jewels waited in velvet-lined drawers. You wondered if your husband even slept in there at all. 

Your husband kissed your cheek that first night, already distracted.

“I am glad you are back,” he said, loosening his tie. “But things will be… busy.”

Busy was an understatement.

He was gone most of the time. Days turned into weeks where he barely slept in the house at all. He had flights, meetings, and emergencies that pulled him away. And when he was home, he was distant, tired, already halfway gone.

Not that you cared. If anything, it became easier for you to pretend he didn’t exist. 

And one day… you asked for a bodyguard, since he was always gone for so long. 

You didn’t specifically ask for the Winter Soldier out right, but you suggested it to your husband, made it seem like his idea.

“He’s familiar with my schedule,” you’d say offhandedly during dinner, “besides, it’s inefficient to retrain someone new.”

Your husband waved a hand, barely listening. “Fine. If it makes you feel secure.”

Secure.

That almost made you laugh.

Still, his request to assign him to you was approved. Besides, why would he object? The Winter Soldier was a weapon, not a temptation. What threat could a mindless asset pose to this marriage?

You were a sensible girl, right? There was no way you could desire a monster. 

So he was assigned to you again. And again. And again.

The Winter Soldier would stand outside your bedroom door while you and your husband slept inside it.

He followed you through townhouse gardens. 

He watched you play the perfect wife.

But when your husband was gone, you’d take him by the hand and lead him into places he never meant to be.

Once, you recklessly pulled him into your husband’s own bed while the man was halfway across the continent. 

“You can come in,” you said, tugging him in and closing the door behind you. 

He hesitated, always hesitant with you, always waiting for permission before feeling even remotely comfortable inside.

You sat on the edge of your bed, silk robe slipping off one shoulder, heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

“He’s not here,” you reassured. “You can stay.”

He laid with you that night like it was the most natural thing in the world, though it took him a long time to touch you again, for the first time since the island. His restraint was its own kind of intimacy— it was intoxicating.

That night, you laughed softly into the Winter Soldier’s shoulder, the sound equal parts triumph and disbelief.

You were… happy.

Here, of all places.

—

As your husband left for work more often, these nights happened more frequently.

“My love,” you whispered into his skin. “You are so good to me.”

And every time, he froze as if the nickname anchored him to the world.

Your husband slept in that bed less and less. The Winter Soldier slept in it more.

Sometimes fully dressed, sitting back against the headboard while you drifted off with your hand curled into his sleeve.

Sometimes, he was close enough that you could feel every slow breath he took, every restrained movement when you shifted against him.

You learned each other in whispers and glances and lingering touches that said everything without saying anything at all.

You took him places that had once terrified you.

The study.

The hallway outside your husband’s office.

The kitchen.

The underground bunker.

What little power you felt doing this made your head spin.

—

This affair continued for the better part of another ten years. 

And in that time, you perfected a careful choreography of obedience that kept your husband pleased and uncurious. You learned how you should stand beside him at events, silent and composed, his hand possessive at the small of your back while other men admired what they thought was devotion.

They called you the perfect wife.

They had no idea it was an act.

Your husband stopped speaking of children somewhere around five years ago, because he’d decided he didn’t need them to prove anything anymore. Instead, he took pride in you. In how calm you were now, how compliant, how docile, how you never argued, never embarrassed him.

“You’ve learned your place,” he once said in bed, satisfied.

You nodded. You let him believe it.

Because submission bought you something precious: freedom in the margins.

And in those margins lived the Winter Soldier.

You saw him when you were lucky. Sometimes, you got your bodyguard request approved every other week, when he was between missions. More often. It was every other month. Sometimes longer. Sometimes just long enough to remind you he was real before he was taken away again.

Still, they wiped him.

Over and over.

They took pieces of him each time, most memories, sometimes entire years. Sometimes he came back distant, his eyes emptier. Sometimes he returned with fragments of kindness intact, like bruises that never quite faded.

But no matter what they did to his mind, they could never erase you.

Not really.

He didn’t always remember your name. Sometimes he didn’t remember how he knew you. But his body always did. His eyes always lowered when they landed on you. His steps always slowed when he approached. 

In the end, his hand always found yours like it belonged there.

Once, after a particularly brutal reset, he stood in your doorway, brow furrowed like he was fighting an invisible force.

“I don’t understand,” he said, almost to himself. “They said you’re just… a mission.”

You reached for him. “And do I feel like one?”

He shook his head. “No.”

You realized early on that love alone wasn’t enough. So you started keeping notes.

You hid them where no one would ever look; between the false backs of drawers, inside the spines of books your husband had never touched.

You wrote down everything.

His favorite food (beef stew, eaten slowly). The way he preferred his coffee when you made it in what little mornings you had (black, untouched until it went cold). The songs that he hummed because something about them felt familiar.

Then, you started writing about yourself.

Who you were. How you laughed. What he did that made you feel safe.

You wrote down how he loved you. How keeping this a secret was his idea. 

You wrote about the way he always positioned himself between you and doors, how he watched your hands when you were nervous, how he slept lighter when you were beside him.

After a wipe, you would bring the notes out slowly.

Never all at once.

You’d sit with him somewhere no one would see you, hand resting near his but not touching unless he reached out first.

“You like this,” you’d say gently, sliding a page toward him. “You always did.”

You’d watch his brow furrow as he read.

“This sounds like me,” he’d murmur.

“It is,” you’d say. “And this—” you’d tap another line, softer now, “—is us.”

And it always worked, even if not perfectly, not immediately.

But enough.

Enough for him to look at you and feel his heartstrings tug where memory should have been. 

When you were really lucky, and he was out of cryofreeze for months, he would start remembering his past. 

This would happen maybe once every couple of years.

He told you he remembered Coney Island. 

He told you the number 107 was familiar, though he didn’t know why. 

He told you he remembered going to a baseball game.

And you wrote those down, too.

You loved him in stolen moments and half-lives. You loved him, even knowing he might forget you tomorrow.

Your husband never noticed the notebooks, never questioned the time you spent alone. He never wondered why the Soldier, an asset, was assigned to his household so often. He never noticed how the house felt alive only when the guard was home. He never suspected that the most dangerous affair of his life was happening right under his roof.

He thought you were broken into obedience.

He never realized you were waiting.

At night, you lay beside him or alone and counted years like a promise.

One day, you thought, he will die before me.

He was much older than you, after all. And unlike your lover, he had no serum to help with age. Perhaps, that was your only ticket to freedom. 

One day, I would outlive him.

—

On the sixteen-year anniversary of your wedding, you stood in front of the mirror out of habit, adjusting an earring your husband had chosen for you, silk cool against your skin.

You looked… good. 

You looked youthful. 

Wait.

Wait. 

The woman staring back at you just looked… wrong.

You did not look tired or worn. Your skin was not etched with time the way sixteen years of survival should have been.

Your face was smooth. Your eyes were clear. Your skin was unmarked by age. You looked exactly as you had in your mid-twenties… 

You were unchanged, untouched by time.

Your breath caught painfully in your throat.

How come you’ve never realised this before? 

Have you been too preoccupied with your sad, pathetic, little life that you hadn’t noticed? 

Have you just been that fucking stupid? 

“No,” you whispered.

You leaned closer, fingers shaking as you touched your cheek, your throat, the faint line at the corner of your eye that should have deepened by now.

Behind you, your husband’s voice carried through the room. “You finally noticed.”

You turned slowly, dread pooling heavy in your stomach.

“What?” Your voice sounded thin. “What did you do to me?”

He regarded you with satisfaction, like a man watching a successful experiment reach its conclusion.

“A couple of years ago,” he said casually, adjusting his cufflinks, “I had you given an injection while you slept. It was… an experimental formula.”

Your heart began to race.

“What kind of formula?”

“One that slows cellular degradation,” he replied. “Aging, effectively. You won’t stop entirely—but you’ll take much, much longer.”

Your vision blurred.

“You drugged me,” you said, the realization hitting like ice water. 

“I protected my investment,” he corrected smoothly. “Once I realised it was working on you, I did it to myself, too.”

What?

You were a fucking human experiment to him now? 

And now he just won’t fucking die until you’re both like, what— four hundred years old?

You… you simply couldn’t suffer that long. 

“No,” you said, backing away from him. “No, you didn’t have the right. You didn’t—” Your voice broke, rage and terror flooding in all at once. 

He frowned slightly, irritated now.

“I ensured continuity,” he said. “You’ll remain… presentable.”

You laughed, barking out a broken, hysterical sound, and it turned into sobbing before you could stop it.

“I thought,” you cried, hands fisting in your hair. You couldn’t quite believe you were admitting this to your abuser, that you were just telling him the truth. “I really thought one day you’d die before me. I thought I’d outlive you. I thought I’d finally be free.”

Your body shook as years of endurance collapsed into one raw moment.

“You don’t get to choose this for me,” you screamed. “You don’t get to decide how long I belong to you—how long I suffer—”

Before you could finish, he… hit you. 

Your head snapped to the side as pain exploded across your face, the world tilting violently. You staggered, barely staying on your feet, the taste of blood blooming metallic on your tongue.

Your husband stood where he was, cold as always. 

“That,” he said quietly, “was unbecoming.”

Your cheek burned. Your heart pounded so hard it felt like it might tear itself apart.

For the first time in years, he didn’t even bother pretending to love you.

“You forget,” he continued, voice low and dangerous, “that everything you are… your body, your time, your life— was negotiated long ago.”

You lifted your head slowly, tears streaking down your face, fury blazing through the pain.

And in that moment, standing frozen in a body that refused to age, trapped in a life you refused to end, you understood…

He had stolen even time from you.

—

He left the next morning for work in a different continent like nothing had happened.

He gave you a perfunctory kiss to your cheek before he got on a car to the airport. 

You didn’t realize how tightly you’d been wounding yourself up until he was gone.

You didn’t even realize you’d slid down to the edge of the bed until your hands were clutching the sheets and your chest hurt from breathing too hard. The mirror across the room still reflected a woman who hadn’t aged, who hadn’t been allowed to. 

Then, you heard footsteps in the hall.

You didn’t look up at first. You didn’t have it in you to perform.

Then he spoke. “Hi.”

You lifted your head… and there he was.

You almost forgot that your husband had requested him to guard you while he was away for his work trip. 

The Winter Soldier stood in the doorway exactly as you remembered him from a month ago. He had the same posture. Same eyes that turned gentle the moment they landed on you.

And you knew just by looking at him… he remembered.

They hadn’t wiped him yet.

Between the last time he saw you and today, they must’ve not had the time. 

“Hey,” he repeated again, as he saw you in shambles on the floor, like he was approaching a wounded animal. He knelt next to you, wrapping his human arm around you. “Hey. I’m here.”

That was it. That was all it took.

You collapsed into him, fingers fisting in his jacket, breath hitching violently as everything you’d been holding back tore loose. He caught you without hesitation. His metal hand cradled the back of your head, pressing you into his chest like he could shield you from the world by sheer force of will.

You told him everything.

The mirror.

The injection. 

You told him about the slap. About the words. About how your body wasn’t yours, and not even time was yours anymore.

When you finally ran out of words, he lifted your face gently, thumbs brushing under your eyes.

He kissed your tears away.

Each kiss landed like he was undoing the damage one breath at a time. Your lashes fluttered as he pressed his forehead to yours, breathing you in like he needed the proof that you were here, alive.

You kissed him first.

Your mouth crashed into his like you were afraid he might vanish if you didn’t glue him to you. He made a low groan against your lips, surprise melting instantly into hunger, and then he was kissing you back, unrestrained, his hands sliding to your waist like they’d been waiting all month to remember the shape of you.

You pulled him up and toward the bed.

“Stay, my love,” you whispered, selfishly and trembling. “I need this.”

He followed you willingly, easing you down onto the mattress, his body hovering above yours like a shield. He paused there, eyes searching your face for any sign of hesitation.

You didn’t give him any.

Instead, you told him the thing you’d been afraid to want.

“Leave marks,” you breathed, fingers tightening in his shirt, clawing the off his body. “Please. I want to see them. I want to feel them.”

His eyes darkened. “He’ll see—”

“He won’t,” you said urgently. “He’ll be gone for two weeks. They’ll fade by then.” Then, you breathed out, closing your eyes just for a second, admitting a pathetic little feeling you had in your chest. “I just… I want proof. That I’m yours. Even for a little while.”

Oh.

He swallowed, and then he nodded.

When he kissed you again, it was deeper. His hands explored you like a vow, not taking but claiming space with permission. He pressed you back onto the mattress, his body bracketing yours, heat and weight and presence making your breath stutter.

His mouth traced your jaw, your throat, and he lingered. His lips pressed harder there, teeth just barely grazing skin before soothing it with a kiss. You gasped, arching without meaning to, fingers clawing into his shoulders.

“That okay?” he asked, voice rough.

“Yes,” you breathed. “God, yes.”

He listened to every sound you made like it mattered. Like it guided him. When his mouth returned to your neck, he didn’t rush. He marked. A kiss bloomed into heat. Then, he left another, lower. His hands at your waist held you steady while his mouth left evidence you could feel spreading under your skin.

You clung to him, dizzy with the sensation of being wanted without demand, touched without fear. 

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, breathing heavy.

“Look at me,” he said.

You did.

His eyes were full of you. 

And you were not a mission. You were a choice.

“You’re not his,” he said quietly. “Not in any way that matters."

You kissed him again, slower now, and pulled him down with you. 

—

The next morning felt impossibly… normal.

It felt domestic in a way your life had never allowed before.

Sunlight poured through the tall kitchen windows, warming the stone floors and going through glass jars your husband never touched. 

You stood at the stove in your sleep shirt. Your husband would never have even allowed you to go out of your room in something so… messy.

The fabric hung loose on you, sleeves rolled twice, collar open enough to reveal the faint shadows at your throat. You hadn’t bothered to cover them. You didn’t want to. 

The pan was warm beneath your hand, butter hissing softly as you poured batter and watched it spread into imperfect circles.

Pancakes.

You laughed at the absurdity of it.

You had never once cooked like this for your husband. Not because you couldn’t, but because it had never occurred to you to want to. Meals with him were formal, they were supervised. Food was just another presentation.

But for the soldier? It felt different.

You flipped one, the edges golden, the smell filling the kitchen triggering a memory you didn’t have.

The Soldier leaned in the doorway at first, arms crossed loosely. For once… there was no tension in his posture.

Eventually, he drifted closer.

You felt him at your back. His chin hovered near your shoulder. You turned slightly, and he bent without thinking, meeting you halfway.

You kissed him.

He kissed you back the same way.

Even now, you found it hard to believe he was the same cold, distant weapon you met on your husband’s island more than a decade ago. Perhaps, you had helped him recall part of his humanity, no matter how small. 

When he pulled away, his gaze dropped to your neck. Your collarbone. He studied the unmistakable marks he had left last night and frowned. 

He reached up as if to touch them, then stopped himself.

Instead, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to one. Then another. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly against your skin.

You turned, catching his face between your hands, thumbs brushing his cheeks until he had to look at you.

“Don’t be,” you said firmly. 

His eyes searched yours, like he was recalibrating what want was allowed to mean.

You turned back to the stove, and he stayed right there, arms slipping around your waist from behind, careful not to crowd you too much. His forehead rested against the side of your head.

Was this what mornings were supposed to feel like?

You started wondering, in another life, would this man have been your husband? Would he be  allowed to love you openly? Would you have woken up like this every day, cooking for each other, touching just because you could, because it was safe?

After breakfast, you sat together at the small table, knees brushing, plates between you. He ate slowly, like he always did.

After a long stretch of silence, he spoke.

“I think…” He hesitated, brow furrowing suddenly, like the thought hit him like a freight train. “I think I had a name.”

Oh.

He had never said that before.

This was… progress. He had stayed up late speculating with you before. He struggled to place an identity outside of The Soldier— and until now, he didn’t know for sure whether or not he had a life before this, or if he had always been The Soldier.

But if he had a name? 

It meant he had a past. It meant he wasn’t born and bred in Hydra— it meant he had his life stolen from him.

You didn’t rush him. You didn’t reach for him. You just waited, patient as you’d learned to be.

“Do you remember what it is?” you asked gently.

He shook his head.

“I don’t.”

There was no anger in it, just sadness. It was as if he’d touched heaven and lost it again.

You nodded, swallowing the ache in your throat. “That’s okay.”

And later, you took your notebook out.

You opened it carefully and wrote:

The soldier has a name.

You considered, then added:

He doesn’t remember it yet.

You sat with that for a moment before writing one last line:

But one day, I think he will.

—

The next couple of days were heaven.

It always was with the Soldier. It was always quiet, ordinary bliss. His presence was a gentle constant. He always moved through the house like a shadow trained to protect, checking doors twice, windows three times, memorizing the way you took your tea. He had left you half an hour ago.

“I’ll do a perimeter check around the neighborhood,” he’d said, brushing his knuckles along your chin. “Protocol.”

Right.

Because even when he was yours, he was still theirs.

He still had a job to do. 

You had taken a bath when he left, letting the heat melt the tension from your bones. For once, you felt safe enough to close your eyes.

You traced the bruises absently with your fingers. Remembering the way he’d listened, the way he’d stopped when you asked. These bruises were given, not taken. Perhaps it was the last semblance of control you had in your life. 

As your thoughts drifted, you wondered again about his name.

What it might’ve sounded like before it was taken from him. Whether it fit the man he was now or the boy he must’ve been once. You tried a few possibilities in your head, smiling faintly when none of them felt right.

One day, you thought.

Twenty minutes slipped by unnoticed.

When your fingers began to wrinkle and the water cooled, you finally pushed yourself up, reaching for a towel. You dried off slowly, wrapping a towel around your body as damp hair dripped down your spine. And because you didn’t even think you needed to close the bathroom door, you heard the bedroom door open.

Oh, you thought, the Soldier was back.

Weird— the neighborhood was quite big, it usually took him a little longer than this. 

But hey, you weren’t complaining.

“My love,” you called lightly, distracted as you patted water from your arms. “Can you get me some water?”

Movement ceased for a second, before you heard a bone-chilling chuckle. “You have never called me that before.”

Your stomach dropped so hard it felt like the floor vanished beneath you.

No.

No no no.

You turned to see your husband standing just inside the room.

He wasn’t angry yet. Instead, he looked observant, as if he was walking in on something interesting rather than catastrophic. His coat was gone, tie loosened, as if he’d been home long enough to settle in.

“You weren’t expecting me,” he said mildly.

You couldn’t breathe.

“You were supposed to be gone ten more days,” you whispered.

“I came back early.” He gave you a shrug. “The meetings wrapped up.”

He took another step closer, and then he finally saw you properly.

Your bare skin.

The faint bruises blooming at your throat, your collarbone, and it was too intimate to be explained away.

He stopped in his tracks to stare.

It took a few seconds for the realization to fully reach his eyes. 

“…Who,” he asked slowly, “were you actually talking to?”

Your back hit the wall as you retreated instinctively, towel slipping, your body suddenly feeling unbearably exposed, vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with being seen.

You shook your head, already knowing there was no answer that would save you. “Please—”

It didn’t matter.

It didn't take long for his mind to catch up.

Only one man was in his house in the last couple of days, a man you had requested over and over again.

How could he be so stupid?

“The soldier,” he said flatly. Then he laughed, almost in disbelief. “You let that touch you?”

Before you could respond, he moved fast.

His hand closed in your hair, yanking your head back hard enough to make stars burst behind your eyes. You cried out, hands coming up instinctively, heart hammering.

“You filthy whore,” he hissed. “You think you get to choose who you belong to?”

He dragged you away from the bathroom and threw you onto the bed. The mattress dipped violently beneath you as you scrambled back, panic flooding your brain.

“You embarrassed me,” he snapped. “With a machine. A thing.”

Your breath came in sobbing gasps as he loomed over you, fury spilling out unchecked now.

“How long,” he asked, stepping closer, “have you been spoiled goods?”

Your breath stuttered. “I— I—”

His hand slammed into the wall by the bed, and it left a dent. 

“How. Fucking. Long,” he snarled. “Answer me, slut!”

You shook your head wildly, tears spilling before you could stop them. “Please—”

He grabbed your throat.

Not crushing, yet, but firm enough to steal your breath away, to remind you exactly how small you were. Your hands clutched uselessly, clawing at his wrist.

“How long,” he demanded again, face inches from yours, “have you been letting the asset touch what’s mine?”

Your vision blurred. Your lungs burned.

“T—ten years!” you shrieked, the words tearing out of you in a broken sob.

His grip tightened in shock as he lifted you up the bed by the neck.

“Ten,” he repeated, stunned, then furious. “You’re telling me you’ve been ruined for ten years?”

He shoved you back down, disgust etched into every line of his face.

“Everywhere I go,” he spat, “people look at me and don’t know I married trash.”

You coughed out, certain he left marks.

“With him?” he went on, voice rising now. “That brainless machine? You spread yourself for that thing?”

He laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

“I gave you everything,” he said. “And this is how you repay me?”

You shook your head violently. “I— he—”

Then, he struck you. Punched you. 

It was not enough to knock you out, but enough to mar the inside of your cheeks bleed.

You cried out, collapsing back onto the mattress as he loomed over you, breathing hard, eyes blazing.

“I should’ve known,” he said coldly. “You were always filthy.”

His hand dropped to the side of his belt. 

“No,” you whispered. “Please—”

He drew the knife from its holster slowly, savoring the way you recoiled.

“I’ll clean up my mistake,” he said. “I always do.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Was he gonna carve you up with his initials? Was he gonna take something away from you? Was he going to kill you?

A blood curdling scream left your mouth as he took one step forward…

Bang.

His body jerked, expression frozen in disbelief.

Then he collapsed, lifeless, to the floor.

The Winter Soldier stood there, chest heaving.

He hadn’t hesitated.

There had been too much anger in him, built up by years of commands, violence, punishment, being used as a weapon for men like your husband. When he’d heard you scream, he had barged in and acted.

Because your husband was hurting you.

He lowered the gun slowly, like his hands had suddenly remembered how to be human again. His eyes flicked to the body once then immediately to you.

All that fury drained out of his face once he realised you were safe.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

You opened your mouth.

Nothing came out.

How were you supposed to even answer that question? 

One thing was for sure, though: you were happy.

He can never hurt me again.

Your breath broke into something that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been a sob. You pressed a hand to your mouth, eyes burning, staring at the stillness of him, cruel even in death. 

Then… the dread crept in.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, finally catching up to the situation at hand. 

You scrambled off the bed, your legs barely holding you up. “Oh my god—they’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill us, he was important, they’re going to—”

You started shaking violently, breath coming too fast, hands clawing uselessly at your arms like you could hold yourself together by force alone.

The Soldier shut the door behind him, draping his jacket over your bare body, he helped you stand before gripping your shoulders, forcing you to look at him.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re not dying today.”

Your breath hitched violently. “You killed him.”

“I know.”

“They’ll hunt you,” you whispered. “They’ll hunt me—”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “Which is why you’re leaving. Now.”

Your head shook helplessly. “What—?”

“You need to run,” he said without a doubt. “We don’t have much time.”

He stood, already moving, already thinking three steps ahead. “Pack a bag. Only what you can carry. Take money, jewelry. Anything small you can sell fast.”

“What about you?” you cried.

“I’ll handle the body.”

That snapped you out of it.

“No,” you said hoarsely, back to him. “No—don’t—you can’t—”

“I can,” he cut in, already pulling gloves from his pocket. “And I will.”

You grabbed his arm desperately. “Come with me.”

“If I run with you,” he said carefully, urgently, “you’ll have an even bigger target on your back.”

“I don’t care,” you said fiercely. “I’m not leaving you.”

He closed his eyes for half a second, just long enough to imagine what that life would be— running with you, living with you. 

He opened them, when he realised that you would never rest with him by your side. 

“Listen to me,” he said, gripping your arms harder, not hurting, just grounding. “You need to disappear. Alone.”

You shook your head again, tears spilling freely. “I won’t—”

“Pack,” he cut in, voice breaking through your panic. 

“I’m not leaving you!” you repeated, voice cracking.

“Please,” he said.

The word didn’t belong to the Winter Soldier. It wasn’t command or protocol or programming. It was him. And right now he was desperate and human and afraid in a way Hydra rarely allowed himself to be.

“Please,” he repeated. “If you stay, they will use you against me.”

You shook your head, chest heaving. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

His forehead rested against yours, just for a second. 

He leaned in, brushing his lips against your, ever so slightly, like he was memorising the way you tasted. 

“I need to know you’re safe,” he said, almost begging. “Please. Please do this for me.”

Oh.

It was a want. The Winter Soldier wanted. 

You swallowed hard, nodding even as it felt like your heart was splitting in two.

—

You packed in a haze.

Your hands shook as you pulled cash from the hollowed-out boxes in closets, from behind loose bricks, from the lining of coats you’d never loved. You took jewelry next, glittering things stripped of sentiment and reduced to weight and resale value. Lastly, you packed all your notebooks, because you could not risk Hydra or the Red Room finding out. You didn’t look at them for long. 

You dressed quickly, mismatched and careless, fingers numb. The mirror caught you once, and you saw a bare face with wild eyes, a woman finally unadorned.

When you came back into the bedroom, The Soldier was waiting.

The body was already covered, wrapped in white sheets that almost felt merciful. Nothing of his remained but absence, a void where terror had been. 

You didn’t look. 

The Soldier stood near the door, alert. When he saw you, he sighed in relief, as if the twenty minutes where he couldn’t see you were the longest twenty minutes in his life.

You stepped into him without asking, arms wrapping around his waist, face pressed to his chest. He held you immediately, like instinct had overridden programming. 

“I love you,” you whispered into the fabric of his tactical shirt, the words torn loose from your throat.

“I know,” he said finally, barely holding it together. “I… I love you, too.”

You pulled back just long enough to kiss him.

It wasn’t frantic.

It was devastating, a goodbye pressed into skin. It was a kind of kiss meant to survive distance, time, and wars. The kind you could live on when everything else was taken.

When you parted, he rested his forehead against yours, hands still braced at your waist like he couldn’t trust the ground beneath you.

“Don’t look back,” he said gently. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea.

You nodded, even though your throat burned, even though every part of you wanted to stay. 

But you loved him too much to destroy him.

So you turned away… because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t leave at all.

—

Thirty-eight years later….

You had lived entire lives in that time, but your body had betrayed almost none of it. 

You had barely aged a handful of years since the night you ran, leaving the Winter Soldier behind in a house soaked with blood.

At first, you thought you were imagining it. Trauma does strange things to time. But then mirrors started telling on you. Photographs lingered too long in their resemblance. Friends joked about your “good genes,” laughed about how unfair it was that you never seemed to change.

Eventually, they always noticed.

And when they did, you learned to disappear before they asked too many questions.

Roughly once every decade (sometimes twelve years if you were lucky, sometimes eight if someone looked too closely) you would fake a death and build a new life. You would get a new name, a new passport, a new accent practiced until it felt natural on your tongue. You’d make up a new birthplace, a new birthday, new parents who existed only on paper.

The first time you did it, you cried for weeks. It felt silly, mourning your own fake death.

The second time, you drank yourself to sleep, getting ready to start from the bottom again,

By the third time, you were used to it.

By then, Hydra had stopped looking.

Dragunov’s wife had become an urban legend. Eventually, files were closed when leads went cold. The world moved on, as it always did. 

Some said she drowned herself after her husband’s brutal murder but a mysterious intruder. Others claimed she fell from the cliffs near the townhouse—a tragic and poetic accident. A few speculated that she was taken by the intruder, that both were spirited away.

You never bothered to correct them.

After all, you weren’t her anymore.

And his life, your current identity, was your favorite.

For the first time, you stopped running long enough to build a lasting career. You spent the early years of the twenty-first century earning degrees, burying yourself in theory and methodical language of law. You learned how borders were drawn, how power justified itself, how violence hid behind bureaucracy and signatures.

It made sense to you.

You became a professor of international law.

You taught students who believed, desperately, that rules could restrain empires. You didn’t laugh at them. You remembered what it was like to hope. You taught them about war crimes and treaties, about accountability that came too late, if it even came at all. 

You never told them how personal it was.

Your colleagues assumed you were in your early late twenties, maybe early thirties. You let them. You smiled when they joked about your “ageless look” and changed the subject when you could.

You were safe.

But you were lonely.

Then one evening, you came home late, arms full of papers, mind still half caught on a student’s argument about sovereignty and intervention. The television was already on, background noise you’d forgotten to turn off that morning.

You dropped your bag, and the screen showed chaos.

You saw creaming reporters struggling to keep their footing as three helicarriers burned behind them. The Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters, was collapsing in on itself. 

You scoffed. About time, you thought. 

You’ve been a critique of S.H.I.E.L.D. in your papers. You argued that a government-backed organisation that had basically zero transparency had no place in the world. 

You stepped closer, studying the chaos. Perhaps, you could talk about it in your next class.

The footage cut wildly as angles shifted and cameras shook.

And then, for just a second, between debris and fire, you saw a man aboard the ship.

He… had a metal arm.

You blinked. Once. Twice.

The camera swung away. The shot was gone.

But your hands were shaking, papers sliding from your fingers to the floor as an impossible thought rooted itself in your mind: 

You could have sworn…

You could have sworn it was him.

—

That night, you didn’t sleep at all.

You laid in bed staring at the ceiling, the room washed in shadows that shifted with every passing car. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw fire and steel, a flash of metal catching the light where it shouldn’t exist. 

You told yourself it must’ve been a coincidence. Perhaps a trick of the camera. A relic of a past you never let yourself mourn properly.

At some point, during the hollow hour just before dawn you heard a knock.

It wasn’t loud. Just three firm, measured taps against your front door.

You looked at the clock. 5.02 AM.

No one ever came to your apartment that early. No colleagues, or students, or friends close enough or foolish enough to show up before sunrise. For a while, you didn’t move.

Then the knocks came again.

You swung your legs out of bed, bare feet silent against the floor. Your hand hovered near the doorframe as you leaned forward, peering through the peephole—

And your breath left you entirely.

The Winter Soldier stood in the hallway like he didn’t belong to time anymore.

He was just as tall as you remembered him, the same broad shoulders. His hair was longer now, falling into his eyes… but it was him. 

Unmistakably. Miraculously.

The metal arm rested at his side. He looked… nervous. 

Your hand shook as you unlocked the door.

It opened on a gentle click.

For a second, neither of you spoke.

The hallway smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals. He looked at you like he was bracing for rejection, for disbelief, for the door to be slammed in his face.

“Hi,” he said finally, voice rough but gentle, like it had been worn down by years of disuse. He swallowed once. “My name is Bucky.”

His name.

He finally knew his name.

Your breath hitched painfully in your chest.

There had never been anyone else but him. No other man, no other love, no other name that had ever mattered the way he did. You had carried it with you for nearly forty years, tucked between identities, folded into the pages of notebooks, written and rewritten like a prayer.

He remembered.

He remembered his name.

You barely registered the blood on his face, barely registered the impossible logistics that must’ve led him here.

How did he find you? What did he use? Public records and libraries, perhaps? But that didn't explain how easily he had done it, considering how thorough you had been with your identity changes. 

How had he managed to track you down in less than half a day when Hydra couldn’t do it for the better part of three decades? 

And then it hit you.

You had told him once.

On that island, barefoot in the sand, dreaming of a dream you didn’t think you’d ever touch.

In another life, I would be a diplomat, you’d said, not thinking much of it. If not, I think I’d teach international law in a city like DC.

He remembered, and your faculty page would have been easy to find. You had a profile photo that hadn’t aged the way it should have. Maybe he’d recognized your eyes, and that was enough to bring the lost memories back to life.

It didn’t matter.

None of it mattered.

You stepped forward and pulled him into you before either of you could think better of it. Your hands came up to his face, your fingers trembling as they traced the lines that time had carved into him.

And you kissed him. He tasted like blood and oil and sweat, but you did not give a fuck.

It didn’t take long for him to melt into your touch.

“Hi, Bucky,” you breathed against his mouth, loving how his name felt in your mouth. 

That was all it took.

His breath shuddered violently as his forehead dropped to yours, his hands clutching at you. A heartbreaking sound tore from his chest, and he laughed and cried at the same time, shoulders shaking as decades of being lost finally caught up to him.

“You remember me,” he said, voice cracking so tightly it hurt to hear. “You remember me the way I….”

He couldn't finish his sentence, but you knew what he meant to say. 

You remember me the way I remember you.

You swallowed past the ache in your throat, tears blurring your vision as you held his face between your hands.

“Of course,” you whispered, a sad laugh making it past your lips. “Of course I do, Bucky.”

You guided him inside, away from the open door, away from the world that had spent so long tearing you both apart. You shut the door behind you, locking it with a final click.

For the first time in a long, long time…

He was home.

–end.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[jardanikos]

[itshelia]

My mom to her friends, my aunts, and literally everyone she knows: Yeah, my kid is so smart. She is on her phone a lot of the time, but it's not like you guys think, She is not like how kids nowadays are, She reads a lot of books on her phone!!

Me, a fanfic reader who can survive off nothing but just words and day dreams herself to sleep:

[aquaticmercy]

Black Sheep

Summary : The Winter Soldier fell in love with his doctor. Bucky Barnes remembers.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x doctor!reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Protective!Bucky, slow-burn, trauma bonding, whump, bit of fluff and a lot of angst, violence, mentions of death, medical trauma, human experimentation, psychological manipulation, emotional and physical abuse, attempted and threatened sexual assault, isolation. Protective!Bucky, slow-burn emotional bonding, and angst. Reader discretion is strongly advised, especially for survivors of sexual violence or abuse. (Please let me know if I miss anything!!!)

Word count : 9.2k 

Requested by : Anon! Based on this request

Note : If you’d like to be on the taglist, message me! It gets lost in the comments sometimes. Enjoy!

When you took the job, you didn’t ask too many questions

The recruiter approached you late—long after you’d sent out resumes, long after your student loan grace period had dried up and your dreams of a hospital residency were smothered under interest rates and rejection emails. They found you exactly when they knew you’d be desperate. 

The offer came in a nondescript envelope. No return address and company name. Just a number to call, and a time limit.

It sounded too good to be true. It offered full medical license activation and triple the usual pay. Off-books, but government-sanctioned, they claimed. You’d be working with elite personnel in a high-clearance, undisclosed location. It was a matter of national security, they said. 

When you made contact, they brought you to a warehouse and made you read non-disclosure agreements—dozens of them. They didn’t let you take them home to review. You signed everything in a windowless room with a clock that ticked too fast, and signed up to the project.

Your official title was “Classified field medic for enhanced personnel. Clearance Level 6 required.” It sounded impressive, official. You told your parents it was part of a DOD black ops program and that you weren’t allowed to say more.

You were happy you could finally help— 

 they had far too much medical debt to ever dig their way out.

And… They were proud.

If only they knew.

You were told you’d be assigned to “classified subjects.”

When they finally gave you the details of the work, you noticed the facility wasn’t listed on any public records. The address they gave you wasn’t on any GPS. The car that picked you up had no license plates. You were blindfolded before arriving.

You should have run then. But you didn’t, because they paid in advance.

You paid off your loans in one go and gave the rest to your family, promising you’d be earning more over the next couple of years. 

The facility you were assigned to didn’t have windows. The lights never changed. Days bled into each other until even your internal clock began to fail you. The air was too clean, the silence too dense—like the walls were swallowing sound. They injected you with yellow liquid when you arrived, and you weren't allowed to ask for details. Cameras were in the corners, always watching. 

You weren’t allowed to ask names. You weren’t given files.

You weren’t allowed your phone. No clocks. No outside contact unless you had prior clearance.

They never called it a hospital, because it wasn’t.

It was a slab of steel buried deep underground in Siberia, and you worked under it like a cog in the coldest machine you’d ever known. The men you reported to didn’t wear name tags or rank insignias. They all looked the same— pale-faced, dressed in black. You didn’t know their names, and you have never heard them use yours, either.

At first, you told yourself it was temporary. Just for a year. Just until you paid off your loans. Just until you figured out where you really belonged.

But then you saw the red flags. You folded them neatly and tucked them away with your conscience.

See, they knew the kind of people to look for— desperate ones. They recruit smart people who were overworked, drowning in debt or grief or fear. The ones who couldn’t afford to ask where the money came from. 

And by the time you realised who you were really working for, it was too late. Because no one leaves that facility unless it was in a body bag. 

Hydra was predatory like that.

—

You had been patching up STRIKE team operatives for almost a year. You were good—efficient, clean, and silent. You didn’t pry, and what made you valuable.

You never asked where the injuries came from. Bullet wounds, knife gashes, torn ligaments, crushed bones—you treated them all. You developed antiseptics that worked faster than standard-issue cream and learned how to seal a shrapnel wound in under ten minutes. You fixed what needed fixing, and you didn’t get in the way of the mission.

One morning, you were pulled from your bed at 0400 hours without an explanation. Two men in black shook you awake by the arm and took you to an elevator that descended farther than you knew the facility even went. There was a change in the air the deeper you went—thicker, colder. Like the walls were full of ghosts.

They didn’t tell you what your new assignment was, not until you stepped into the white-lit room and saw him.

He was on a reinforced chair, with blood crusted over his ribs and soaked through his cargo pants. The metal arm was twitching with little sparks, the seams dripping oil and blood in equal parts. His right eye was swollen shut and his lip was split.

And still— he didn’t look away.

You’d heard whispers about him before— the Asset.

They called him It.

Not a name. Not a person. A living weapon— built, not born.

You expected more people guarding the cell, but the only other man in the room was his handler— Colonel Vasily Karpov. You’d met men like him before, but none who looked so openly afraid of the thing they commanded.

"The previous doctor had been terminated due to noncompliance,” Karpov said, which was Hydra-speak for the Asset snapped his spine in two like a breadstick.

Your mouth went dry. "And I’m next in line?"

“You’re competent,” he said. “And replaceable.”

He walked out before you could respond.

The door shut behind him with a final hiss, like a coffin sealing.

And then there was just you— and him.

You took a step closer. He tracked your movement with his blue, calculating eyes. You could tell he didn’t know what you were—but knew how to kill you if you got close.

You didn’t speak at first. You just moved slowly, methodically. 

Eventually, you became brave enough to clean the blood. You assessed the damage. His injuries were extensive— fractured ribs, dislocated shoulder, deep lacerations across his abdomen. Most people would’ve gone into shock hours ago.

But he sat there, still breathing like a machine.

He didn’t flinch when you treated him.

Not even when you pulled a broken tooth from the inside of his right bicep.

He winced, though, when you put a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. And later, when your gloved hand rested gently on his chest, while rubbing small circles to calm him down, his eyes flicked to your face.

It was the first time he looked at you. 

Afterward, you logged the treatment. You followed the protocol. You filed the injury report.

In the official files, they referred to him as an it. But in your private notes, you called him he.

—

Over the next year or so, you were his doctor. 

And apparently, you were the only doctor who survived more than eight months.

You’d fix up his ribs when they were fractured. You cleaned bullet wounds from his side, his shoulder, the meat of his thigh. You iced swollen knuckles and stitched torn flesh, always so amazed how quickly his body healed. 

But still, they used him until he broke. They froze him from time to time, but after he was out, they dragged him back and told him to put the pieces together.

You worked in silence. He sat in silence.

Most days, his eyes were washed-out and programmed.

But sometimes, during the worst of the injuries—when your hands pressed into open wounds, when you whispered sorry— his eyebrows softened.

At this point, you had memorised his injuries, and the places his enemies targeted again and again. You started pre-packing supplies before he even arrived. 

The handlers noticed.

You began modifying your ointments—adding subtle numbing agents, to match his supersoldier metabolism. 

You weren’t supposed to. They wanted him in pain. 

But you did it anyway.

Once, they brought him in half-conscious, his metal arm sparking at the joint, blood soaked through the tactical gear. There was a knife wound under his ribs— and it was too deep. 

He grunted when you pressed gauze to it.

It was not a reaction to pain. It was a warning. His eyes met yours, and they were clearer than usual— as if he was fighting something.

And then, for the first time, you realised: He knew what was happening to him.

Maybe not always. Maybe not fully.

But there was a man inside the machine, and today was awake just long enough to hate it.

That night, they froze him and drilled the trigger words into his brain again. 

—

Tonight, he came back worse than usual.

Bruised. Bloodied. Shot in seven different places. His face was partially swollen, split lip crusted with dried blood, a jagged tear across his side soaking his uniform black-red. His metal arm twitched violently, fingers clenching and unclenching with a mechanical rhythm— as if the programming inside him was short-circuiting.

He was strapped into the chair again, the restraints digging into his wrists deep enough to turn the skin purple. Four guards had hauled him in like he was an animal— one of them nursing a broken arm. 

They left you alone with him and chuckled, “good luck.” 

The Asset’s head was bowed low, hair falling like a curtain over his eyes. The tension in his shoulders was wrong. Too rigid, too coiled, like a wire stretched too tight and ready to snap.

You stepped closer, and he jerked suddenly against the restraints—and his metal hand nearly caught your arm.

You froze.

In your peripheral vision, the guards laughed behind the glass.

He didn’t look at you.

He was breathing hard and shaking violently, as if was trying to stay in his body.

You looked at the camera in the corner, swallowing back a panic and anger.

“I can’t treat him like this,” you said. If he didn’t calm down enough for you to stitch him up soon, he was going to bleed out.

Your voice was sharper than you meant it to be. It was… unprofessional. 

A few seconds passed before the speaker crackled.

“That’s too bad,” said Karpov’s cold, detached voice. “It is your job.”

You stared at the glass behind which they watched— always watched.

Then you turned back to him.

You tried, as always, to be gentle. To be careful. You knelt to clean the gash under his ribs. You threaded your needle, soaked the wound with antiseptic.

But his body thrashed again.

You dropped the needle.

His metal arm lunged forward, nearly catching your throat before the restraints snapped him back into place.

He didn’t mean to, you reminded yourself.

But the part of him that killed without asking questions was surfacing, and you were too close.

Your hands shook.

He turned his head away from you as if ashamed. Or furious. 

Fuck.

You were losing him.

So you did the only irrational, human thing that came to mind.

You… sang.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool…”

Your voice cracked on the first line. It had been years— you hadn’t sung it since you were small— curled up on your mother’s lap while she ran her fingers through your hair and kept the nightmares away.

You saw his breathing slow down, just slightly. 

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full…”

He…  didn’t flinch again.

You kept singing while you threaded the needle and stitched the worst of the gash along his side. His trembling eased.

You spoke without really meaning to, your voice almost a whisper.

“My mother used to sing it to me,” you lulled. “I only realised later what it meant,” you continued. “‘One for the master, one for the dame…’”

You wiped sweat from your forehead, working on a deeper wound now.

“Servitude, right? ‘One for the little boy who lived down the lane.’ Maybe lullabies sung to entertain children. Maybe they’re for making people… obedient,”

You paused, still stitching, thankful he calmed down. 

“Because I think…,” you said, tilting your head as you managed to fish a bullet out of his side. “Obedience it taught. Not born.”

And then, like the thought slipped out of your mouth without permission, “Were you taught well?”

You didn’t expect a response. 

But this time, his head turned and he looked at you.

His voice came out rough, underused, gravel dragged across rusted metal. But these sounds were not growled nor screamed.

“It was the only thing I remember learning,” he whispered. 

You froze.

It was the first time you had ever heard him speak.

The needle slipped from your hand, fell into the tray with a clink. You were stunned. 

Through all that, he watched you. 

You knelt beside him, picked up the needle again with shaking hands.

His eyes followed you as you resumed treating him. He was silent the rest of the session. 

But something had changed.

—

The first time he leaned into your touch was a couple of months later. 

You were bandaging a wound just beneath his collarbone in tight, methodical loops when your fingers brushed the skin of his neck. He let out a deep breath and tilted his head just slightly toward your hand.

He… made a conscious choice. 

You didn’t say anything, and neither did he. But your hands lingered a little longer than usual.

Sometimes, when he was lucid, he’d look at your hands while you worked— following their motion like they were the only real thing in the room. You weren’t sure what he was seeing. 

Then… you started narrating aloud. It was partly for him, partly for you. “This’ll sting a little,” you’d say, cleaning a wound.

“Pressure here—sorry, hold on…”

He never answered at first. 

Then one day, he did.

You were stitching a deep tear in his thigh when your thread caught. “Sorry,” you said under your breath.

“You always say that.”

You looked up, needle halfway through the thread. “Say what?”

“‘Sorry,’” he managed, “it’s not your fault.”

“Sorry,” you mentioned sheepishly. “I’ll stop saying it.”

Then, you resumed your work.

The next time he came in, he was limping badly, and for once, the restraints weren’t used. Maybe they knew he couldn’t stand. Maybe they didn’t care if he bled out.

And he didn’t even make it to the chair. He sat on the floor instead.

When you knelt beside him, your knees touching his, he didn’t pull away. He let you cut the fabric from yet another ruined suit— fifth one this month— or year? You have long lost track of time in this Siberian bunker. 

Still, he let you clean the blood from his temple.

“Don’t they ever give you a break?” you asked, not expecting an answer.

“No,” he said simply. 

You frowned. 

Still, your hands were steady.

You started humming when he came in—low, quiet melodies under your breath. Sometimes lullabies. Sometimes nothing at all—just sounds, like a lifeline tossed into water. He never asked you to stop.

One night, after they’d brought him in burned—his arm singed, the edge of his jaw blistered—you held an ice pack against his skin and whispered, “You shouldn’t be alive after half of this.”

He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, after careful consideration, he said, “Sometimes I think I’m not.”

Eventually, he started helping you—lifting an arm for treatment, shifting his weight when he knew it would help you work faster. He never said much. Never more than a sentence or two. But the words, when they came, were clear. 

“Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

One night, he asked for your name.

You told him. But when you asked him what his was, he only said, “I don’t know.”

But for the first time in a very long time, The Asset smiled. 

Because it was the first time anyone ever cared to ask.

—

When he wasn’t in cryofreeze, they kept him in a reinforced room that wasn’t technically a cell, but wasn’t anything else either. It had a cot, a chair, and a toilet.

You called it the holding room.

They called it the kennel.

You’d come in for treatment checks once or twice a week between missions— tended his joints, monitored the fluid viscosity in his metal arm, checked for infection. 

But the guards watched him too. Always. From the control room, behind the glass, hands on the mic.

They joked about him.

At first, it was petty things— how much blood he could lose before he passed out, how many bones had healed crooked.

But it got worse.

Much worse.

They joked about his body when he was in heat. How he “rutted in his sleep sometimes.” How they’d seen the security feed catch him grinding against the mattress, the cot, the restraints, whatever he could in his animal state after missions.

“He’s always desperate after a kill,” one of them said once, laughing. “Bet he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Fucking the pillow like a mutt.”

You had frozen when you heard it. But today—today, it went further.

“Bets?” one of them said. “Ten rubles on the mattress tonight. Twenty on the wall.”

All three of the guards stationed to watch that night laughed. 

“Stop,” you said, through gritted teeth. “What you’re doing is disgusting. Watching him like that—mocking him— when his agency’s being taken from him? He’s a fucking person and you need to grow up.”

What followed was the longest ten seconds of silence in your life. 

And then one of them leaned forward in his chair and sneered. “If you think he’s a person, why don’t you go in there?”

You blinked. “What?"

“Go on,” The other guard grinned and got up from his seat. “If you think he’s man and not machine, let’s test it.”

You stepped back, realising what their plan was. “Don’t touch me.”

“Too late.”

Their hands grabbed your arms.

You fought—kicked, screamed, bit one of them hard enough to draw blood—but there were three of them, and you were half their size. One of them slammed your head into the wall hard enough to daze you. 

You didn’t know where the pain began — your scalp where they’d yanked your hair? The side of your jaw where a fist had struck you clean across the face? 

Still, you fought. You slammed your elbow into one guard’s windpipe hard enough to make him choke. You thrashed and tried everything, but they were stronger. 

And they enjoyed it.

You’d never seen teeth like that — bared in joy at suffering. One of them— Maksimov had blood on his knuckles and another— Yuri had both hands up your shirt before you bit him hard enough to draw blood.

You screamed, “He—we— a person!” not knowing whether you meant yourself or the Winter Soldier.

But they didn’t care.

One of them tore at the buttons of your shirt while another held your arms behind you. The fabric split as your bra snapped and air hit your chest and you curled inward, shaking, humiliated, trying to hide your body with trembling hands.

“He’ll definitely go for her pussy,” one of them muttered like it was a bet at a bar.

“I’d go for the ass first,” another chuckled. “Tighter.”

Then came the worst line.

“I bet the dumb beast doesn’t know the difference and finish in her mouth in under three minutes.”

The laughter didn’t stop.

Your legs gave out once they dragged you through the hallway to the lower levels. You stumbled, bleeding from your lip, your breasts half-exposed, nails broken from the fight. They hauled you back up and slammed your back into the steel door before keying it open.

You saw the inside of the room for only a second before they shoved you in and locked the door behind you with a clang.

“Have fun, soldat!” A guard, Anton, said.

You fell, and started trembling.

Everything hurt.

And then you looked up.

He was there.

The Asset — him. The Winter Soldier.

He was standing in the center of the room. He wasn’t strapped down this time, his long hair damp and clinging to his cheeks. His chest was bare, streaked with drying blood and oil. His eyes locked onto you the moment you hit the floor.

You froze.

Your arms flew across your body, trying to cover yourself as you backed yourself into the wall.  You curled in on yourself, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the rush of blood in your ears.

He’ll fuck you, they had said. He’ll take the choice away from you. He’ll use you as a way to satisfy himself.

You believed it for a second.

You’d seen what he could do — seen the machine they’d made him into. You’d see the bloodlust in his eyes when he came back from missions. 

You were terrified.

You curled tighter.

He took one step forward.

And… stopped.

You took a chance and looked at your face.

He wasn’t looking at your chest. He wasn’t leering. His pupils weren’t blown wide with mindless hunger. He wasn’t hard, or panting, or unchained from reality.

He was staring at your injuries.

At the torn fabric, at the swelling in your cheek. The handprint rising red on your arm. And the grip marks on your breaks. The blood at your lip. His brow furrowed.

And his whole body… melted.

The heat was gone, almost instantly. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.

“Who…” he rasped, “did this to you?”

His voice was hoarse, barely there. But there was no mistaking the rage that had formed underneath it — nothing like the lust the guards had imagined.

He handed you his only blanket, and you clutched it. He let you wrap yourself in it, and when you couldn’t stand, he helped you sit up, not touching your skin unless he had to.

“Maksimov, Yuri, and Anton,” you whispered, lip trembling.

His teeth clenched.

He reached out slowly — slow enough that you could move away, slow enough that you knew it wasn’t force — and brushed the blanket more tightly around your shoulders, like he was covering you from the world, from the camera, from the three guards he knew were watching.  

You were still crying. You didn’t realise it until his human thumb brushed away a tear from your cheek.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

He just sat there, at your level, holding the blanket closed with one hand, eyes locked on yours. Not on your body. Not on your skin. 

You folded into his chest, not because he demanded it, but because it was safe. 

He wrapped his arms around you like he’d never learned how to hold a person without breaking them. And still — he didn’t break you.

He just held you, shivering, until your breathing slowed.

And in the silence, you heard the quietest thing of all. “I won’t hurt you.”

Once again, The Asset had made a choice. 

A human one.

—

Hours passed.

The two of you stayed curled together on the concrete. You had stopped crying eventually, but your body still trembled now and then— from shock, from adrenaline.

You still felt his arm around your shoulders—gentle, not possessive.

The guards who had been watching were probably bored. You thought maybe—maybe—you’d be left alone. Maybe they’d gotten the message. Maybe they wouldn’t push again.

You were proven wrong when the heavy steel door hissed open.

You barely had time to pull the blanket tighter.

The same three guards entered and they were prepared. They carried sleek, matte black rifles. Loaded, to deal with The Asset should he go rogue. 

And then you heard the voice.

“Что с тобой, солдат?” — What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldat?

Yuri stepped forward, gun dangling casually in his hands, eyes not even on The Asset— but on you.

“Мы дали тебе дырку, и ты даже не воспользовался ею?” — We gave you a hole and you didn’t even use it?

You flinched so hard your head hit the metal wall behind you.

The Asset stood up and stepped directly in front of you, body between yours and theirs, fists clenched. He was…shielding you.

The guards exchanged glances, laughing now. One of them cocked his gun and slung it over his shoulder like a prop in a theatre.

“Ладно. Тогда мы сами её трахнем,” —Fine. Then we’ll use her ourselves. Maksimov said, smiling.

And then Yuri moved fast. He reached out and grabbed your ankle, hard, yanking you out of the blanket.

You screamed.

And The Asset snapped.

No hesitation, No programming.

Just rage.

The Asset’s metal fist punched Yuri square in the chest and launched him into the far wall. The impact was loud enough that you heard a crack—maybe the wall, but most likely Yuri’s spine.

Before anyone else could react, he twisted and ripped the rifle from Anton’s hands. Without really aiming, he pulled the trigger and shot Maksimov in the throat.

Blood sprayed the walls, and Maksimov gurgled once before slumping to the ground.

Anton raised his hands to surrender.

Too late.

Bucky pivoted, metal arm slamming the barrel of the rifle into Anton’s face with brutal force, then fired— one shot, clean through the eye.

He dropped the gun.

It clattered to the floor, ringing louder than the gunshots had.

He turned back toward you, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath.

He knelt. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You blinked, still clutching the blanket, hands shaking.

—

Within minutes of the bodies hitting the ground, you heard the sound of heavy boots walking in.

Karpov entered the cell like he owned the air in it.

He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t look at the corpses.

He only looked at The Asset who was still crouched in front of you, body curled like a shield.

Karpov simply pressed a switch on a small black device he held in his gloved hand.

There was a crack of electricity, and The Asset screamed.

You jolted, reaching for him—but it was no use.

His body seized up as the taser pulse ran through his spine, his metal arm locking tight against the floor, 

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even try.

When he collapsed unconscious beside the cot, Karpov turned to you without missing a beat.

“Come.”

You shook your head. “He—he was protecting me—he saved me—”

“You’ll have time for your little report later,” he snapped, throwing you some clothes to put on. “For now, come.”

—

The interrogation room was cold. 

Karpov stood across the table from you, arms folded.

“You will explain,” he said coldly.

Your eyebrows furrowed, still half in shock. “Explain what?”

He tilted his head. “You calmed him down.”

Your mouth opened, then shut.

"You do understand," he said in his frigid Russian-laced English, “that he should have either killed you, or fucked you.”

You froze.

He watched your reaction like a scalpel watches skin.

“That’s what the programming was designed to do,” he continued. “You are aware of his conditioning, yes?”

You nodded slowly, not trusting your voice.

“Then you know what heat was for.”

You have heard of why it was drilled in his brain— but you didn’t answer.

Karpov did not wait for permission to continue.

“It was an instinct trigger. Embedded in his biological and neural mapping through synthetic hormonal injections and psychosexual conditioning. During these ‘heat’ cycles, he was supposed to be motivated—” He paused, eyes narrow, “—it was supposed to encourage mating.”

Your throat closed. Did he really not care about the dead guards? Was the project really his main concern?

“The Soldier’s DNA is nearly perfect.” he said, as if it was. “Hydra wanted progeny. Super soldiers born, not built.”

He leaned in then, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth.

“But every woman they introduced… didn’t survive long enough to be useful. He tore through them out of instinct. So the project was abandoned years ago. The heat was too unstable, and he had no control.” He sat down across from you. “Until you.”

Your stomach lurched.

“You,” Karpov said slowly, “calmed him down.”

“I—I didn’t do anything,” you whispered. 

“You must have!” he snapped. 

You flinched. 

“I’ve studied his tapes for years! I've watched him crush skulls with his bare hands, tear out throats. Rip people in half when the words are spoken. But you—” Karpov stood, circling the table again. “—you knelt half-naked in front of him while he was in heat—and instead of fucking you to death, he held you.”

“I don’t know,” you said hoarsely. 

Karpov stared at you for a long moment, then sighed. He picked up the file from the table and turned to leave.

At the door, without turning back, he said, “You’re being reassigned.”

—

When you went back to your quarters. Your bunk was gone.

Your locker was cleared and stuffed neatly into a duffel bag. 

On the floor was a folded piece of paper.

REASSIGNED TO: THE KENNEL Effective Immediately. Observation: Subject Winter Soldier Objective: Behavioral stabilization Note: Subject's physiological response indicates reduced volatility in your presence. Further utility assessment pending.

You sank onto the cot.

Now, to Hydra, you weren’t just a doctor. You were a leash.

—

The cot wasn’t meant for two.

It was military-issue— narrow, hard-edged, bolted to the floor like everything else in the kennel. At first, you didn’t even sit on it when he was there. You’d sleep on the floor with your back to the cold steel wall, too awkward to mention what happened that day. The blanket was wrapped tight, pretending it wasn’t humiliating, pretending you weren’t always cold.

At first, he’d just watch, afraid of crossing a line— especially after what had happened to you. 

Then, after a week, he motioned for you to sit beside him on the cot when you changed bandages or administered injections.

Then, a month in, after a mission where he came back with his knuckles broken and a gunshot wound near his ribs, you were too exhausted to curl back up on the floor. You’d been crying silently that night, your hands trembling as you stitched him, your eyes stinging, wondering where everything had gone wrong. 

When you’d finished, he looked at you. “…You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Your eyes flicked up.

“What?”

He shifted to make room. One side of the cot opened up to you.

You hesitated. Then nodded.

That night, you lay stiff as a board beside him, back to back, flinching to touch. You barely slept, afraid to breathe too loud.

But the next night, when you came back from the showers and the lights dimmed for sleep, he scooted over before you even asked.

By the second month, your backs were pressed together at night. 

By the third, you’d curl inward, and he’d curl, too. One of your legs would brush his. Your forehead might graze his chest. His arm, the flesh one, sometimes draped around your side in the middle of sleep and didn’t pull away when you shifted closer.

—

When his heat cycles came—and they always came—you prepared.

You stayed calm and gave him space. 

You… would sing to him. Lullabies, mostly— songs meant for children too small to understand how cruel the world could be.

He never moved toward you during those nights. He never touched you without invitation. He’d sit on the cot, the muscles in his neck pulled tight.

Sometimes he’d whisper things to himself, half-delirious.

"No. Not her. Not her."

—

When he was frozen, you stayed in the kennel alone.

You didn’t think you’d miss him, but you did.

You’d find yourself sitting on the floor beside his cot, staring at the sealed cryo-chamber, singing to yourself just to fill the space.

And when they unfroze and reset him, you were still his doctor.

You still iced his knuckles. You still placed his dislocated shoulder back. You still pulled bullets from his flesh and closed the wounds with care no one else gave him.

But after the first few months, he started looking at you differently.

Like he knew you. Even after resets. Even after ice.

—

One day, after a mission that had stretched on far longer than any of the others—he came back. He was quiet when he entered. He did not say a word. 

But after two hours of working on his wound, he whispered, “Bucky.”

You tilted your head, confused. You weren’t sure you’d heard right. 

Then he said it again, firmer this time. “My name is Bucky.”

What?

Your mouth opened slowly, your breath finally catching up. 

He… remembered?

“…Okay, Bucky,” you said, voice quieter than you meant it to be— because anything louder might shatter whatever this was—perhaps a glimpse of the man buried beneath all the programming and pain. “Can you please lift your arm for me?”

He did.

And for the first time, he looked… not just present. Not just there.

He looked real.

—

You were still asleep when the cold hands tore the blanket from your body.

Two Hydra agents stormed into the kennel, and before you could even sit up, they had you by the hair, dragging you off the cot like a rag doll.

Bucky shifted awake next to you, but the third guard tased him before he could fully even register what was happening.

“What—what are you doing—?!”

They didn’t answer. They just manhandled you down the corridor, your bare feet scraping along concrete, your heart still stuck between dreams and dread.

In the interrogation room, one of them shoved you into the metal chair so hard the back of your skull smacked against steel. A hand grabbed your chin, wrenching your face toward him. The other paced behind, a cattle prod crackling ominously in his grip.

You recognised the person in front of you as Karpov. “What did he tell you?”

You blinked. Your ears rang. You were still half-asleep, disoriented. 

Then you realised: 

Oh. 

Someone saw the footage.

Someone saw what happened last night. Someone heard Bucky say his name.

Your mouth opened, before shutting again. You weren’t even sure what to say. He didn’t tell you anything else, but if you said so, would they even believe you?

But Karpov demanded more.

“Did he say his designation?”

“Did he say anything else? Was there a code?”

“What did he tell you, girl?”

The prod surged forward with a snap of electricity, kissing your side. You screamed—more from shock than pain—but the heat seared like fire across your ribs. You convulsed in the chair, gasping, trying to curl away, but the restraints held you firm.

And then—through your haze—you saw a flicker in the hall.

You heard a grunt. A thud.

And suddenly—he was there.

The Winter Soldier. No—Bucky.

His body still shook from the effects of the tasers, but his eyes were burning. 

One of the agents turned in time to catch a brutal kick to the gut that sent him sprawling. The other barely got a hand to his weapon before Bucky lunged, using the full weight of his body to knock him back. You saw blood and heard bone crack.

In seconds, it was over. Even Karpov was hauled away to safety. 

Bucky was at your side, kneeling, his trembling fingers working clumsily at the restraints. 

“Bucky—” your voice cracked. “You’re hurt—your face—”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes didn’t meet yours.

The cuffs snapped off.

You sagged forward, into his arms before you even realised you were doing it. You felt the thrum of his chest, the rise and fall of ragged breathing. 

He cupped your face with his human hand, and for a second you thought he might kiss you — but no. He pulled back.

Because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t have the strength to lose you.

“You need to go.”

You froze. “What?”

“There’s a tunnel—service corridor—they don’t watch it after hours. It connects to the south barracks. You can get outside the perimeter.”

“Bucky—no,” you said through gritted teeth, “I’m not leaving you.”

He clenched his teeth. 

“You have to,” he said. “I can’t protect you here.”

“I don’t care—”

“I do.”

That stopped you cold.

His voice cracked on those words. He looked away, just for a second, as if ashamed of how much he meant them. “I— I’m starting to know things I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “I need you to go. If I don’t… if I’m not… If they wiped me…”

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

“I need you to promise me,” he said, almost begging now. “Don’t come back for me.”

“I—please—”

His lips brushed your forehead, right before he shoved you gently but firmly toward the hall.

“Go.”

So you did.

—

Thirty Years Later.

The world had changed. 

Until yesterday, James Buchanan Barnes was a congressman. He didn’t go looking for redemption anymore. And he certainly didn’t go looking for you.

What would be the point?

You were probably… what? In your sixties? Seventies? If you’d survived at all— and Hydra said you hadn’t, that they’d caught you in one of the tunnels and killed you— he could only hope you’d built a life—married someone kind, had children, found a place where the past couldn’t follow you. If you had managed to find peace, he wasn’t going to rip it open like an old scar just to ask, Do you remember me?

So he never tried.

But he never loved again either.

Because even if he never said it out loud, Bucky Barnes had once loved you in a place where love wasn't supposed to exist. 

He still did.

That kind of love didn’t fade. It just lay quiet beneath the skin, like a healed-over wound that never quite stopped aching.

It wasn’t something he talked about. Not to Sam. Not to Steve, before he left. 

Until...

—

New York. Post-Void.

The sky was still clearing after the void had swallowed New York City whole

The Thunderbolts were scattered across the debris-littered street, dragging survivors from the wreckage after Valentina smirked smugly from successfully introducing them to the world as the New Avengers.

Bucky was scanning for movement in the fallen concrete.

That’s when he heard it.

It was faint, like madness like a lullaby from another life.

“Baa baa, black sheep… have you any wool…”

His whole body went still. 

He whipped around, scanning the dust and rubble, and—

There.

You were kneeling beside a crying girl on a broken stoop, blood smeared down her shin, and she had a sprained ankle— maybe. Nothing fatal—but you held her like she was made of glass, one hand gently pressing a bandage against her knee, the other stroking her curls as you sang.

And you… you hadn’t changed.

There was not a wrinkle on your skin, not a gray hair on your head. You didn’t look a day older than the last time he saw you, thirty years ago.

He was so stunned, he forgot how to breathe. 

“You know her?” Yelena asked, stepping beside him, flicking blood from her forehead.

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”

You calmed the little girl down when she started sobbing, making sure you were gentle with her injuries. 

Bucky didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His lips parted like he might say yes, but no sound came out. 

“One for the master, one for the dame,” you sang as the girl sniffled, “and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

It was like his lungs had forgotten air. His heart beat painfully inside his ribs—too much, too fast, too sudden.

And then—

You looked up.

Saw him.

And smiled.

—

You walked over to him like you were in a dream—like every step was an act of defiance to everything that had broken you, bent you, tried to erase you. 

He was now sitting on the ground, legs sprawled like they couldn’t quite hold him up anymore. Blood streaked across his jaw, already drying in cracked lines. His chest rose and fell like he’d just come back from drowning.

Your boots crunched over broken glass and gravel as you closed in. You didn’t speak at first. You didn’t know if he could handle words yet—not until your presence fully registered. 

You crouched down, and he flinched when you touched his face—not because it hurt, but because he didn’t trust that any of this was real.

“You’re hurt,” you finally said. “Let me help.”

You pulled out the antiseptic, your hands shaking slightly. You dabbed the cotton gently along the edges of a deep cut above his brow. The moment the liquid touched skin, he shuddered.

And then he started shaking.

The tremble that began in his hands and spread to his shoulders, his chest, his teeth. His mouth parted like he wanted to speak, to ask something, but the words got lost 

Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them. His breath hitched before the first choked sob, clawing its way up his throat.

And maybe it had been.

Because it wasn’t just about seeing you. It was about seeing you alive.

Alive.

Not a hallucination. Not a memory. Not like he saw you, in the void. 

Alive. With breath in your lungs and heat in your veins and the same look in your eyes that once held him when he was in pain. 

His lips moved—silent at first. Then the words came out shaky. “Do you… remember me?”

You froze for half a second, eyes softening in a way that shattered him all over again.

“Of course I do,” you whispered, brushing a stray hair away from his forehead. “I could never forget the love of my life.”

Was that what he was to you?

After all this time, he still meant the same thing that you did to him? 

He turned his face away like it might somehow spare him some tears, but it didn’t. The sob that followed ripped from the deepest part of his heart, almost primitive. Not the kind you cry when you’re sad, but the kind you cry when you realise your heart’s still beating after being convinced it was gone.

He collapsed into himself, shoulders hitching, breath stuttering out in ragged gasps. His metal hand clawed blindly at the ground like he needed something solid to hold onto before he slipped under.

You didn’t say anything else. You just moved closer, wrapping an arm gently around his shoulders, resting your forehead to his temple as he wept.

Yelena had wandered off a while ago—probably in search of someone else to pester— most likely her father. 

She hadn’t even looked back. She probably knew that this moment didn’t belong to her.

It belonged to him. And you.

He tried to say something else—an apology, maybe, or a confession—but all that came out was, “I—I…” he swallowed, “I— I…”

“Bucky…” You hushed him gently, thumb brushing the tears from his cheek. “We’ll talk somewhere private, yeah?”

He barely nodded. 

Because right now, language was too small a thing. All he could do was hold onto you. And all his mind could think was the way your hand fit in his like it always had.

—

You walked ahead of him, leading him down the cracked sidewalk with a hand hovering just near his arm in case he stumbled again.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

Every so often, Bucky would glance sideways at you—like if he looked away for too long, you might vanish. His eyes were still red, his fists clenched like it hurt to hold himself together. Still, he followed.

It wasn’t far—just a few blocks. Somewhere between tourist traps and bodegas. 

The sign above the trauma clinic was clean and professional. Your name etched in utilitarian serif, easily overlooked.

You didn’t take him through the front. Instead, you circled to the alley behind the building and paused before a rusted steel door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. But then—you looked directly at a small, seamless panel embedded beside the frame.

A red light swept across your retina, and when it recognised you— the lock hissed open with a pneumatic sigh.

“Come on,” you murmured as the door swung inward.

You descended a narrow staircase, the lights flickering on ahead of you one by one—clean, white fluorescence bathing the walls. At the bottom, it opened into a wide, reinforced corridor. 

And then you turned the final corner.

Oh.

That was all his mind could manage.

This was not a secret lab. Not some grim Hydra hellhole or impersonal bunker. 

No. This place was…

It was your life. A shrine. A sanctum buried beneath the city.

It was a sterile medical bay with sleek counters, an exam table and chair, sealed cabinets filled with trauma kits and gauze and every instrument a trauma doctor could need—but the walls told a different story.

To his right: a newspaper framed in glass. “Harlem Disaster Narrowly Avoided: Doctor Treats Over Fifty Civilians After Abomination Rampage.” Your name was in the byline. There was even a photo—blurry, taken on someone’s flip phone, of you, sleeves rolled up, arms smeared with blood as you performed a field tourniquet on a screaming man.

Then, “Unsung Hero of New York: Trauma Doctor Saves Dozens in Battle of Midtown.”

He kept turning. The memorabilia… evolved.

A cracked Daredevil helmet, dark red and scuffed.

A display case holding a single 9mm bullet, etched with the faint white skull of the Punisher— etched on it. 

A shattered web cartridge, unmistakably Spidey’s, with a bit of dried synthetic fluid still crusted at the nozzle.

Even a shelf with a glittery Ms. Marvel Funko Pop, clearly out of place, sitting cheerfully among medical books and gauze rolls.

Bucky’s voice, when it came, was nothing more than a breath. “What is this?”

You stepped beside him, your fingers trailing the little bobblehead. “Gifts from… friends.”

He turned to you. “Friends?”

You gave him a tired smile and joked, “Is it so unbelievable for me to have friends, Bucky?”

He blinked, startled by the levity. You gently nudged him to sit on the exam table, and he obeyed without protest as you cleaned his wounds. 

“I just…” he said, voice thin. “I don’t know how you’re still alive. Or how you still look so…” His eyes lingered. “…young.”

You didn't meet his gaze. “Thank Hydra.”

Bucky swallowed, but you continued. 

“When I got recruited, they injected me with something— they said it was just a stimulant— to keep me going longer, help me work longer hours.”

He went still.

“Later, I learned that it was something called the Infinity Formula. Not exactly a Super Soldier Serum, but it… slowed my aging significantly. I guess they didn't want to have to train more people.”

You kept working on the cuts on his face. 

“When you got me out… I didn’t know how to be in the world anymore. So I built this practice. I wanted to be… useful”

Your fingers paused briefly, then continued.

“But then, vigilantes started showing up. People who couldn’t go to hospitals— people who were bleeding, hunted, scared. It was a small community, so word spread.”

Bucky winced as you moved on to the next cut.

“I patched them up.” You nodded toward the artifacts on the walls. “No questions. Just… tried to keep them breathing long enough to get back out there. It became my life.”

Every artifact had a story, and you were the invisible thread stitching it together.

“A couple months ago, Fisk outlawed masked vigilantes and made everything worse. Not a lot come round anymore, but I still help. How could I not?” You looked up at him.“They show up half-dead, still trying to save people. They just need someone to believe they’re worth saving too.”

Bucky's hands curled into trembling fists at his sides.

You pulled the final stitch and wrapped the wound. “There,” you whispered. “You’re good.”

But Bucky didn’t move. He was staring again. Not at the artifacts, not at the walls. But… at you.

“You…” His voice cracked. “You never stopped.”

There was no more Hydra. No more handlers. No more needles.

And yet you continued doing what you do best. 

Back then, he'd thought he'd imagined it. That flicker of you— the only good thing in that place built to destroy anything good.

But now…

Now, here you were. Standing in front of him. Still real. Still breathing. Still looking at him like he was a man, not a weapon.

His voice, when it came, was hoarse and hesitant, like it hurt to say.

“Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He looked at you, struggling to find his voice. “Can I touch you?”

You didn’t move for a heartbeat. But then you nodded.

And that was all he needed.

He pulled you ever closer, barely daring to breathe. He lifted his metal arm so gently, like you might vanish if he pressed too hard— he cupped your cheek.

His thumb brushed along your skin, just once.

It was real. 

His other hand followed, cradling your face between his palms. His calloused fingers trembled against you, his lips parting. A man who had faced death a thousand times over… and was now utterly undone by the fact that you were standing in front of him, alive.

Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, and the first sob slipped out of him like a wound opening in real time. His whole body curled inward, as if trying to shield you and collapse into you at the same time.

Your hands came up slowly, mirroring his motion like magnets finding their way to each other after centuries apart, holding him just as gently. “I missed you, Bucky.”

His eyes, that haunted blue, searched your face. “Why didn’t you come for me?” he asked, pain buried deep in his voice. You must’ve seen him in the news— during the Sokovia Accords, the ordeal with the Flag Smashers, or when he became a congressman. You simply have had to have seen him.

You swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden sting in your eyes. “I didn’t think…,” you admitted, “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

His brows furrowed. “Of course I remembered you,” he said, a little broken, a little desperate. His thumb moved again, tracing circles against your skin. “But Hydra told me you were dead— I never believed them. But after everything, I thought maybe you’d moved on. That you were gone for good, one way or another.”

Tears welled in your eyes now, hot and brimming over, and you let them fall. “After what we’ve been through?” you asked, your voice trembling as a sad smile curled your lips. “How could I ever move on from you?”

He let out a sharp breath, like your words were a punch to the chest. Gently, as if giving you the chance to pull away,  he pulled you closer — chest to chest, heart to heart — until he helped you up and you were straddling his lap, your hands finding a perch on his shoulders, his arms caging you in like you were the most precious thing he’d ever held.

His forehead rested against yours again, breaths mingling, warm and shallow. 

“God, Bucky…After all this time,” you whispered in amazement, “what are we?”

He didn’t answer right away. 

Then, finally, with certainty, he said, “A choice.”

Your breath hitched.

“A choice,” he repeated, eyes locked with yours, his grip tightening slightly on your hips. “The first real choice I made after having my mind taken from me. The first person I cared for that were not orders, not missions.”

Oh.

You let your fingers trail up into his hair, letting yourself touch him like you’d dreamed about for so long. He leaned into it, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat.

You swallowed again, sighed when he leaned into your touch. 

“I…” you started, but  pulled back just slightly so you could see his face, your eyes meeting his. “Can I kiss you?”

He looked at you like you were the only person in the world that made any sense.

He could only nod. 

And you kissed him.

It was cautious at first, tentative, like a secret being unravelled — but the second he hummed, the world disappeared. His hand slid to the back of your neck, the other anchoring you to him as he kissed you like he’d been holding his breath for years. You melted into him, your mouths moving together like you’d done this a thousand times in your dreams.

When you finally pulled back, your forehead pressed to his again, both of you smiling like teenagers.

You let out a small laugh, “I’ve always wondered what your lips tasted like.”

He chuckled too, that low, boyish sound you hadn’t heard… ever. “Yeah?” he asked, fingers still tracing lazy lines along your spine. “Was it everything you imagined?”

You grinned, eyes still closed. “Better.”

He kissed your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth and whispered, “I missed you, too.”

—

You and Bucky had taken it slow.

After those first intense days together, you both decided to learn about each other outside of Hydra. Just to see who you were now. 

You went on actual dates— coffee that turned into late dinners, morning hikes, lazy afternoons in museums, cooking together and arguing over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. 

Turns out, outside the cold walls of bunkers and laboratories and hidden bases, you and Bucky were more compatible than you'd even dared hope. He liked vinyl records and peaceful mornings. You liked stargazing and stealing his sweaters. You both loved old noir films, loved sushi, and had developed a strangely passionate shared hobby for urban beekeeping.

You laughed more. He smiled more. It was like discovering each other for the first time all over again.

You’d kept your medical practice open, still offering your services to non-traditional patients. But when the Watchtower was done and the New Avengers moved in, they asked you to help the team.

Your official title was Medical Liaison and Trauma Consultant, but mostly you patched up a rotating cast of stubborn supersoldiers and spies who swore they “healed fast” and then passed out on your med bay floor.

But today, the med bay was calm — just a light checkup for Alexei, a bruised rib for Yelena, and a lot of banter.

Everyone knew you and Bucky were dating, but no one had the guts (or stupidity) to ask questions. 

Until now.

You were cleaning up your tray of instruments when Bob leaned back in his chair and asked casually, “So… how did you guys meet again?”

You paused.

Bucky, seated on the edge of the exam table with his shirt half-buttoned, glanced at you.

“Oh, you know,” you blinked, “Mutual enemies.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What does that even mean?” Walker asked, clearly disappointed. 

You smiled sweetly. “It means you don’t want to know.”

Yelena squinted at you from the other bed. “It means the real story is either classified or deeply traumatic.”

“Or both,” Alexei said.

You laughed — a little too brightly for the topic — and handed Yelena her discharge form. “Exactly. Now who’s next for bloodwork?”

Bucky slid off the table, kissing your cheek quickly as he passed. Ava rolled her eyes so hard you could practically hear it.

Mutual enemies? Yeah, right. 

The more accurate term would be: the best thing Hydra never meant to happen. 

– end.

General Bucky taglist:

@hotlinepanda @snflwr-vol6 @ruexj283 @2honeybees @read-just-cant

 @shanksstrawhat @mystictf @globetrotter28 @thebuckybarnesvault @average-vibe

@winchestert101 @mystictf @globetrotter28 @boy--wonder--187 @scariusaquarius

@reckless007 @hextech-bros @daydreamgoddess14 @96jnie @pono-pura-vida

@buckyslove1917 @notsostrangerthing @flow33didontsmoke @qvynrand @blackbirdwitch22

@torntaltos @seventeen-x @ren-ni @iilsenewman @slayerofthevampire

@hiphip-horray @jbbucketlist @melotyy @ethereal-witch24 @samfunko

@lilteef @hi172826 @pklol @average-vibe @shanksstrawhat

@shower-me-with-roses @athenabarnes @scarwidow @thriving-n-jiving @dilfsaresohot

@helloxgoodbi @undf-stuff @sapphirebarnes @hzdhrtss @softhornymess

@samfunko @wh1sp @anonymousreader4d7 @mathcat345 @escapefromrealitylol

@imjusthere1161 @sleepysongbirdsings @fuckybarnes @yn-stories-are-my-life @rIphunter

@cjand10 @nerdreader @am-3-thyst @wingstoyourdreams @lori19

@goldengubs @maryevm @helen-2003 @maryssong23 @fan4astic

@yesshewrites1 @thewiselionessss @sangsterizada @jaderabbitt @softpia 

@hopeofwinter @nevereclipse @tellybearryyyy @buckybarneswife125 @buckybarneswife125

@imaginecrushes @phoenixes-and-wizards @rowanthomasknapp @daystarpoet @thefandomplace

@biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @herejustforbuckybarnes @kitasownworld @shortandb1tchy @roxyym

@badl4nder

[midniqhtt]

𝐥𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐬

masterlist • 05/29/25

ROBERT ‘BOB’ REYNOLDS TWO

ROBERT ‘BOB’ FLOYD

MILES MILLER

⭑.ᐟ druxy I @noncrush

when you get hired at the el royale, you don’t imagine you’ll be staying there long. you don’t imagine you’ll find the love of your life, either. as it turns out, you’re wrong two for two.

⭑.ᐟ hotel el royale I @astraldelights

After a long journey, you only had one place to rest between borders

⭑.ᐟ i only have eyes for you I @/lewmagoo

CALVIN EVANS

⭑.ᐟ a fraction of a second I @voidsxntry

one morning walk. one wrong step

⭑.ᐟ please please me I @gothicgaycowboy

you persuade Calvin to spend a little less time at the lab and a lot more time with you.

⭑.ᐟ request I @moon-fics

BEN MEARS

⭑.ᐟ request I @lewmagoo

⭑.ᐟ whistle in the dark I @versipelleshhh

nature always has a way seeking to balance herself out, when a vampiric outbreak clouds a small town she sends a fur covered blessing

⭑.ᐟ till the end of the world pt2 pt3 pt4 I @voidsgf

an old flame is rekindled when you find yourself back in Salem's Lot alongside your ex-boyfriend, turned New York Times' (almost) bestselling author, Ben Mears. The only thing that stands in your guys' way is, well, a few undead vampires, and possibly worst of all, time.

⭑.ᐟ blood and ashes I @houseofaegon

Jesuralem's Lot is dead. But something still breathes in the bones of the Marsten House. Ben returns not to save, but to submit—to her. She is the last vampire left—and she’s starving. What she wants isn’t a meal. It’s him. Mind, body, soul. Forever.

RHETT ABBOTT

⭑.ᐟ goodbye kisses I @writingdumpster

the morning after a bad fight with rhett you don’t give him his goodbye kiss.

⭑.ᐟ drabble I @jasvtsc

MULTIPLE

⭑.ᐟ cumming in their pants I @delopsia

[brookghaib-blog]

The quiet things that remain - II

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: Bob and Y/N used to be the best of friends, he went to Malaysia to be better, only to leave her just with a ghost in the past and unresponded messages and calls. And return, but never to her. Never to the love she didn't had the courage to announce.

Word count: 10,1k

Warning: angst, depreesive thoughts, unrequited love, stalking, drug addiction

chapter I

--

The room in the Watchtower was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that brought peace — no, it was the other kind. The kind that echoed. That clawed at your ears and made every breath feel too loud, too alive. Bob sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, palms over his face, trying to hold in thoughts that had long since stopped asking permission to haunt him.

His thumb brushed something in his pocket, and his heart sank the way it always did when he remembered it was still there. He pulled it out — crumpled a little at the edges now, creased right through the middle from being folded and unfolded too many times.

It was a picture.

Their picture.

Prom night.

God, she looked beautiful. Not in the way people tossed that word around casually. Not like the glittering girls who bought their dresses a year early and posted rehearsed photos. No, her beauty was the quiet kind — the kind that struck him like lightning when she smiled, like she didn’t know she was doing it, like it just slipped out of her without warning. That night she wore this soft blue dress that barely fit right because they had bought it from a second-hand store, and her hair had been curled by her neighbor’s niece for free. But she was his.

And he — he was the guy in the too-big suit with a tie that Y/N had to fix twice. The guy who had dropped out months before, barely scraping by on gigs, sleeping in someone else’s garage most nights. He hadn’t been invited to prom, not really. He wasn’t part of that world anymore. But he had asked her. Not because she wouldn’t get an invitation — although, he knew she probably wouldn’t. Not because he pitied her, not even for a second.

But because he had wanted to. Before anyone else could see what he saw. Before someone could try to swoop in and act like they knew how to treat her better. He asked before it all changed. Before the Void got stronger. Before he started unraveling.

He remembered the way they danced — stiff, awkward, swaying in place while others moved around them with practiced ease. He had stepped on her toes so many times she just laughed and kicked his shin in retaliation. And he laughed, too. And for those few hours, he felt worthy.

But that was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.

When he went to Malaysia, it wasn’t because he had an adventurous spirit or some soul-searching excuse to make it noble. He went because he was a coward. Because every day in the States was a mirror to everything he had destroyed. Especially her.

She had held him through the worst nights. Nights when he was vomiting into buckets, shaking, crying, begging something he couldn’t name to just end it. She had held his face in her hands and whispered, “You’re not a monster, Bob. You’re sick, not broken.”

But he was broken.

And she wasted everything. Thousands of dollars in bail money. Rent money she didn’t have. Grocery runs that somehow always included his favorite cereal, even if it meant she’d only eat canned soup for the week. She gave him her bed when he had nowhere to crash. Washed blood out of his shirts when he’d get in fights. Hid his stash when he said he wanted to get clean. And when he failed, she still made him tea and said maybe tomorrow would be better.

He remembered one night, when she had worked a double shift and still came home to find him passed out in the hallway outside her apartment door. She dragged his half-conscious body inside and cried while she bandaged the new cuts on his knuckles.

That was love. That was her. And he let her drown.

No — worse. He pulled her under with him.

And still, she had smiled for the prom photo. Still, she had leaned her head on his shoulder like he was someone worth leaning on.

He wiped a thumb gently across the image of her face.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered to the picture, to the room, to the version of her that existed in the only place he could still hold her — memory.

Bob leaned back against the wall, eyes stinging, his chest tight with something unspoken. She could have had everything. College. A home. A future. But instead, she got him. And all he gave her in return was pain, fear, and an apology that never seemed enough.

The world saw the Sentry — a glowing god with impossible strength. But Bob? Bob saw a coward in a chicken suit who used to spin signs for cash and couldn’t even dance. A boy who ran to another continent because he was too ashamed to be seen by the only person who ever really looked at him.

And now he lived in a tower in the sky, surrounded by people who respected his power but would never understand his shame.

All he wanted — more than redemption, more than recognition — was to go back to that night. To that version of himself that hadn’t yet failed her. To hear the music again. To dance — even if badly — and know she was in his arms.

Because he hadn’t asked her to prom to fix her. He asked her because for one night, he didn’t want to feel like a mistake. And she had made that possible.

She had always made the impossible feel possible.

And he had walked away.

And now all he had left was a worn-out photo and the haunting question he would never stop asking himself:

What if I’d stayed?

God, he loved her. He loved her like a man dying of thirst in a desert, stumbling toward a mirage he knew wasn’t real but couldn’t stop chasing. He had always loved her. From the first time she rolled her eyes at his terrible attempt to fix a coffee machine, to the night she fell asleep on his shoulder during a movie marathon they couldn’t afford snacks for. She’d been his anchor when everything else in his life had slipped away, a lighthouse in the middle of a violent, black sea.

But he left.

Because loving her was easy.

Staying was the hard part.

He hadn’t run because he stopped loving her — he ran because he did. Because the deeper that love grew, the more the truth screamed inside him: she deserved a life that wasn’t spent waiting outside police stations or hospitals. She deserved a partner, not a project. She deserved poetry, not paranoia. A home, not hiding spots for narcotics.

And now? Now the drugs were gone, the sickness replaced by something far worse — power. The kind that shattered bones with a flick of the wrist, melted steel with a scream, erased cities in a blink.

He had nearly destroyed a building last week because of a nightmare. He didn’t even remember doing it until they showed him the damage. And he had thought addiction was the scariest part of him. Now he had to live every second fearing the thing inside him, this thing that wanted to hurt, to unravel, to destroy.

What if she had been there?

What if she had whispered to him in his sleep like she used to, trying to soothe him from a nightmare, and he’d woken in fear, in power, and — God.

The images haunted him. Her broken body in his arms. Blood he couldn’t heal. Screams he couldn’t undo.

He couldn’t even risk it.

Bob squeezed the photo tighter, fingers trembling as tears finally broke through the wall he tried so hard to keep up. He bowed his head, forehead resting on his knuckles, as if praying to a god he didn’t believe in anymore.

She was too good. Too kind. Too alive. And he was a man half-alive, stitched together by trauma and chemicals and cosmic radiation, held together only because people were too afraid to let him fall apart.

He wanted her.

He wanted her laugh in the kitchen again. Her sleepy voice asking him to turn off the lights. Her hair in his hands. Her nose wrinkling at his burnt eggs. He wanted the sound of her humming while folding laundry, the way her lip twitched when she was concentrating on a book.

He wanted to dance with her again. Properly. Without stepping on her toes. Maybe in the living room, barefoot, no music, just the sound of her breath close to his ear.

But what did he have to offer her now? A room in a tower that he wasn’t allowed to leave? A body that pulsed with danger? A mind that barely held itself together?

She didn’t love him like he loved her — he had always known that.

He would’ve taken her love at the slightest sign. God, he would’ve fallen to his knees for it. But love like that, love he wanted from her — it didn’t come out of guilt or pity. It came from freedom. And he had never given her that.

So he mourned.

Mourned a life that never got to bloom.

Mourned all the ordinary things he’d never have with her: birthdays, burnt dinners, arguments about dumb things, the feel of her hand in his during a movie neither of them liked. A child, maybe. A home. A Sunday morning.

He had loved her when he was nothing. Loved her as he became something terrifying. And now, as he stood on the edge of being unrecognizable even to himself, he still loved her.

But he couldn’t reach for her.

Because loving her meant letting her go.

Even if it destroyed him.

Even if every day he had to wake up in this tower, look down at the world that held her, and remind himself:

She is safer without me.

Even if it was a lie he barely believed anymore.

--

He hadn’t meant to walk that far.

It had started as a simple attempt to stretch his legs, to escape the suffocating stillness of his reality — the Watchtower walls too clean, too sterile, too artificial to hold any version of peace. So he slipped into the streets of New York, a hoodie pulled low over his brow, sunglasses covering the burden of his eyes. No one knew him, not like this. Not without the cape. Not without the glow.

He walked slowly, headphones in, music pouring soundscapes over his thoughts. The playlist hadn’t changed in years — songs she once liked, songs she might’ve liked. Tracks with lyrics that spelled out everything he couldn’t say to her, and never had the right to.

He thought about her every day.

In the quiet, between missions. During briefings. While shaving. While trying and failing to sleep. Her voice was a ghost he welcomed, a hallucination he refused to fight. She lived in the melody of certain words. In the shape of his pillow. In the steam from his mug. In every peaceful thing he encountered, she was there. And in every violent thing, she was the reason he hesitated.

That morning, the wind had that strange, biting softness of early spring — too cold for comfort, but gentle enough to pretend. She used to love days like that, he remembered. Said they felt like a promise. Like the world trying again.

He turned a corner, not really paying attention. Passed bakeries, coffee carts, flower shops. All things she loved. All things he remembered seeing through her eyes.

Books. Coffee. Birds.

She once told him that birds were proof life could be both messy and beautiful. That they shat everywhere but still carried the sky. That’s why she liked them. That’s why he liked her.

And then he saw it.

The bookstore.

It was unassuming. Brick walls faded by weather, a neon sign that flickered “Open,” its ‘O’ stubbornly dim. The display window was filled with paperbacks stacked in uneven rows, a handwritten note on the glass: Buy 2, escape twice. He almost smiled. It sounded like something she would say.

Maybe he’d buy one. She always said reading gave you extra lives. And God knew he needed another one.

He approached the window.

And that’s when he saw her.

She was standing on a wooden stool inside, rearranging a top shelf, her fingers running lightly over the spines of books like they were sacred. Her hair was tucked behind her ear the way it always did when she was focused. Her mouth moved slightly as she read titles to herself, and when one fell, she caught it with a flustered laugh, looking around to see if anyone had noticed.

Y/N.

Bob’s heart stopped. His breath caught. The world tilted.

He reached out before he even realized it, fingers brushing against the cool glass between them.

It was her.

Not a memory. Not a dream. Not a hallucination conjured by grief or the Void’s twisted games.

Her. In the flesh. In her world. Moving on. Living. Smiling. Alive.

He almost collapsed.

His knees buckled under the weight of it all. His fingers curled against his chest, against the photo tucked always in his jacket. The same face. The same girl.

He wanted to run inside. God, he wanted to run. Grab her. Bury himself in her arms and sob like the wreck of a man he was. Tell her everything. That he never stopped loving her. That he missed her so much it ached every moment of his cursed existence. That he was sorry. So sorry.

He wanted to say he still remembered the way her voice cracked when she tried to sing along to love songs. That he still carried the tissue she once wrote a grocery list on, with her doodles in the margins. That every moment he lived, she lived in it.

He wanted to scream, “Please. Just look up.”

But he didn’t move.

Because in that second, the world reminded him of the one unshakable truth: he did not belong to her anymore.

He didn’t belong to anything.

Not the streets of New York. Not the weight of a future. Not even to himself.

He was a ghost. A ticking bomb wrapped in skin. And she was... safe.

She looked so at peace. Like she had found a place in the world. A place he could never, ever risk stepping into. She looked home. And if he entered that bookstore, that sacred little world she had carved out for herself, he would bring chaos. He would ruin it. Just like he always did.

So he turned.

And he walked.

Every step away from that window was like slicing open his own chest.

He didn’t look back.

He couldn’t.

But a part of him, the part that still dared to dream, smiled through the pain.

She did always look like a pretty girl who’d work at a bookstore. That had been his fantasy for years — her behind a counter, coffee on her desk, recommending books to strangers, changing their lives with a sentence. She used to say that stories could save people. That if you spent just an hour in a fantasy world, maybe you could make it through reality.

And now she lived inside one.

He hoped she believed it. He hoped it saved her.

Because no matter how much he loved her, and oh — he loved her beyond reason — he could not be the reason her life unraveled again.

So he walked until his legs burned. Until the city blurred behind him. Until the only sound was his own heartbeat whispering her name.

Y/N.

His home. His ghost.

--

The Watchtower was quiet. Too quiet.

A sanctuary of glass and steel floating above the world, above cities he no longer felt he belonged to, above streets where real life happened — the Watchtower was cold. Polished. Functional. Beautiful in that sterile, untouchable way. It had everything he could need, yet it felt like nothing at all.

He wandered its halls like a ghost in a mansion too big for him, surrounded by everything and still lacking the only thing that mattered. It wasn’t that he hated it. No — Bob Reynolds understood what this place meant. What he meant. The world needed him to be here. Needed Sentry to show up to the galas, the photo ops, the charity balls with champagne flutes and polite clapping. They needed the godlike figure in golden light, the tragic redemption arc in spandex. A symbol. A story they could control.

And for once, Bob didn’t resent it. Not really. Because he had a room with a bed that was always made. He had clean clothes. He had the luxury of silence, of warm food, of people who at least pretended to care. He had friends now — of sorts. People who texted sometimes. Who invited him to rooftop dinners with wine bottles and awkward laughter. He had space.

He wasn’t locked in a cell or passed out in some alley. He wasn’t high. He wasn’t screaming at the Void inside his skull. He was safe.

And for a long time, he thought that would be enough.

But Bob learned something in that safety: The difference between being alone and being lonely.

Alone was what he craved when the world overwhelmed him. Alone was where he hid when he felt the darkness clawing behind his ribs. Alone was silence and choice.

Lonely? Lonely was after. Lonely was standing in a room full of people who only knew the surface of you. It was going home to nothing. It was the silence you didn't ask for. The kind that whispered her name.

He had time now — too much of it. And with time came thoughts, and with thoughts came her.

So he started walking. Every day, every chance he got. He’d vanish from the Watchtower, put on a hoodie and a cap and sunglasses, and disappear into the city. Into her world.

He told himself it was just to pass time. That the city soothed him. That walking helped clear his head.

But the truth was simple. Ugly. Raw.

He walked because she was there. Somewhere. And part of him was still trying to be close to her, even if she didn’t know it.

After all, he had found out where she worked.

A bookstore.

He wasn’t surprised. Not really. It made too much sense. She always smelled like paperbacks and cinnamon, always carried books in her purse, always talked about fiction like it was real and reality like it was negotiable. She had dreamed of quiet things. Soft lives. And now she was living one.

He’d walk by and see her sometimes through the window — standing behind the counter with her hair pulled back, cat hair on her sweater, a mug that said “books over bros” in her hand. She would laugh with customers, bend down to hand a little girl a picture book, roll her eyes at an old man flirting near the mystery section. He’d stare through the glass like it was a screen and he was watching the life they never got to have.

Other days, he’d see her at the park.

She had a routine, it seemed. Mornings or late afternoons, always with coffee in hand. She’d sit on a specific bench, the one they used to nap on during summer breaks. She’d sketch. Crochet. Read. Talk to an old woman who fed pigeons. And beside her — a cat. Dusty, he’d overheard someone say. A fluffball with attitude who’d perch in her lap like royalty.

He watched it all from a distance. Sat across the street, behind trees, across café windows. He never got too close. Never dared. But he learned her life like scripture. Memorized the way her hair curled in humidity. The way she tucked her feet under herself when she sat.

And she looked... peaceful.

Painfully so.

She looked like someone who had finally found her rhythm. Someone who had survived. Who had let go.

And God — he should’ve been happy about that. And he was. Part of him was.

Because he wanted her to be okay. Of all people in this world, she deserved a life that didn’t hurt. She had given so much, bled for him, cried herself sick, thrown away her dreams trying to pull him out of the fire again and again.

She had saved him, over and over. And what did he do?

He dragged her down with him. Burned her. Broke her. Left her.

So yes. She deserved this peace.

But watching her smile at strangers, or hum softly while threading yarn, or lean into a warm coat with that soft, familiar sigh — it felt like a knife in his chest.

Because she looked like someone who didn’t miss him. At all.

And that? That shattered something inside him.

It wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t fair. He had no right to want anything from her. He had given up that right the moment he left, the moment he decided she was better off without the burden of loving him. And she was. Objectively.

But it still tore him apart to see her world thriving without him.

He used to be her world. He used to be the reason her eyes lit up. Now, she didn’t even flinch when he passed by her block. Didn’t even glance at the door like maybe he’d walk through it.

He used to be her Monday lunches, her midnight phone calls, her “let me show you this funny thing.” Now?

He was a ghost.

A man watching the love of his life become a stranger with a smile. A story he didn’t get to finish. A home he could no longer walk into.

He walked miles every week just to see her for five minutes. Just to remember that she was real. Just to remind himself that once — for a flicker of time — she had been his.

And every time he turned around and walked away again, he left a piece of himself behind. Until he wasn’t sure how much of him was even left anymore.

--

They never asked about her.

Not directly.

Maybe out of respect. Maybe fear. Maybe because they already knew.

They all knew that somewhere, buried beneath Bob's shattered psyche and the nuclear firepower of the Sentry, there was someone he couldn’t let go of. A name that never left his mouth, but lived in his silence. In the way he flinched when certain songs came on. In the way he sat at the edge of team dinners, eyes somewhere far away. In the way he would sometimes disappear from the Watchtower, returning hollow-eyed and quiet, the smell of old bookstores or street coffee still clinging to his clothes.

They didn’t need to ask. The Void had shown them.

It was during the final confrontation — when the entity burrowed into each of their minds like a serpent, peeling back their worst fears, their lowest moments. It knew them. It was them. It didn’t just attack with brute strength — it weaponized memory, shame, the things they hid from even themselves.

But Bob?

Bob got the worst of it.

The Void lived in him. Knew every crack in his soul. Every scarred-over memory he tried to forget. And when the battle turned mental — turned personal — it didn’t use monsters or fire or screams. No. It showed her.

Y/N.

On the bathroom floor.

Her knees bruised from the tiles. Her shirt stained with something brown and sharp-smelling — coffee, maybe, or old blood. Her hands trembling, but still gentle, as they wiped vomit from his face, cradling his unconscious body like something precious.

His limbs were limp. His lips blue-tinged. An overdose — or the edge of one.

And she didn’t cry loud. No, that wasn’t her. Her sobs were quiet. Desperate. The kind of crying that comes when you don’t want to wake someone, even if you’re terrified they might never wake again.

She whispered to him in broken, soothing words, rocking him just slightly, whispering apologies to him, as if he were the one in pain.

She wiped his face. Changed his shirt. Brushed back his matted hair.

“You didn’t mean it,” she whispered. “It’s okay. You’re still here. I’m still here.”

And the worst part?

She looked so tired.

Not just physically — but soul-deep tired. The kind of exhaustion you don’t come back from. And still, still, she didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t curse him. She didn’t scream or throw things or leave.

She just held him.

And loved him.

When no one else could. When no one else should.

And the Void made them all watch.

Every teammate. Every soldier. Every person who had seen Bob level cities or snap metal in his hands like candy. They watched as the strongest being on Earth was reduced to a twitching body on a bathroom floor, and the only thing keeping him tethered to life was a woman — too soft for this world — whispering that he mattered, even when he didn’t believe it.

When the battle ended, and they staggered out of that hellscape, blinking in daylight and breathing like they’d been underwater too long — no one mentioned it. No one said her name.

But they all remembered her.

And days later, when the question finally came — in a rare moment of honesty, maybe over whiskey or after a nightmare — it was Bucky who asked.

Just a quiet, low, “You loved her, didn’t you?”

Bob didn’t even look up.

He just sat on the floor, back against the wall of the common room, hands hanging loosely between his knees. There was blood still under his fingernails from the mission. A tear in his shirt. He looked like something that had survived an execution.

“She was…” he started, and then stopped. His throat tightened, jaw working around a sentence that would never do her justice.

“She was the only thing I ever did right.”

The silence that followed was sharp. No one interrupted. Not even Alexei, who always had something to say. Not even Walker, whose tolerance for emotion was about as deep as a puddle. Not even Yelena, who had seen the worst kinds of pain, but still flinched when she remembered the image of that girl on the floor.

“She was the one who pulled me out,” Bob said softly. “Again and again. When I got too deep. When the Void got too loud. When I couldn’t remember who I was anymore. She… she made me feel like I was a person. Not a god. Not a monster. Just a man. Her best friend.”

He smiled, but it broke halfway through. Twisted into something hollow.

“I told her I loved her, in a message, I never even told her in her face, I still want to be able to fantasize that she did love me back. But I wasn’t a man when I said it. I was still broken. Still sick. Still—too much. And I left.”

No one moved. No one breathed.

“I told myself it was to protect her. That if I stayed, I’d destroy everything.”

He swallowed hard. His voice cracked.

“She forgave me for everything. Every relapse. Every blackout. Every time I disappeared for days and came back bleeding or high or worse. She’d cry, but she’d still hold me. She’d whisper that I was still in there. That she saw me.”

He clenched his hands. His shoulders shook.

“And I still left.”

For a long time, no one said a word.

Finally, Bucky asked, “Why are you telling us this now?”

Bob looked up at him. And for once, it wasn’t Sentry who answered. It wasn’t the calm, press-ready voice. It wasn’t the controlled, trained tone of a soldier.

It was just Bob.

His eyes were glassy. His mouth trembled.

He stood slowly. Wavered. Like the weight of all those memories was still dragging at his spine.

“She was the one thing that made me feel alive.”

He turned his face toward the window. Watched the city skyline like maybe she was out there somewhere, reading a book, sipping coffee, living a life where she didn’t have to remember him.

“And I will spend the rest of my life paying for what I did to her.”

--

He stayed across the street — or sometimes on the opposite sidewalk, tucked in behind a delivery van or under the shadow of a lamppost. Hands shoved deep into the pockets of a worn jacket, the same one she used to hang by her front door whenever he passed out on her couch.

He came to see her.

Sometimes she was restocking books in the front window. Sometimes she was sweeping the leaves off the front steps. Sometimes she was just reading, perched behind the register with a soft, furrowed expression — brows knitted in thought, nose crinkled just slightly like she did when a sentence made her feel too much.

He loved watching her read. She was the kind of person who felt books — who mourned endings and fell in love with characters and whispered “no” out loud when something bad happened on the page. Her face gave everything away. No armor. No filters.

God, she's beautiful.

Even now — even after everything.

He remembered the first time he saw her again, properly, in the park. He hadn’t been trying to find her that day. He was just… wandering. Trying to walk off the pressure in his chest. The static in his head. And then he saw her.

Sitting alone on a bench, no coffee, no cat, no old lady from the neighborhood chatting her ear off. Just her. Her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. Crying.

Not sobbing. Not theatrically.

Just… quiet, crumbling tears.

Like her chest had caved in and she didn’t know how to fix it. Like the world had knocked the wind out of her and left her to fold in on herself without a word.

She looked thinner. Not unhealthy, but not like before. Her style had changed a little — different colors, less softness, a longer coat like she was hiding from something. But her face… her face hadn’t changed.

Still that same quiet grace. That same storm of kindness behind her eyes. Like she could still save people if she tried hard enough — even when she couldn’t save herself.

He’d almost gone to her. Almost crossed the grass. Almost knelt beside her and put a hand on her knee and said her name.

But then he remembered who he was.

What he’d done.

He stayed frozen, half-behind a tree like a ghost in someone else’s story. A man without a place in the only life he wanted.

She wiped her face eventually. Stood. Pulled her coat tighter. Walked away.

And he watched. Did nothing.

But the guilt from that day didn’t leave. It never left.

He started coming around more. Just to check. Just to make sure she was okay.

That’s when the plan started to take shape.

He knew he couldn’t do it himself. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But he knew someone who could — someone she might not push away. Someone big enough to take the hit if she got mad, but kind enough to genuinely want to help.

Alexei.

Bob waited for the right moment to ask. When the team wasn’t dealing with a crisis. When they were sitting in the Watchtower kitchen late one night, drinking tea instead of whiskey because Bob couldn’t handle the burn anymore.

“She’s not okay,” Bob said, out of nowhere.

Alexei looked up from his mug. “Who?”

“You know who.”

Alexei said nothing for a beat. Just nodded. Quiet. Respectful.

“I saw her crying,” Bob whispered, his voice barely audible. “She was alone. No one… no one should cry like that alone.”

“You didn’t go to her?”

“I couldn’t.”

Alexei sighed. “Why not?”

“She would want me there even if I'm still dangerous.”

Bob let the silence hang, heavy and pulsing. Then he looked up, eyes glassy, haunted.

“But I can’t… I can’t just not do anything.”

Alexei set his mug down. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

So Bob told him. About the bookstore. The bench. Her eyes. Her loneliness.

“I don’t want her to know it’s from me. Not yet. I just… I want her to have something good. Something stable. Something that isn’t pain or loss or… me.”

Alexei nodded slowly. Thought about it.

“Book club,” he said eventually. “She works in one, yes?”

Bob nodded. “Yeah. Tuesdays. I saw the flyer in the window.”

Alexei smiled. “Then I suppose I have some reading to do.”

Bob’s breath hitched.

“Thank you. I will help you with that.”

Alexei leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because she deserves someone to show up for her.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll keep you updated. And I’ll be subtle.”

Bob smiled, watery. “As subtle as you can be?”

Alexei chuckled. “As subtle as a brick, but I’ll try.”

And so it began.

Alexei would show up to the bookstore every so often. Chat with her. Talk about books he didn’t really understand. Laugh too loudly. Always brief, always respectful, never pushing. Just… being there.

And eventually, she’d invited him to book club.

The plan was working.

And Bob?

Bob stayed where he was — on the edges, in the shadows, watching from far away. Letting Alexei become his eyes and ears. His quiet penance.

--

At first, it was simple.

Alexei joined the club to spend more time with her — to talk, to listen, to make sure she was still putting one foot in front of the other. That was the arrangement. A quiet mission with no glory. No weapons. No enemies to punch or gods to fight. Just a lonely girl who used to know a man that was already half-dead inside.

Bob didn’t expect more than that. A brief update. A kind word. The knowledge that she was still smiling. Still breathing.

But then Alexei came back from that first meeting with a glimmer in his eye — not joy, but something softer. Protective. He told Bob how she spoke about stories like they were sacred. How she laughed at a joke in Pride and Prejudice that no one else caught. How she paused in the middle of reading aloud because a single line made her voice catch, and she had to turn away so no one would see.

“She’s... she’s still her,” Alexei had said, like it was a miracle.

And Bob had cried when he heard it.

Because he didn’t know. He hadn’t known. If she was still her — still the girl who made mix CDs for rainy days and hugged people like she could stitch them back together — then maybe the world hadn’t ruined her completely. Maybe he hadn’t ruined her completely.

That’s when the idea started.

It was stupid. Pointless, maybe. But it gave Bob something to wake up for.

Books.

Not just any books — his books. The ones he read in the quietest hours of the night, when his mind wasn’t screaming and the Void wasn’t clawing at the walls. The ones he’d never admit to reading aloud, just to imagine what it might sound like if she was there beside him.

He began highlighting passages. Dog-earing pages. Scribbling notes in the margins like she used to in college, back when she made a game of arguing with the authors in ink.

He would hand them to Alexei with no explanation. Just a book. A quiet nod.

“Give her this one next.”

And Alexei would. Without question.

Week after week, a new title. A new story. Always something with meaning. A message buried in the pages. A secret only she might understand, if she read between the lines. If she knew how Bob’s mind worked the way she used to.

“I would have followed you anywhere.”

“I think I started dying the moment you left the room.”

“I loved you before I knew what it meant.”

They weren’t written outright. Never a full confession. Just sentences, thoughts, little crumbs of devotion scattered through prose.

Bob would stay up all night before each session, rereading and re-noting the pages. Sometimes he’d circle the same line six times. Sometimes he’d write “This is how I see you” beside a character’s monologue, and then cross it out until the paper tore.

He knew she never said anything to Alexei about it. Never mentioned the ink, or the handwriting, or the way every book felt like someone was whispering to her from another life.

But that didn’t matter.

Because he knew.

He knew she was holding something he touched. Reading the words he bled into the paper. Feeling something he could no longer say out loud.

In that tiny room above the bookstore, while Alexei sat in a too-small chair and cracked jokes to cover the silences, Bob was there too.

He was in the pages. In the sentences. In every comma and breath and pause.

And maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was all he had left.

He’d debated confessing before. So many times. Long before he became the Sentry. Long before he became a weapon. Back when he was just Bob, and she was just the girl who always picked out the marshmallows from her cereal and let him sleep on her floor when he was too drunk to remember where he lived.

But he never did. Because he knew — he knew — she didn’t feel the same way.

Not because she didn’t care. She cared too much. That was the problem.

She saw him as something worth saving. Something broken, but fixable.

Not someone you fall in love with.

Not someone you keep.

He could have handled that. He would have swallowed it whole just to have her in his life. But then the powers came. The weight. The blackness behind his eyes that pulsed like a second heartbeat.

And everything changed.

He wasn’t just a man who loved her anymore. He was a threat to her. A danger. A possible end.

To confess now would be cruel.

So he didn’t.

He gave her books.

He gave her himself.

And in the stillness between chapters, when no one was looking, he let himself pretend.

Pretend that maybe she read a line and smiled. That maybe she knew. That maybe she looked up from the page and whispered, “I miss you too.”

He would die a thousand times just to hear her say it once.

--

The despair came in waves.

Some days, Bob could float in it, numb, like a body in cold water—arms limp, eyes unfocused, just waiting for it to take him under. Other days, it crashed into him so hard he thought he’d drown before morning. He would lie on the floor of the Watchtower, fists clenched, the ceiling spinning above him as his mind screamed with every face he couldn’t forget. But it was always her face that brought the deepest ache.

Y/N.

He had built a life around her absence. That was the truth of it. A fragile routine of restraint and silence. He watched from a distance. He wrote messages in books. He let Alexei carry little pieces of him to her like a smuggler moving contraband across a border he could never cross.

It was the only way he could be near her—and the closest he dared to come.

But it wasn’t enough.

God, it wasn’t enough.

He missed her. And not just the memory of her. Not just the idea. He missed her voice in the morning when it was still hoarse. The sound of her laugh when she was trying not to. The weight of her hand on his arm when he said something reckless. He missed the smell of her shampoo, the warmth of her sweaters, the way she hummed when she didn’t know he was listening.

His body remembered it all.

And it was killing him.

He was touch-starved in a way no one could fix. Not just for warmth, or comfort, or sex. He was starving for her. For the way her presence once made the world seem a little less heavy. For the way she looked at him like he was still in there, like maybe he wasn’t all lost, not yet. That kind of belief—that kind of grace—was more dangerous than the Void itself.

Because it made him hope.

And hope, for Bob, was a curse dressed like mercy.

Every time he let himself think, Maybe I could just see her. Just once. Just for a moment, his mind betrayed him. Because it wasn’t just Bob anymore. It was Sentry. It was Void. It was the monster and the hero and the broken man trapped in between.

And what if they took over?

What if she smiled at him—and Sentry ripped the sky open behind her?

What if she said his name—and Void answered?

What if, by standing too close to her, by breathing the same air, he doomed her?

He couldn’t bear it.

So he stayed away.

But he was so tired.

Tired of living on crumbs. Tired of writing love letters she didn’t know were letters. Tired of watching Alexei carry his heart in paperback covers while he sat alone, drinking coffee that always went cold, with no one to tell.

He thought about ending it. Not his life—not exactly. But the visits. The watching. The books. All of it.

He thought about telling Alexei, It’s over. Don’t go anymore. Don’t mention her. Don’t bring her up. Let her go. Let her be.

Maybe if he stopped seeing her face from afar, his heart would quiet. Maybe if he stopped imagining what she looked like crying, or laughing, or reading his underlined notes, he could be free of this need.

Maybe.

But then the selfishness crept in.

It always did.

Because this—this pathetic, distant, hollow little routine—it was all he had.

He had no family. No home. No future. He had fists and firepower and a mind that split into two monsters depending on the day.

But this—this was still hers.

The bookstore. The book club. The books.

The way she once tucked a note into his coat pocket when he was dope-sick and barely breathing. The way she never turned away from him, even when she should have.

That love. That impossible, unspoken love that never got to breathe? It was still alive inside him. Mummified maybe, but still intact. And giving it up felt like murdering the only beautiful thing he’d ever been allowed to feel.

So he kept the books coming.

He kept watching her from across the street like a ghost with a heartbeat.

He kept dying for her in private.

He told himself it wasn’t love. That it was guilt. Or nostalgia. Or some warped savior complex. But he knew better.

He loved her.

He always had.

He loved her from the moment she laughed at his shitty joke in chemistry class and offered to share her lunch with him because she thought he looked hungry.

He loved her through every detox, every lie, every time he screamed and she didn’t flinch.

He loved her the day she fell asleep sitting against his door because he refused to let her in, but she still didn’t leave.

And he loved her now, more than ever.

But what good was that?

What good was a love you had to hide like a weapon?

What good was a heart full of devotion if it could level buildings when it broke?

Bob wanted her arms. He wanted her voice telling him he was okay. He wanted her fingers to touch his temple and whisper, “You’re still you, somewhere in there.”

But he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t ever have that.

So he took what he could.

He underlined another sentence. Highlighted another confession. Dog-eared another page.

He gave her pieces of his soul, one book at a time, and prayed she never figured it out.

Because if she did—if she knew it was him—it might give her hope.

And he didn’t want that for her. Hope was what killed people like him.

And she was never meant to die loving a ghost.

--

The Watchtower was quiet that night. Quieter than usual.

Bob was sitting by the window in his room, legs pulled to his chest like a child who hadn’t yet figured out how to stop shaking. He’d been staring at the stars for hours, pretending they were blinking just for him—pretending they meant something. Sometimes the silence helped. Sometimes it pressed down so hard he couldn’t breathe.

Tonight, it was both.

He almost didn’t hear Alexei come in.

His footsteps were heavier than usual, but not in the theatrical, attention-seeking way. No, this was something different. There was weight in them. Real weight. Emotional weight.

Bob didn’t turn to look at him.

“Tea and cookies,” Alexei said quietly, easing himself into the old chair across from Bob, setting down a book neither of them would read.

Bob blinked, not understanding. “What?”

“She made tea. There were these little shortbread cookies. She always brings some to the club. But tonight she invited me to stay after.”

Bob felt it instantly. That subtle shift in his chest—recognition, fear, hope. A name curled on his tongue like a prayer.

“Y/N.”

Alexei nodded.

Silence passed between them like static.

“I wasn’t going to stay,” Alexei said. “Didn’t feel right, you know? She looked tired. But she offered. Said she didn’t want to be alone. So I sat. And for a while, it was nothing. Just two people eating cookies and being quiet.”

Bob’s throat tightened. He could picture it too clearly—her small, chipped mug, her socks pulled up too high, maybe a blanket draped around her shoulders. She always had trouble sitting still when she was anxious. She’d shift, fidget, adjust the books near her elbows, touch her hair.

“And then?” Bob whispered.

Alexei looked at him. Really looked. Not like a soldier. Not like a friend. Like someone about to hand you your own soul.

“She asked me if I’d ever loved someone enough to ruin myself for them.”

Bob stopped breathing.

“I told her… yeah. I did. A long time ago. And that it hurt. That sometimes love isn’t enough. That you can want someone more than anything in the world and still have to walk away.”

He didn’t elaborate. Didn’t have to. Bob knew there was more in that silence than Alexei could ever say. But the words weren’t the part that undid him.

It was what came next.

“She started crying.”

Bob’s heart cracked so loud in his chest he thought it might split the room in two.

“She didn’t even try to stop it. She just let it happen. Tears down her cheeks, her hands shaking around that stupid little mug. And she said…” Alexei’s voice softened. “She said she was still waiting for someone.”

Bob gripped the windowsill so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“She said there was a man who left. And he never came back. And she knows he was broken—knows he had problems, things she might never understand. But she loved him anyway. Or maybe she didn’t even know she did. Not until it was too late. And even now, even after all the pain, some pathetic part of her—those were her words, not mine—still wanted him. Still waited.”

The tears came without warning.

Bob didn’t cry pretty. It was never cinematic. It was raw. Silent. Heaving. His face contorted as the sobs tore through him like glass down his throat.

She was waiting for him.

After everything. After all the ways he’d failed her. After the vomit and the relapses. After the bruised knuckles and broken promises. After disappearing without a goodbye, like a coward.

She was still waiting.

“Alexei—” he tried, but his voice shattered.

Alexei stood and walked over, putting a firm hand on Bob’s shoulder. “She misses you, man.”

“She shouldn’t,” Bob rasped. “She deserves better.”

“Maybe. But she doesn’t want better. She wants you.”

Bob bent forward, forehead pressed to his knees, shoulders trembling like the ceiling might cave in on him.

He could see her now—eyes red, voice cracking, wrapped in that old cardigan she used to wear when she felt small. Crying not because she was weak, but because something inside her had finally broken under the weight of everything she’d been carrying.

His name. His ghost. The ache that never left her chest.

“She said she never got to tell him,” Alexei added quietly. “That she was proud of him, even when he thought there was nothing left to be proud of.”

Bob shook his head violently, tears soaking through his sleeves.

“I don’t deserve her,” he choked. “I don’t deserve one second of her kindness. I left her. I left her.”

“But you never stopped loving her.”

Bob lifted his eyes, watery and wild.

Alexei knelt down in front of him, squeezing his shoulder. “That counts for something.”

Bob wanted to believe that. He needed to. But the guilt was too thick, too rooted. He’d buried his love like a landmine—sooner or later, someone was always going to get hurt.

But tonight… for the first time in weeks, in months, maybe in years… he had something to hold on to.

Hope.

Alexei wasn’t the kind of man who usually gave pep talks. He broke bones, not hearts. But that night, something in the room shifted. The weight in the air was different. Bob sat hunched on the floor again, as he often did when his thoughts got too loud, too dangerous. His hands were clenched in his hair, tears drying on his face in the silence. It wasn’t a silence of peace. It was one of surrender.

“I can’t go,” Bob whispered. “I can’t.”

Alexei sat in the chair beside him, eyes fixed on the floor. “Yes. You can.”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” Bob snapped, voice raw and thick. “You’ve seen the surface—what the Void lets you see. But I know what I’ve done. What I’ve almost done. I could’ve killed her. Just because I wanted to be loved.”

Alexei was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice like gravel and mercy.

“Do you think love is safe?” he asked. “Do you think any of us walk into it without risk? I have done worse things, Bob. To people who trusted me. To people I loved. You think I sleep easy at night? No. I just… don’t run from it anymore.”

“I never stopped running,” Bob muttered, choking on the words. “Even when I had her. Especially then. She tried so hard. God, Alexei, she tried so hard for me.”

Bob pressed the heel of his palm into his eye until stars burst behind the lid.

“Do you think…” he asked in a hoarse whisper, “that my love can undo what I’ve done? Do you think that’s enough? That just because I love her, it makes the nights she cried worth it? That it fixes the way I shattered her, again and again?”

“No,” Alexei said bluntly. “Love isn’t enough. Not on its own. But it’s a start. It’s a reason to try. And Bob—she hasn’t stopped trying either.”

Bob shook his head, lips trembling. “She doesn’t know what she’s waiting for. She thinks I’m someone worth saving.”

Alexei reached into his coat pocket.

“Then maybe you should read this.”

He held out a single, folded post-it.

It was pale yellow, edges a little crumpled. Familiar. Too familiar.

Bob stared.

He didn’t reach for it at first. Didn’t trust his hands not to crumble it in disbelief. But Alexei held steady, offering it like an answer.

Bob finally took it.

He didn’t even have to open it. He knew the handwriting. Slanted, careful but with bursts of impatience in the curls of the letters.

And he knew the words.

“I’ll come back. For you. Always.”

And he remembered it again—the worst nights. The ones he could barely piece together through the fog. The clatter of the bathroom door, the stench of vomit, her hands trembling as she wiped his face with a warm cloth, whispering things he couldn’t hear but felt in his bones. No disgust. No anger. Just… tired love. Quiet devotion.

And the guilt that came after—so thick, it coated his skin. He stopped opening the door. Stopped letting her see him like that. She’d still come, knock softly, wait longer than she should’ve. And when he said nothing, did nothing—she’d slide a little post-it under the door.

“I’ll come back. For you. Always.”

His breath hitched.

“This—this is—” He stared at the note like it was the most sacred thing in the world. Like it could breathe.

“She gave it to me tonight,” Alexei said softly. “Slipped it into my book. Didn’t say anything. Just smiled. I think… I think she wanted you to know that she’s still there. Still waiting.”

Bob folded in half, pressing the note to his chest like it could stop the bleeding.

“But how—how would she know—?”

Alexei chuckled under his breath, and it wasn’t unkind.

“She’s not stupid, Bob. She knew from the beginning. From the first book.”

Bob lifted his head, dazed.

“She told me tonight. She recognized me right away. She remembered me from the photos. And the first time I brought a book with your handwriting in it? She didn’t say a word. But her whole face changed. Like a light she didn’t expect. Like a ghost she thought she’d never see again.”

Bob’s lips parted. “But she never said—”

“She didn’t have to. She knew you were talking to her. And she answered. She let it happen until she was ready.”

Bob’s mouth quivered.

“Every time she brought a specific book to the club. That was for you.”

He was silent.

“She chose them for you, Bob. You weren’t the only one using me to speak. She was doing it too.”

Bob broke.

"You know what Bob, I've had many experiences in life, but seeing two people love each other while thinking the same unrequited love bullshit it's the most frustating thing I've lived through."

--

The book club had ended hours ago.

The chairs were stacked, the lights dimmed except for one hanging low over the back counter where the tea kettle still hummed. The scent of old paper, lavender, and stale sugar cookies lingered in the air.

Alexei lingered too.

He never stayed this late, usually offering a polite farewell and a practiced smile before retreating into the night like he had somewhere else to be. But tonight, he hesitated, eyes trailing to the table where Y/N stood quietly, tidying up a few leftover napkins like she wasn’t just waiting for something—like she wasn’t bracing herself for it.

“I should go,” Alexei said, half-hearted.

She didn’t look up right away. “One second,” she murmured.

And then she turned to him, slowly. In her hand was a tiny yellow square of paper, slightly curled at the edges like it had been held too many times. There was no name on it. Just handwriting—familiar and aching and soft in its certainty.

“I’ll come back. For you. Always.”

Alexei froze.

His blood stopped.

He hadn’t seen one of those in years. Not since—

Y/N stepped forward and gently pressed the post-it into his hand.

“Please give this to Bob.”

Silence.

Alexei’s mouth opened, then closed. His eyes searched hers, stunned, confused—exposed. He thought he had been careful. Thought the quiet drop-ins, the vague discussions, the books marked with gentle nuance and wordless confessions had been subtle enough. He thought he’d played the messenger without giving himself—or Bob—away.

But she had known.

She had always known.

“...You knew?” he asked softly, barely breathing.

Y/N gave a tired smile, the kind that looked like it hurt to wear.

“Since the first book,” she said. “The underlined sentences. The margin notes. The way you looked at me when I laughed, like someone had told you a joke days ago and you were just now getting it.”

Alexei blinked, overwhelmed. “You never said anything.”

“I didn’t need to.” She let out a breath, bitter and sweet all at once. “It was the only way I could hear him again. I didn’t want to break it.”

She stepped away then, folding her arms as if trying to hold herself together. Her shoulders trembled.

“But tonight… I just needed him to know,” she whispered.

Alexei’s grip tightened on the post-it.

He didn’t know what to say. How to tell her that Bob had read every word she spoke, that he lived in the seconds she laughed, that he measured time by the days she showed up with her hair down or a new sweater or a different tea. That Bob was starving just to be near her. That every night he watched from the shadows was both punishment and penance.

But he couldn't say those things.

Because they weren’t his to give.

So he just stood there, useless in his stillness.

And then she broke.

“Why didn’t he come back?” she asked, voice crumbling like wet paper. “I waited. I waited, Alexei.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks in slow, silent rivers. Her hands trembled at her sides.

“I was angry. So angry when he left. I hated him. I told myself I did. But then I’d go to the places we used to go. I’d drink the same coffee. Sit on the same benches. And every time the door opened, I thought it might be him.”

Alexei swallowed hard, chest tightening.

“I’m not asking for an apology,” she continued, voice rising with the dam of grief. “I just want to know why. Was I not enough? Was I… was I too much?”

“No,” Alexei whispered, pained. “Y/N, no.”

“Then why did he leave me like that?” Her voice broke. “Why didn’t he come back like I always did for him?”

She sank into the chair beside her, covering her face with one hand, wiping at tears that kept falling no matter how hard she tried to stop them.

Alexei stepped forward but hesitated.

He couldn’t tell her everything. He couldn’t say that Bob had been dragged through every layer of his own personal hell—had been broken, drugged, used like a weapon, haunted by the very love he didn’t think he deserved. That every time he thought about her, it wasn’t with joy, but with agony, because he believed he’d poisoned every beautiful thing in his life.

He couldn’t say that Bob cried in his sleep.

He couldn’t say that he never went more than three days without watching her from afar, just to be sure she was alive.

He couldn’t say any of that.

Because those words were Bob’s to give.

But his voice was soft as he spoke.

“He never stopped thinking about you.”

Y/N let out a small, helpless sound, somewhere between a sob and a breath.

“I just want it to be over,” she whispered. “The waiting. The not-knowing. I took the first step. Again.”

Alexei knelt beside her, gently placing the post-it in his coat pocket.

“I hope,” she said through tears, “I hope this is the last time I have to.”

And then she wept.

Not quietly. Not daintily.

She cried like someone who had carried too many sleepless nights in her chest. Like someone who had waited at every metaphorical door, only to find them locked. Like someone who knew she had loved without boundaries and had bled for it.

Alexei didn’t say anything else.

He just sat beside her, listening to the sound of her heart breaking again—for someone who had never stopped holding it.

And in the quiet, somewhere between sorrow and forgiveness, the post-it in his pocket burned like a lighthouse finally being lit after years of storm.

He would give it to Bob.

And for the first time in years, Bob would understand:

He could hide, protect her all he wanted, run away from her from years on end. She will always find a way to make him come back. Even if it made her rot from the inside out.

"If I had someone fight for me this hard and I still made them doubt the value of their presence while living with that thought day after day Bob. Maybe that's why you will never be happy. No family, no friends, no hope, for years its was just her. What even made you think you could stay away when you're just as miserable as her?"

Bob looked up to Alexei.

Part of him confused, she wasn't miserable she was living, he saw her.

But...if that was the truth for her, what has she been thinking all this time seeing him.

It was kinda funny. How could two people who only had one another no so little of each other's mind.

Both seemed happy. Both were dying for each other.

[platonicaxaxe]

😭😭😭😭

[platonicaxaxe]

BRACELET

Bob Reynolds x reader

Summary: You met Bob in Southeast Asia, you were on a trip to study Malaysian culture while bob was there to change himself.

Malaysia, dusk.

The golden sun dipped low behind the city skyline, casting warm hues across the crowded streets of Kuala Lumpur. Lanterns began to flicker to life above the buzzing night market, dancing gently in the humid breeze. Laughter, sizzling street food, and the scent of spice and smoke filled the air.

Inside a modest Malaysian restaurant tucked in a quiet corner away from the rush, Bob Reynolds sat across from you, the two of you bathed in amber light. His brown hair, slightly tousled from the day’s wanderings, glowed in the soft illumination. You stirred your glass of iced tea absentmindedly, your heart a mix of gratitude and the weight of parting.

“It was really fun travelling with you, Bob,” you said, offering a small, genuine smile.

Bob looked up from his plate of nasi lemak, his expression softening. “Yeah, it was cool,” he replied, but there was something behind his smile—something quieter, more wistful. His eyes, deep and often contemplative, lingered on yours a second longer than necessary.

You hesitated, then spoke, voice low but certain. “But I just wanted to let you know… tomorrow I’m flying back home. My research’s done, and I’ve been called to wrap things up. It’s time.”

Bob’s expression faltered for the briefest moment. His smile didn’t fade completely, but his gaze dropped to the table, the shadows suddenly heavier beneath his eyes. He blinked, then nodded slowly. “Yeah… yeah, it’s been fun meeting you,” he said, voice quieter now, like he was speaking more to himself than to you.

You didn’t notice the shift in his tone—how his world seemed to narrow just a little in that moment. You only saw the friend you’d made, the man with kind eyes and a gentle soul who had accompanied you through temples, forests, and sunlit markets.

“You’ll be okay here, right?” you asked, brushing a lock of hair behind your ear.

Bob looked up, forcing a small grin. “Of course,” he said. “I still have a few weeks left here before the… project ends. And I hope—when I get home—we’ll still talk. Reach out, you know?”

You reached across the table, your fingers gently brushing his. “Of course,” you whispered.

Outside, the night buzzed with life, but inside that quiet restaurant, time had paused. Bob knew—deep down—that this wasn’t just a goodbye to a travel companion. You had unknowingly become a grounding force in his world. And now that you were leaving, the thought of staying felt heavier. Like maybe he’d find himself standing in the same market where he first saw you, hoping one day, you might walk by again.

He’d come to Malaysia to heal, to escape. But he didn’t expect to find you.

And now, like the lyrics of the song that played softly through the radio speakers above, he felt like the man who can’t be moved—emotionally anchored to a fleeting moment in time.

The Morning of Departure

The sky was a soft gray, the kind that hung heavy with unshed rain—a gentle mirror of the mood between the two of you. Outside your guesthouse, the taxi’s engine hummed quietly, waiting. The streets of Malaysia were just beginning to stir, vendors rolling carts, birds chirping low, the world still draped in morning stillness.

Bob Reynolds stood by the curb, helping you load the last of your luggage into the trunk of the taxi. His hands moved with care, but his shoulders were slightly hunched, like each motion weighed more than it should have. The final bag closed with a soft thud, and the driver nodded politely before stepping back into the car to give you space.

You stood in front of Bob now, backpack slung over your shoulder, passport tucked into your hand. There was a quiet ache in your chest, but you masked it with a smile. You reached into your pocket and pulled out a small, handmade bracelet—woven from threads you’d picked up during one of your many market strolls together.

“Here,” you said, gently holding it out. “Farewell gift.”

Bob blinked, caught off guard. A slow smile crept onto his face, touched with warmth and something more fragile—something closer to sorrow. He took it carefully, like it was made of glass. “I should be the one giving you a farewell gift,” he said, chuckling softly.

You laughed with him, a little shakier than you meant to be. Then, lifting your wrist, you revealed a matching bracelet already tied snugly. “We’re matching, by the way.”

Bob looked at his, then at yours. “Twins,” he murmured, voice low.

You stood there for a second longer, just looking at each other—memorizing the details you were too afraid you’d forget. The flick of wind through your hair. The way his eyes crinkled just slightly when he tried to hide his sadness. The lingering scent of coffee from breakfast still on both of you.

“So… this is goodbye,” Bob said quietly, the words almost catching in his throat.

“No, it won’t be,” you replied quickly, your voice filled with light—trying to ease the crack in the moment. “We’ll still have trips when you come back to America. Remember? Road trip across the west coast? Hiking in Yosemite? That little diner in Arizona I told you about?”

He smiled again, but this one didn’t reach his eyes like before. “Yeah… I remember.”

“See ya, Bob,” you said, stepping forward and wrapping your arms around him. You didn’t say goodbye. You couldn’t.

Bob held you tightly, closing his eyes just for a second, wishing time would slow down. Wishing he had the right words. But some moments speak more in silence than in sound.

You pulled away gently, gave him a last smile—one filled with the weight of “what-ifs” and “maybes”—and then you climbed into the taxi. The door closed with a soft click, final and inevitable.

Bob stepped back as the car began to pull away. The bracelet around his wrist caught a glimmer of morning light.

He didn’t wave.

He just stood there.

Watching.

Waiting.

Remembering.

A Few Days Later – Kuala Lumpur Morning Market

The city was alive again with the melody of morning—vendors shouting prices, the scent of fried dough and ginger tea lingering in the air, and the slow, rhythmic shuffle of sandals brushing concrete. But amidst the colors and the clamor of daily life, Bob Reynolds moved quietly, like a ghost retracing old steps.

He walked through the familiar lanes of the market, his hand tucked into the pocket of his worn jeans, gently thumbing the simple bracelet you had tied around his wrist days ago. The thread had already begun to fray slightly, but it was intact—like the memory it held.

He stopped near a wooden stall with a faded blue tarp roof, the same one that used to sell colorful, hand-painted refrigerator magnets. His gaze softened. The world around him faded into something slower… something softer.

FLASHBACK – Three Weeks Ago

It had been humid that day, the sky streaked with gold and smoke as Bob navigated the foreign market for the first time. He was slightly disoriented, jet-lagged, still carrying the weight of his decision to sign up for the experimental medical procedure. Everything felt like a blur—until you stumbled into his world.

Literally.

You had rushed forward, distracted by a display of adorable durian-shaped magnets, and accidentally bumped into him—sending a few clattering to the ground.

“Oh my gosh—I’m so sorry!” you had said breathlessly, crouching to pick them up.

He’d crouched down too, laughing gently. “No harm done. I’m just as lost here as these poor magnets.”

When your eyes met for the first time, he remembered thinking how real you felt. Unfiltered. Sincere. There was a lightness in your voice and a curiosity in your gaze that made everything else blur out.

That was the beginning.

BACK TO PRESENT

Bob stood in that same spot now, quieter, more grounded. The merchant barely noticed him—just another foreigner among many. But to Bob, this was sacred ground. Your ground. Your moment.

He pulled the bracelet from his pocket and stared at it, fingers closing around it with a tender grip. The threads were still tangled with the scent of incense and sunscreen, stained by laughter and long conversations under the Malaysian sky.

“I will come back,” he murmured, eyes never leaving the bracelet. “I’ll come back being the best, Y/N.”

His voice was low, but resolute—spoken not just as a promise to you, but to himself.

Bob took one last glance at the market stall, then turned and walked away—toward the waiting cab that would take him to the medical center. Toward the unknown. Toward a new version of himself.

But part of his heart stayed behind, woven into that bracelet, caught in the crowd, and humming in the memory of a girl who once bumped into him over fridge magnets and changed the course of his entire life.

Later That Day – Kuala Lumpur International Medical Institute

The hallway smelled sterile—too clean, like it had been scrubbed not just of dirt but of emotion. Pale walls. Polished floors. The hum of fluorescent lights above. Bob Reynolds walked slowly beside a nurse, dressed now in a pale blue medical gown, his usual rugged frame softened by the loose fabric. But one thing remained constant: the handmade bracelet still clinging to his wrist like a final tether to something real.

Inside the medical suite, everything was quiet, but not peaceful. Machines beeped in steady rhythms. Monitors pulsed. And the clinical chill in the air made Bob’s skin prickle as he sat down on the edge of the examination bed.

The nurse, a kind woman with tired eyes, began her usual prep—checking vitals, adjusting equipment. Then her gaze dropped to his wrist.

“We’ll have to take that off, Mr. Reynolds.”

Bob looked down at the bracelet—your bracelet. A fragile thing, simple thread and knots, but to him, it carried the warmth of your laughter, the way your voice rose when you bargained with vendors, the smell of roasted chestnuts on your clothes.

“No,” he said quietly. “Um… can I keep this on?”

The nurse gave a small, understanding smile. “We have to remove all jewelry before the procedure. Hospital policy. It’s just for safety.”

He stared at the bracelet again. It felt like tearing something out of his chest. “We’ll just set it to the side,” she offered gently, her tone softening.

Bob hesitated. Eventually, he loosened the knot and placed it on the metal tray beside the bed. It looked out of place there, too alive for a room this cold.

A moment later, the intercom crackled, and the nurse was called to assist in another wing. “I’ll be back shortly, Mr. Reynolds. Just relax,” she said, her footsteps fading as she left.

Alone in the room, Bob’s eyes went back to the tray. The bracelet sat there quietly, almost pleading. Without a second thought, he reached out, grabbed it, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his scrub shirt, pressing his hand against the fabric as if to keep it close to his heart.

Then came the shuffle of footsteps outside. The sound of a door opening. A team of doctors entered, dressed in lab coats and surgical masks, their faces calm and focused. One of them gave him a reassuring nod.

“Ready, Mr. Reynolds?”

Bob gave a small nod, eyes fluttering shut as they prepared the anesthesia. A soft hiss. Then stillness.

He was no longer in a hospital bed.

He was in the market again.

But this time, everything was golden. The stalls were glowing in the warmth of a dream-lit afternoon. Music played faintly in the background—a local street musician strumming a guitar with a melody that sounded almost like The Script’s The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.

And there you were.

Standing by the magnet stall, grinning at him like you always had, holding up a ridiculous turtle-shaped fridge magnet.

“Still think this one’s cuter than the cat?” you teased.

Bob laughed, the sound echoing brighter in the dreamworld than it ever had in reality. “I still think you're worse at bargaining.”

You walked over and looped your arm through his. “Guess I’ll need more practice. How about next week in Penang?”

Bob opened his mouth to agree—but the words didn’t come.

The wind changed.

Your image flickered slightly, like a radio signal weakening. He tried to hold on. He reached out. “Y/N—wait—”

But the market was fading, and your hand slipped from his.

Bob’s pulse was steady as the machines tracked his vitals. The doctors worked in silence, focused, precise. But inside his pocket, resting close to his heart, the bracelet remained.

A symbol.

A promise.

A memory too strong to be scrubbed clean.

Avengerz Tower – Lounge, 38th Floor

Fourteen months after the Void Incident, NYC

The skies beyond the tower's glass walls burned a soft orange, dusk casting long shadows across the floor. Bob Reynolds sat in a corner of the lounge, far from the holographic monitors, far from the others’ laughter echoing from the kitchen. He was dressed in a black compression shirt and sweats, looking less like the man who once tore through galaxies and more like a man who had barely survived himself.

In his hand, he held it.

Your bracelet.

Frayed slightly now, but still intact. His thumb gently ran along the worn fibers, eyes distant. The echo of that old Malaysian market flickered behind his eyes—the smell of spice, your smile, your laugh.

"Still carrying that thing, huh?"

The voice belonged to Yelena, casually strolling in with a water bottle, her blonde hair tied up in a knot.

Bob gave a small, almost embarrassed nod. “Yeah.”

Yelena dropped onto the armchair opposite him, staring for a beat. “You do realize you have ex-assassins under one roof, right? We could find her before you even finish that sad sigh.”

“I know,” Bob replied quietly. “That’s the problem.”

John Walker entered next, munching on leftover pizza. “What’s the holdup, man? You fought the Void. The Void. You're scared of talking to one woman?”

Alexei chimed in from the hallway, booming voice full of irony. “Maybe she is more dangerous than Void, da?”

Bob chuckled dryly but didn’t look up. “It’s not that I’m afraid of her. I’m afraid of what she saw.”

The room quieted.

He finally looked up, eyes tired but still soft. “You weren’t there. She didn’t just hear about the incident. She watched it happen on a news feed while the sky cracked open. People died. Buildings burned. And I—I let something out of me that shouldn’t exist. I became something I didn’t even recognize.”

Ava Starr leaned against the wall now, arms crossed, her tone gentler than usual. “But you came back, Bob. You fought your way back.”

“And what if she still sees the monster?” Bob whispered, eyes drifting back to the bracelet. “What if I remind her of the worst day of her life?”

Yelena softened, moving to sit beside him now. “You know, I was trained to hide, to run. To vanish. But sometimes… the bravest thing you can do is just show up.” She nudged his arm. “You're not that man anymore, Bob. You’ve earned the right to be seen for who you are now.”

He didn’t respond right away.

Instead, Bob reached into his pocket, pulling out a folded old receipt—one from a tiny Kuala Lumpur café. The ink was faded, but her doodle still remained: a tiny cat magnet with sunglasses. You’d drawn it after your first inside joke.

“I think about what I’d say,” he murmured. “But everything sounds like an apology. Or worse—like an excuse.”

Bucky entered then, quiet as always. “Maybe just tell her what you told us… ‘I didn't come back for the world. I came back for me. But I stayed... for her.’”

Bob finally cracked a smile.

“Still cheesy as hell, Barnes.”

Bucky smirked. “Worked on me.”

They all laughed quietly, but the weight still lingered.

Bob stared down at the bracelet again, rubbing his thumb over the threads. He didn’t say anything for a while.

But in his silence, something shifted. The fear hadn’t left—but the ache to see you, to simply know if you were okay… that had begun to outweigh it.

Downtown Manhattan — Mission Debrief, Late Afternoon

The mission had gone off without a hitch. Hydra remnants were swept up in under fifteen minutes, and no civilians were harmed. Another win for the Avengerz.

But Bob Reynolds felt nothing.

His mask was off now, his curls tousled from the scuffle, a dark cap pulled low to blend in with the bustling crowd. He walked down the streets of Manhattan like just another man, hands in his pockets, his mind not on the mission… but on a memory. A laugh. A bracelet tucked safely in the inside pocket of his coat.

“Okay, hear me out,” Yelena said beside him, licking the last of her strawberry popsicle. “Group tattoo.”

Bob blinked, mildly startled. “What?”

She grinned. “A small one. Tiny Void clouds. Little lightning bolts. A shadow for Ava. A bear paw for Alexei. Yours can be a sad sunshine.”

Bob scoffed under his breath. “I’m not getting a sad sunshine tattoo.”

“Fine. A pineapple. No meaning. Just vibes.” She twirled around dramatically, nearly knocking over a street mime. “Think about it. Avengerz ink.”

He gave a half-hearted smile, but Yelena wasn’t convinced. She noticed it—the way he kept scanning the crowd, not for threats, but for someone. Or maybe a ghost.

Then it happened.

They were passing a small vendor’s shop nestled under a canvas canopy, the kind that sold handmade scarves, cultural dolls, and secondhand books. Bob’s feet halted. His breath hitched.

There you were.

Standing by a wooden display, holding a baby—no, cradling a baby—gently swaying as you pointed at something in a storybook. Your smile was radiant, your hair catching the golden hues of the setting sun. The baby giggled, a small fist tugging at your necklace.

Bob froze.

Everything else—the traffic, the breeze, Yelena’s voice—all faded. The city went silent around him.

The child had your eyes.

A flicker of ache carved itself into his chest. She moved on. You looked happy, like a picture he’d forgotten to take when he had the chance.

Then a man approached you—laughing, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. You laughed too, leaned into him naturally. Not a second of hesitation. The way families do.

Bob’s jaw clenched. His heart, an anchor in his ribs.

Yelena turned to speak, “So I was thinking matching rings, too. For chaos purposes—Bob?” She looked behind her and stopped.

Bob was already walking away.

Quick, tense steps. Like he needed to flee.

“Bob? Hey—Bob!” Yelena jogged after him, the tone in her voice shifting.

But he didn’t stop until he turned down the next street, leaning against a brick wall. His chest rose and fell, a storm brewing behind his calm exterior.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Yelena said, stepping up beside him, less teasing now. “Was that her?”

Bob didn’t look at her. He stared at the pavement.

“She’s holding a baby.”

Yelena’s brow furrowed. “Okay…”

“And there’s a guy.”

Silence.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Of course she moved on. What did I expect? That I could walk out of the sky a year later and pretend nothing happened?” He gave a bitter chuckle. “She’s happy. I shouldn’t ruin that.”

“You don’t even know the whole story,” Yelena said carefully.

Bob looked at her finally, voice lower now, trembling just slightly. “I don’t need to. I saw enough.”

She didn't argue—just stood there, watching her friend turn away from the one person who gave him peace before the storm.

“Let’s just… go back to the tower,” he murmured, voice almost inaudible.

And with that, the man who once fought the darkness of the Void… turned away from the light that once saved him.

Your POV — Manhattan, Late Afternoon

You gently bounced the baby in your arms, her tiny fingers tangled in your necklace like they were plotting to keep you hostage forever. Her cheeks were round and pink, her giggle high-pitched and contagious.

“You look cute, chubby chubs,” you cooed, tapping the tip of her nose. “Seriously, how are you this squishy? Are you hiding marshmallows in your onesie?”

The baby squealed in delight, kicking her feet.

Your brother appeared from behind the vendor stand with two cups of bubble tea, one already half-finished. “Still think you’re gonna find your Malaysia guy in this circus of a city?”

You gave him a side-eye but didn’t stop bouncing the baby. “I hope so. I mean, anything can happen in New York, right?”

He snorted. “Pfft. Girl, be for real. You didn’t even get his number. Amateur move, dumbass.”

“We were distracted! It was… a moment, okay?” You defended, pouting as you gently turned the baby to face him like she was on your side. “And hey—watch your language. Your daughter has ears now.”

“She also has no idea what I’m saying,” he said, sipping his drink.

“She’s gonna grow up thinking ‘dumbass’ is an actual nickname for people,” you muttered.

He grinned and looked at the baby. “Well, she is your niece.”

You gasped dramatically. “Take that back!”

The baby babbled, as if mocking both of you.

You hugged her closer and whispered to her, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. One day, we’re gonna tell people about the time your aunt fell for a guy in Malaysia at a fridge magnet stall. Romantic, right?”

“More like tragic,” your brother added.

You rolled your eyes, but your smile stayed. Even as the city moved around you, your heart still clung to the hope that maybe—just maybe—fate wasn’t done with you and Bob Reynolds yet.

Avengerz Tower — Common Room, Late Evening

The glass doors slid open with a soft hiss as Bob and Yelena returned from their mission. Bob didn’t say a word—he just headed straight for the elevators, shoulders heavy, eyes clouded.

“Uh oh,” Bucky muttered, watching him go while sipping his black coffee. “Somebody looks like they got punched in the soul.”

“What happened to him?” he asked, glancing over at Yelena, who plopped onto the couch beside Ava and dramatically stretched her arms.

Yelena blew a breath from her cheeks. “He saw her. The girl from Malaysia. Y/N.”

The room stilled for a moment.

Walker leaned forward from his stool, furrowing his brows. “Wait—that girl? The one who helped him get his mind off the clinic stuff? The anthropologist?”

“Yup. And…” Yelena winced. “She was holding a baby.”

“Oof,” Alexei said, clutching his chest with exaggerated pain. “That’s a direct hit to the sentimental organs. Poor Bob.”

“Well… that confirms it, right?” Ava said gently. “She’s moved on.”

Yelena raised both hands. “Okay, slow down, team heartbreak. I told him it could be a misunderstanding, alright? But he just… shut down. Walked away. And I had to chase him through half of Manhattan like we were in a rom-com with bad timing.”

Bucky sighed and set his mug down. “Damn. This guy fought the Void but can’t face one woman with a baby.”

John chuckled, slapping the armrest. “We gotta save loverboy’s heart before he broods himself into another black hole.”

“Or worse,” Alexei added with a knowing look, “turns back into that shadowy thing with rage issues.”

Ava had already pulled up her tablet. “Alright, let’s get serious. Who exactly is Y/N again?”

Yelena leaned over and pointed. “Dr. Y/N Y/L/N. Cultural anthropologist. Works with international research programs focused on indigenous traditions and disappearing languages. Last published a paper on Filipino pre-colonial weaving ceremonies—Bob read it twice, by the way.”

“And she lives…?” Ava tapped a few more times. “Bingo. Upper West Side. Shares a brownstone with her older brother and niece. She’s been back in New York for almost a year. Low profile. Does guest lectures at Columbia sometimes.”

“Wait, wait, wait—niece?” Walker said, raising an eyebrow.

Yelena blinked. “...Yeah. Why?”

“You said she was holding a baby, right?” Ava pointed out.

The room fell silent. The pieces began falling into place.

“Oh, come on,” Bucky muttered. “That’s gotta be her niece.”

Yelena’s jaw dropped. “You think…? Oh my god.”

“I told you it might be a misunderstanding!” she said again, tossing a throw pillow at Walker.

“Alright, alright,” John said, grinning now. “We’re Avengers. We’ve fought aliens, time travel, and interdimensional demons. I say it’s time we help Bob fight… love.”

“Operation: Hero Gets the Girl,” Ava smirked, already typing again.

Yelena stood, fists on her hips. “Then let’s fix this before he turns into a tragic love song with superpowers.”

“Too late,” Alexei muttered with a laugh. “He’s already halfway into the music video.”

Morning in NYC — Crowded Streets

Bob walked aimlessly through the bustling sidewalks of Manhattan, headphones in, hoodie up, blending in with the sea of commuters and tourists. His Avengerz badge wasn’t pinned today—just another civilian hiding in his own thoughts.

As he walked past a food truck, something white fluttered onto the pavement.

A handkerchief?

He bent slightly to pick it up—only for a familiar hand to grab it first.

Delicate fingers. The bracelet.

His eyes slowly followed up the wrist, to the forearm, to the face—

“Bob?” Y/N’s voice broke through the music.

Bob’s breath caught. “Y-Y/N…”

“I finally found you,” she said, smiling like sunshine, her voice soft but steady.

Behind her… a baby in a carrier, and that same man from the other day. Bob’s heart cracked again.

He gently handed her the handkerchief, not daring to look her in the eyes.

“I—I have to go,” he mumbled before turning.

“B-Bob, wait—!”

But he was already halfway down the block, walking like his life depended on it.

Bob stormed through the tower’s glass doors, eyes low, hood still on. The team didn’t even get a “hello” as he passed them. He vanished into his room with a thud of the door.

The rest of the Avengerz looked at each other.

“…We have to tell him now,” Ava muttered, tapping her tablet screen, which still displayed Y/N’s updated profile.

“Welp, Yelena’s the bestie,” Alexei said, raising a brow. “Go on. Comfort your emotional cat.”

“Why me?” Yelena asked, clearly not ready for a therapist arc.

Walker chimed in. “C’mon, you practically adopted him like a soggy kitten in the trash.”

“Yeah,” Bucky added, deadpan. “You even called him ‘your little sad pancake’ that one time.”

Yelena groaned, already getting up. “Fine. But if he cries on my jacket again, you’re paying for the dry cleaning.”

She knocked gently before entering. The room was dark except for the dim glow of the city lights outside. Bob was curled up on his bed, hugging a pillow like it owed him emotional support.

“Bob,” Yelena said softly, stepping in. “Talk to me.”

“I saw them again,” Bob mumbled. “Y/N. And the guy. And the baby.”

He didn’t even lift his head. “She was the only one who gave me hope... and I think my expectations went too far.”

Yelena walked over and sat at the edge of the bed. “Okay, Bob. Listen. There’s something you need to know.”

He slowly turned, eyes damp. “W-What?”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” she said, her tone more serious now.

Bob blinked. “What?”

She stood, held out her hand. “C’mon. Get up. I’m not letting my emotionally repressed space god spiral because he misread a family reunion.”

Bob sniffled, reluctantly taking her hand.

Yelena swung the door open—only to find the entire squad pretending to examine a very average painting of a bowl of fruit.

“You were eavesdropping,” she deadpanned.

Bucky nodded, straight-faced. “Nope. Just… appreciating this fine art. Look at the grapes. Real emotional depth.”

“I think the apples symbolize heartbreak,” Walker added, arms crossed like a fake art critic.

“Totally. And that banana?” Alexei nodded. “That’s Bob. Peeling under pressure.”

Bob sat on the couch, completely confused and overwhelmed.

Yelena crossed her arms. “Okay. I pulled him out. Now someone tell him the truth.”

“I’m not doing it!” Ava said. “John, your turn!”

“Why me? Bucky’s like a hundred!”

Bucky raised a brow. “Thanks for that.”

Before another argument could spark—

“Alright, alright—enough!” Alexei waved his arms. “Let the Russian speak truth.”

He turned dramatically to Bob and announced:

“The baby? Her niece. The guy? Your future brother-in-law.”

Bob blinked.

Tilted his head.

Then blinked again.

“…Oh shit,” he whispered.

The team waited.

“…Wait, WHAT?” Bob shot up. “That’s her niece?! That dude was her brother?!”

“Yup.” Walker clapped his shoulder. “Congrats. You just emotionally shut down over a preschool playdate.”

Alexei pointed at him. “You owe us all snacks. For stress.”

“I— I gotta go,” Bob muttered, already halfway to the elevator.

“Where are you going?” Ava called.

“To fix the stupidest misunderstanding in Avengerz history!”

Yelena grinned as the elevator doors closed.

“Love makes idiots of us all,” she said.

“Especially him,” Bucky muttered.

Bob burst through the glass doors of the tower like a man on a mission—or one who just finished a marathon.

"I—I nee' dur help!" he gasped, leaning against the wall and panting like a golden retriever.

Yelena squinted at him. “You good? You sound like you just fought a Sentient Roomba.”

"I… I don’t know where she lives," Bob said between breaths.

The team blinked.

“That’s it?” Walker asked.

“That’s what made you kick down the door like Batman?” Ava muttered.

Alexei jingled his keys dramatically. “Well, worry no more, Bobby. Daddy’s got a limo and a GPS.”

Alexei was behind the wheel, sunglasses on, driving like it was Fast & Furious: Midtown Mayhem.

Ava sat shotgun, holding a tablet like a secret agent. “We’re 10 minutes out. If we survive Alexei’s driving.”

In the back, Yelena leaned on Bob’s shoulder, Walker fiddled with the aux, and Bucky stared blankly out the window like a dad forced on a group trip.

“I still don’t know why I’m here,” Bucky muttered.

“Emotional support?” Walker suggested. “Also, you promised to split that burrito with me, so technically you owe me.”

Yelena chuckled while Bob looked out the window, eyes bouncing with nerves.

The limo stopped in front of a charming brick townhouse.

Alexei parked like a dad at a PTA meeting. “Here we are. Go get her, Bobinski.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Bob whispered.

“Oh, for the love of Tony Stark,” Ava sighed. “Just tell her the truth, idiot.”

“Be honest, Bob,” John said, patting his back. “No superhero crap. Just you.”

Bob nodded and stepped out, hands clammy and heart pounding.

Alexei rolled the window down with a squeak. “Call us if you need to be rescued. We’ll be buying frozen pizza.”

Bob knocked.

The door opened.

It was him—the same guy from yesterday. Bob tensed up… until he saw the matching smile.

“You must be Bob,” the man grinned. “Y/N told me about you. Come in.”

“S-sorry for just showing up…”

“No, no, it’s fine. House is a mess though. Sisi puked on Y/N earlier. Classic baby stuff.”

Bob chuckled nervously as he stepped inside.

“Y/N! He’s here!” the brother shouted toward the hallway.

From the distance came your voice: “Wait! Sisi puked on my shirt—gimme two seconds!”

Bob covered his mouth to stop a laugh.

The brother walked toward your room, forgetting Bob had super hearing.

“He’s here,” he whispered.

“What?!”

“The Malaysia guy you were simping over, dumbass!”

“Oh shit, WAIT—my hair—what is wrong with you?!”

Bob smiled as he heard the frantic rustling and you muttering “why now” under your breath.

Back in the living room, your brother turned to Bob. “Water? Juice? Shot of tequila?”

“I’m good,” Bob smiled.

Moments later, you walked out—baby in arms, hair a bit tousled, cheeks flushed from the panic.

But to Bob, you looked perfect.

“Hey,” you said softly.

Bob stood up instantly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey…”

Your brother grabbed his keys and winked. “I’ll, uh… go walk.”

And just like that, the door clicked shut.

Silence. Then—

“I’m sorry,” Bob blurted. “For running. For… being an idiot.”

You looked up, eyes soft.

“I saw you with the baby… and the guy… and I jumped to conclusions. I thought… I thought I was too late.”

You shifted the baby in your arms, heart thudding.

“Bob…”

“I tried to move on,” he continued, voice cracking. “But every time I closed my eyes, it was you. You were the calm in the chaos. And when I thought I lost you… it broke me.”

He looked down. “I was scared I ruined everything before it even began.”

You stepped closer, eyes shimmering.

“I was waiting for you, Bob,” you whispered. “All this time. I kept hoping you'd come back.”

“I thought I was too broken,” he said.

You smiled. “You were healing.”

The baby cooed softly between you, completely unaware they were a part of destiny’s little push.

Bob reached out gently. “May I?”

You handed the baby over carefully. Bob held her like she was made of stardust.

“She likes you,” you whispered.

“She’s a good judge of character,” he replied, eyes never leaving yours.

“I missed you,” you finally said, your voice cracking.

“I missed us,” Bob replied.

You both laughed softly—like two people remembering how to breathe.

He stepped closer. “So… can I start over? Properly this time?”

You smiled, tears threatening to spill.

“You already have.”

And then, you leaned in—foreheads touching, baby nestled safely between you, the soft hum of the city in the background.

Bob finally felt whole again.

Outside, the Avengerz limo honked.

“GET THE GIRL, BOB!” Walker shouted from the window, before Alexei pulled him back.

“I love them,” Bob said.

You grinned. “I love you.”

Fade Out: One New York Townhouse, One Found Love, and One Future Just Beginning.

[platonicaxaxe]

Bad Blood: The Parallel

Bob Reynolds (sentry) x Ex Assassin Reader

Click

The sky cracked with blinding bursts of power as The Sentry and the exiled Asgardian collided midair, golden light clashing with dark celestial energy. Their blows echoed like thunder across the battlefield, shaking the ground below where chaos reigned.

On land, Alexei, Yelena, Bucky, John Walker, and Ava Starr were locked in a desperate fight against a fleet of extra-terrestrial mercenaries, who had descended with one goal: steal the Magical Orb of Celestara, said to hold unimaginable power.

Yelena’s voice burst through the coms, sharp and urgent.

“Walker! They've got the orb!”

Every Avenger(z) heard it.

The lead alien, a tall obsidian-scaled brute with glowing blue eyes, activated his gravity boots and began ascending to the ship hovering above, the orb clutched to his chest.

But before he could reach safety, a blur of white launched from the shadows.

A woman—clad in a modified White Widow suit—flipped over the alien mid-air, landing on the ship’s hull with surgical precision. Y/N Y/L/N. Deathtrap. Back in action.

She slipped into the ship through its open hatch just as it began to close. Inside, alarms blared. Red lights flashed across the metallic corridors. Y/N ducked a plasma blade aimed at her throat, spun on her heel, and jammed her elbow into the alien’s side. The brute roared, swinging wildly.

Y/N rolled over a console, grabbed a loose cable, and wrapped it around the alien’s neck. He tossed her against a wall, but she flipped off it like a panther, landing a clean kick to his jaw. They grappled, each move clean, calculated—Red Room precision against brute alien force.

Outside, the Asgardian who had been brawling with Sentry glanced skyward. His golden eyes widened—his ship was ascending.

He smirked. The orb is mine.

The Sentry blasted toward him again, but the Asgardian dodged with a burst of cosmic light, tearing through space as a black hole began forming nearby—its pull threatening to consume everything.

Back on the ship, Y/N disarmed the alien, grabbed a blade from her thigh sheath, and drove it clean into his neck. He gurgled, slumped, dead. She yanked the orb from his body, secured it in her tactical bag, and pulled out a small device.

A high-frequency plasma bomb.

She activated it. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Then she ran—hard.

She dove through the hatch just as the ship exploded in a violent blaze, sucked into the growing black hole. Y/N was caught in the vacuum, her body hurtling downward in free fall. She twisted mid-air, but the gravitational pull was merciless.

Her heart pounded. This is it.

And then—arms like steel wrapped around her mid-air.

Golden light enveloped her as The Sentry caught her, stabilizing their descent with effortless grace.

“Ahh—” Y/N gasped, gripping his neck, face pressed into his shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut.

“I got you,” Robert said, his voice low, gentle.

As they landed on the crumbling battlefield, with dust and smoke still lingering, Yelena was the first to rush over.

Bob set Y/N down gently. Her knees wobbled, and she murmured a soft, “Thanks…”

Bob smiled, eyes dazed, his expression utterly lovestruck.

Yelena’s face lit up in shock and warmth. “Y/N… it’s been a while,” she breathed, before pulling her into a hug.

They held each other tight, two shadows of the Red Room finding peace, even just for a moment.

Without a word, Y/N unzipped her tactical bag and handed Yelena the glowing orb, now stable and secured.

“Here. Keep it safe.”

Yelena nodded, taking it carefully.

Y/N looked between her and Bob. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Mind keeping me discreet from the public?”

Yelena smiled knowingly. “Of course.”

Bob looked like he wanted to say more. Stay. Don’t go. Let me come with you.

But before he could speak, Y/N turned, her white suit blending into the haze, and slipped into the shadows. One moment she was there—the next, gone.

Bob stood frozen.

Yelena watched him, then placed a hand on his arm.

“She saved the world today, you know.”

But Bob wasn’t listening.

He was staring at the spot where Y/N vanished, his chest rising and falling… heart aching, soul caught between light and shadow.

Smoke still hung in the air, the battlefield eerily quiet now save for distant sirens and the crackle of dying embers. Yelena took one last glance around, then stepped closer to Bob, lowering her voice to a near whisper.

“Bob, we can’t tell anyone about her. I mean anyone.”

Bob blinked, still dazed from the weight of her in his arms and the way she disappeared like a ghost in the wind.

“Even the others—?” he started, eyes flicking toward where their teammates were helping civilians.

Yelena cut him off immediately.

“No. If anyone finds out where she is, her entire cover is blown. It’ll ruin everything. She can’t afford that. Not now.”

Her voice trembled slightly, but her eyes were solid steel.

Bob stared at her for a long moment. Then slowly, reluctantly, he nodded.

“…Okay.”

There was silence between them before Bob cleared his throat awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“W-who is she, by the way?” he asked, voice low and uncertain. “I mean—what’s her name?”

Yelena gave a dry chuckle, crossing her arms.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” Her tone softened. “I grew up with her. In the Red Room. She was better than most of us… and more dangerous.”

Bob’s jaw tensed. The name sounded like fire and silk on his tongue.

Before anything more could be said, the others approached—Bucky, Ava, John Walker, and Alexei—their faces worn and grimy from the skirmish but glowing with purpose after saving hundreds of lives.

“Status?” Bucky asked, still scanning the area for threats.

Yelena didn’t miss a beat. She held out the satchel.

“Orb secured. No damage.”

Bucky took it, nodding in approval. “Nice work.”

No one questioned it. Everyone assumed Yelena had been the one to retrieve the orb from the collapsing ship.

And she let them believe it.

Bob stayed quiet, his lips pressed tightly, eyes distant.

Weeks Later

The world couldn’t stop talking.

News channels, social media, and every major outlet flooded the airwaves with headlines like:

“New Avengerz Save World From Cosmic Catastrophe”

“Orb of Celestara Secured in Unprecedented Team Effort”

“The Sentry: Earth’s Golden Guardian Shines Again”

Camera flashes and applause filled every press conference. Public celebrations erupted across major cities. Murals of the Avengerz were painted on buildings. Memorials were held for fallen civilians and soldiers.

But behind all the lights and glory, Bob Reynolds sat alone in the Avengerz Tower—in his dimly lit room, untouched food on the table, the low hum of a news broadcast playing in the background.

He wasn’t watching.

He was staring at a photo tucked inside a drawer, taken months ago—blurry, taken by accident, but her face was there. Y/N. Her eyes had been laughing, her hand tangled in his hair.

He exhaled shakily, resting his forehead on the frame.

Where are you now, Deathtrap?

He could still feel her fingers clutching his shoulder mid-air, could still hear her soft “thank you” before she vanished into smoke and silence.

In the mirror, his golden eyes flickered dimly.

And for the first time in a long time…

He wished he could forget the weight of saving the world.

Because the one thing he wanted to save had already slipped through his fingers.

Madripoor shimmered under neon haze, glowing like a dangerous promise. The city of shadows buzzed with life—criminals, mercenaries, syndicate leaders, and bounty hunters prowling the streets like wolves. There was no place for flashy entrances or shining gold capes here. That’s why Robert Reynolds, known as The Sentry, walked among them as just… Robert.

He moved silently through the crowded alleyways, head low, hoodie drawn up, eyes scanning the flickering signs of bars and clubs. The mission was simple—find the missing twin orbs. But this was Madripoor. Nothing came easy here.

Inside a dingy bar pulsing with bass and smoke, Robert slid into a seat. The bartender, a man with a scar splitting through his eyebrow, eyed him curiously.

“What’s a pretty boy doin’ in Madripoor?” the bartender asked while wiping a glass.

“Letting things out,” Bob rasped, keeping his tone low and unreadable.

“Never seen you here before.”

“Yeah,” he replied simply, glancing around before leaning in. “I’m looking for something. Twin orbs. Heard they might be here.”

The bartender paused, a flicker of interest in his eyes. “Ah… the orbs. The Avengerz got one, but the rest? You’re sniffin’ in the right city… but the wrong place.”

Before Bob could respond, a heavy slap landed on his shoulder.

“You’re in our seat,” a gruff voice snarled from behind.

Bob turned, meeting the glare of a group of armed men. Calmly, he said, “This seat’s got no name, sir.”

Click—guns cocked. Robert was ready to explode into Sentry form, but Valentina’s orders were clear—stay low. No golden flare-ups. No chaos.

“Y’all act like you own the place,” a smooth, chilling voice cut through the tension.

Everyone turned. There she was. A woman in a tailored white widow suit, lounging against the bar, sipping something dark. Her gaze was sharp. Y/N.

Bob’s heart jumped. He hadn’t seen her since… New York’s last chaos. She looked deadly and divine.

“You think you’re superior, lady?” the leader barked, hurling a knife toward her.

Clink. Y/N caught it mid-air, effortless. “Put the toys down,” she said, placing the blade on the bar. “Let’s do this the manly way. No crutches.”

The men smirked, accepting her challenge.

Combat erupted.

Y/N flowed like wind—graceful and lethal. She twisted, dodging the first strike and elbowing the man in the gut. A kick sent the second reeling into a table. One tried to choke her from behind, but she flipped him over her shoulder and slammed him onto the counter. Precise. Calculated. Brutal.

Within minutes, they were on the floor—groaning, unconscious.

Breathing hard, Y/N turned to Bob and grabbed his arm. “You shouldn’t be here,” she hissed.

“I need the orbs,” Bob said.

A bullet rang out—striking him in the shoulder.

“Dammit!” he growled, clutching the wound. His powers surged, but Y/N held his hand. “No powers. We go now.”

They darted through alleyways, bullets nipping at their heels. Finally, they made it to her hideout—a modest apartment tucked deep in Madripoor’s lower slums. Dim but clean, with maps, weapons, and scribbled notes pinned to walls.

Bob collapsed on the bed as she peeled off his jacket and lifted his shirt, revealing the bleeding wound. He hissed in pain.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t an inch deeper,” she said, dressing the injury with practiced hands. Then she handed him a satchel.

He opened it—the twin orbs.

“I just got them yesterday,” she said softly. “Was going to return them today… until I saw you.”

Bob looked up. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to do something good,” she said, smiling faintly. “For once.”

“You should sleep,” she added, turning to leave.

“What about you?” he asked, sleep pulling at his eyes.

“I’ll be here.”

Morning came.

Bob winced as he sat up, arm still aching. Y/N gently helped him redress the wound.

“A boat’s leaving. We’ll sneak onboard.”

He nodded.

The boat ride was slow—but Bob wasn’t focused on the sea. He watched her instead. The way she rested her chin on her hand. The distant look in her eyes. She was calm, quiet… and achingly beautiful.

Hours later, as they reached the quiet edges of the U.S. border, Bob clutched the satchel tightly. Before they could part ways, Y/N turned to him.

“Promise me. You won’t tell anyone about me. Not Valentina. Not the team.”

“I promise,” Bob said, eyes full of something he couldn’t yet name.

“…Will I ever see you again?” he asked, almost whispering.

She chuckled. “You can fly, right?”

Then she grabbed a pen and scribbled something on his hand. A location.

“Cresthill Cabin — Blackwood Pines. Off-grid.” A remote forest hideout nestled north of New York.

Bob looked down at the ink. When he glanced up—she was gone.

No sound. No trace.

Just emptiness. And longing.

The wind parted for him like it always did.

Robert Reynolds, now dressed in his gold-and-white Sentry suit, soared high over rooftops, leaving a trail of awe behind him. Kids pointed up from parks and playgrounds, their faces lighting up.

“Look! It’s the Sentry!”

“He’s back!”

“Mom, he’s flying!”

He slowed his speed just slightly, enough to wave back at a cluster of children on a rooftop basketball court. One kid grinned wide, both hands waving over his head. Bob smiled warmly and gave him a thumbs-up mid-flight, making the kid nearly fall over from excitement.

Cameras clicked. Drones followed from a distance. Social media and news outlets buzzed: “Sentry Returns with a Mission Accomplished!” Headlines flashed:

– ‘The Golden Hero Strikes Again’

– ‘Sentry Sighted Over New York – Glorious Re-entry!’

Moments later, he landed gracefully on the platform of the Avengerz Tower, cape fluttering behind him like a banner. The sliding doors opened with a low chime, revealing familiar faces gathered in the command room.

Bucky turned first, a rare grin breaking across his usually stoic face. “Well, look who decided to show up in one piece.”

Yelena stood beside him, arms folded but eyes warm. Ava gave him a smirk and nodded. Even Walker gave him a half-salute.

“Welcome back, Goldilocks,” Alexei bellowed from across the room, walking over with a hearty pat to Bob’s back that nearly sent him forward.

“Didn’t die,” Bob said, a little breathless but smiling. “I call that a win.”

“Where’s the cargo?” Valentina’s crisp voice broke through the welcome. She stood near the meeting table, her eyes sharp, always calculating.

Bob didn’t hesitate. He pulled the satchel from his side and set it gently on the table. Val’s eyes gleamed as she opened it, the glow of the Twin Orbs washing over her face like reflected starlight.

“Intact. No scratches. Nicely done, Robert,” she said, surprisingly soft. “You did exactly what was asked. Nothing more.”

“Of course,” he said, meeting her gaze without flinching.

Everyone relaxed. It was one of those rare, golden moments—a mission finished, a team at ease, and a sense of peace in the room that was usually filled with tension.

Yelena moved closer to Bob, her eyes catching something faint. He didn’t notice—he was talking to Bucky about the flight—but she did.

There, just above his wrist, was faint pen ink.

Handwritten.

Still smudged from travel.

“Cresthill Cabin — Blackwood Pines.”

She said nothing. She didn’t ask. But her smile deepened slightly, as if she already knew what—or who—it was about.

Instead, she handed him a bottle of water and lightly tapped his arm. “You did good. Maybe now, take a breath.”

Bob smiled, that rare peaceful kind, the kind that only surfaced when something inside him was still lingering—something tender and secret, written in ink and memory.

And though the room moved on—banter, celebration, laughter—Bob’s mind quietly traced back to a woman in white, a quiet cabin in the forest, and the last words she left him with:

“You can fly, right?”

[platonicaxaxe]

Bad Blood: The Parallel

The Sentry x Ex Assassin reader

Context:

In this world, Robert Reynolds, also known as The Sentry, is no longer a fractured god of light and darkness—he is in full control of his powers. A symbol of hope and strength, he stands tall as one of the most beloved heroes of the people and a core member of the elite new team: The Avengerz.

But behind his golden glow, Robert harbored a secret.

For nearly two years, he built a quiet, hidden bond with Y/N Y/L/N, the elusive assassin known only in whispers as Deathtrap—a former operative of the Red Room and a shadow from Yelena Belova’s past. They met by chance, drawn to one another by something unexplainable. Against all odds and logic, Robert saw something more in her: not a weapon, not a threat… but a person trying to survive a system that built her to kill.

Their love was not loud. It existed in small corners of the world—rooftops, safehouses, stolen hours. And Robert, for once, felt grounded.

Until everything shattered.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, ever the puppeteer, publicly exposed Deathtrap as a high-tier international criminal. She claimed Y/N had orchestrated secret assassinations of politicians and global figures, and was behind a string of unsolved high-end bank heists.

Despite the storm, Robert stood by her side… at first.

“She’s not what you say she is,” he told Val, jaw clenched. “You just don’t see the full picture.”

“I see more than you think,” Valentina replied coolly. “She needs guidance. Control. Structure. Help me, Robert… or she will burn everything you built.”

Wanting to believe in redemption and in Valentina's promise to educate Y/N—not destroy her—Robert assisted in her capture. He didn’t know the full truth. He didn’t know what they had planned.

He didn’t know they meant to get rid of her.

But Y/N escaped.

She vanished before the world could witness her execution, slipping through the cracks like smoke. And when she looked back… it was him she remembered standing behind Valentina.

Now, years later, Robert sees her again—not in his arms, but on the battlefield, standing against him, her eyes no longer soft, but forged in betrayal.

"You believed them," she whispers, as thunder crashes overhead.

"You let them put chains on me... and called it saving me."

His voice trembles. “Y/N… I didn’t know.”

Her smile is cold, sharp like a blade.

“Now you do.”

And then—she vanished into the shadows.

Now, war brews in the veins of the Avengerz. Loyalty is tested. Truths are tangled.

And the question lingers in Robert’s mind, louder than ever:

Is she still the woman he loved… or the monster he helped create?

[platonicaxaxe]

Deathtrap & Bob ⁶

Bob Reynolds (sentry) x Ex Assassin Reader

Summary: Mad Bob->Sentry

The Bob(sentry) Masterlist here

Two Weeks Later – Avengers Tower

The Tower had a pulse now.

Not the cold, clinical hum of mission logs and training routines—but laughter in the halls, coffee mugs left beside comic books, and the sound of footsteps that weren’t always measured or militant. Yn had been staying at the Tower for two weeks, and the change was tangible.

She wasn’t just a guest anymore. She belonged.

Training Room – 10:34 A.M.

“Again,” Yelena said, smirking as she lunged forward.

Yn ducked, rolled to the side, and swept Yelena’s legs—but her blonde opponent caught herself mid-fall, flipping into a backwards stance with a grunt.

“Your balance is better,” Bucky observed from the side, tossing a small towel over his shoulder. “But don’t overextend.”

“I’m trying,” Yn said between breaths, wiping the sweat from her brow. “But Yelena’s built like a machine.”

“Thank you,” Yelena said proudly. “You hit harder now, too. Must be all that ‘love power’ from golden boy.”

Yn snorted, tossing a towel at her. “Shut up.”

At the edge of the mat, Bob stood silently, arms crossed, eyes trained on Yn like a hawk.

Every time someone struck at her, even during practice, he had to restrain his instinct to intervene. His fingers twitched, his golden aura faintly flickering at his shoulders.

“She’s fine,” Bucky said lowly to him. “Let her breathe.”

Bob nodded stiffly. “I know. I just…”

“You love her,” Bucky finished, matter-of-fact.

Bob didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

Bob had just returned from debrief with the team after a short recon mission. Yn sat on the couch in his hoodie, legs tucked under her, sipping tea as she watched something play softly on the TV. When Bob stepped into the room, her head turned immediately.

“There you are,” she said, smiling.

Bob melted.

“Hey. Sorry—Val kept us an extra thirty minutes.”

“Did you win the war?” she teased.

Bob chuckled as he sat beside her. She instantly curled into his side, her head finding that familiar space near his collarbone.

“We missed you,” she whispered.

He kissed the top of her head. “We?”

“Myself... and the heating system.”

He laughed again, quieter this time. “I’ll take it.”

Valentina stood in front of a holographic screen, arms folded, her expression unreadable as she watched surveillance footage. Yn sparring. Yn in the training gym. Yn walking in the garden. Yn laughing with Bob in the mess hall.

“Playback again,” she ordered curtly.

Mel, typing behind her, gave her a glance. “Ma’am, this is the fifth time today.”

Val didn’t look away. “I want to know how someone like her breaks through someone like him.”

“Maybe she didn’t break him,” Mel offered. “Maybe she just... held the right pieces.”

Val turned slowly. “Don’t romanticize it. She was trained to seduce, manipulate, kill—in that order. The Red Room didn’t raise wives, Mel.”

Mel frowned but nodded.

Valentina narrowed her eyes at the screen. Yn was now laughing at something Bob said, her hand over his, light, relaxed.

“She plays it well. Civilian enough for the public to ignore. Deadly enough for the right agencies to notice. If this goes south…”

“We’ll be ready,” Mel said quickly.

“No,” Val corrected. “I’ll be ready.”

Back in Bob’s Room – Midnight

Yn stared out the window at the stars.

“Do you think I’m ready?” she asked softly.

Bob, lying behind her in bed, propped himself on one elbow. “Ready for what?”

“To have a life.”

“You’ve always deserved one,” he said gently.

She turned to him. “Even with everything I’ve done?”

He reached for her hand. “Especially because of everything you’ve survived.”

She blinked, lips trembling slightly. Then she nodded, pressing her forehead to his.

And somewhere in the building above them, Valentina watched the glowing footage in silence, her reflection cold in the glass.

The storm wasn’t here yet. But she could feel it coming.

The room was dimly lit, windows casting long shadows across polished floors. Valentina stood by the window, the city twinkling behind her like a breathing organism. Her fingers held a glass of dark wine, swirling slowly as she stared out at the skyline—calculating.

Mel entered quietly behind her, tablet in hand.

“You asked for me?” she said cautiously.

Val didn’t turn to look. “Yes.”

She took a slow sip before speaking again. “I want you to pull up every unredacted file on The Deathtrap. Everything—missions, confirmed kills, suspected hits, aliases. Anything that slipped past the Red Room's wipe.”

Mel hesitated. “That’s… a lot of digging. You sure you want to do this now?”

Val turned sharply, her eyes gleaming.

“She’s been here two weeks, Mel. Bob is changing. And not in a way I can predict.”

Common Room

The fireplace flickered, casting golden light across the dark walls. Bob stood silently, arms crossed, eyes on the flames. Val entered alone, her heels echoing faintly against the floor.

“You wanted to talk,” he said, not turning.

Val didn’t waste time.

“I know you love her,” she said.

Bob finally turned, eyes cautious.

“But love,” she continued, “can be the perfect blindfold. It’s soft. It’s warm. And it’s dangerous.”

Bob raised a brow. “Is that what this is about? Another lecture?”

Val stepped forward, voice lowering. “You know what the Red Room is, Robert. You’ve seen enough minds to understand. You’ve read dark thoughts, disturbing ones—Yn was born into that. Forged in it. She’s not just a victim; she’s a weapon that walked.”

Bob’s jaw tightened. “She was a weapon. She’s not anymore.”

“That’s what you want to believe,” Val said, circling him slowly like a panther. “But let me show you something.”

She threw a tablet onto the table. On it, an old mission dossier flickered to life: Classified Black Ops: Subject — Deathtrap. Moscow. Target neutralized. Body count: 12. Clean hit. No witnesses.

Another file. Another hit. Another dozen dead. She scrolled quickly through them, page after page of carnage and blood.

“She was their prized killer, Robert. Her hands are redder than most of ours combined.”

Bob stared at the screen for a moment. But then… he looked back at Val, completely unmoved.

“And she hated every second of it.”

Val scoffed. “How do you know?”

“Because I can feel it,” he said, voice rising, glowing light flickering faintly around his eyes. “I see her nightmares. I see the child in her still trapped in that place. Every time she flinches at loud sounds. Every time she stares at her own hands like they betrayed her.”

“She’s dangerous.”

“So am I,” Bob growled. “More than anyone here.”

“If the government finds out she’s here—”

“I’ll protect her.”

“They’ll want her in a cell, Robert!”

“They’ll have to go through me first,” he snapped.

Val’s voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “You’d destroy everything we built here… for her?”

Bob stepped forward, now face to face with her. “No. I’d destroy everything you built—if it means saving the only person who makes me feel human.”

Val’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“No, Val,” Bob said, voice calmer now but firm. “For the first time in my life… I am.”

Bob closed the door softly behind him. Yn was sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading. She looked up, eyes instantly softening.

“You okay?” she asked gently.

He nodded, walking toward her. “Yeah… just had to shut someone up.”

“Val?”

He climbed onto the bed beside her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.

“She doesn’t understand what love looks like. But I do.”

Yn leaned into him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “You sure I’m not too much baggage?”

“You’re my favorite kind,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers.

And outside the room, behind a screen, Val watched in silence—her plan faltering as love, once again, refused to be broken.

Valentina’s Private Office – Midnight

The moonlight spilled faintly through the high-rise glass windows, casting silver stripes across the sleek, cold marble floor. The city was quiet, but inside the tower—tension simmered.

Yn stood in front of Valentina’s door, jaw tight, knuckles slightly white from clenching. After a breath, she knocked once and walked in—without waiting for an answer.

Valentina was pouring herself a drink, calm and composed as ever.

“Well,” Val said coolly, without looking up. “Didn’t expect you to come to me.”

“I bet you didn’t expect me to hear what you said to Bob either,” Yn replied sharply, shutting the door behind her.

Val turned, swirling her glass lazily. “So the assassin does eavesdrop.”

Yn took a step forward, voice low but steady. “Why are you so desperate to get rid of me?”

Val chuckled, leaning back against her desk. “Let’s not pretend, sweetheart. You already know why. You’re a liability.”

Yn’s eyes narrowed. “To who? You? Or the government?”

“To everyone,” Val snapped, the mask finally cracking. “You may play the part of the quiet girlfriend, the broken stray Bob’s trying to fix—but I know your kind. The Red Room doesn’t train women. It rewires them.”

“You think I asked for any of it?” Yn hissed. “You think I chose that life?”

“No,” Val said coolly. “But the world doesn’t care about your trauma. They only care about results. And your results come with bodies. Too many. Too bloody.”

Yn took another step forward, her tone icy. “You’re not scared of what I’ve done. You’re scared of what I mean to Bob. That he’s not yours to manipulate anymore.”

Val slammed her glass on the desk, her voice finally rising.

“You’re going to be the mole that rots the Avengers from the inside,” she hissed. “You think the world won’t find out who you are? What you’ve done? You think Bob’s glowing little heart will be enough when governments start questioning why a mass killer is sleeping in a secured tower?!”

Yn didn’t flinch.

“I’ll face whatever comes. But I’m not leaving him. Or this team.”

“You’re a time bomb,” Val seethed.

“And you’re just pissed that he’s no longer dancing to your strings.”

Silence fell between them—thick, suffocating.

Val picked up her glass again. “This isn’t over.”

Yn leaned in, just slightly. “It never is with women like us.”

And with that, she turned and walked out, leaving Val alone with her spiraling thoughts and unfinished wine.

From the shadows near the hallway, Mel had been listening. A flicker of uncertainty crossed her face for the first time.

The day before the mission, Valentina stood at the front of the room, tapping her fingers against the polished table as a digital map flickered to life behind her. Her tone was professional—cold and calculated.

“We have intel on a Hydra cell resurfacing in rural Latvia. Minimal resistance, clean sweep, in-and-out op. Bob, you’ll lead. Yelena, Bucky, Mel… and Deathtrap,” Val said with a flat gaze at Yn.

“Yn,” Bob corrected gently, but firm. “Her name is Yn.”

Val’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Of course.”

Yn, standing beside Bob, crossed her arms. “I can handle myself. Just tell me what to do.”

Val’s eyes lingered on her a second too long before turning to the others. “Good. Wheels up at 0400.”

Latvia – Abandoned Facility – Operation Site

The mission was smooth—too smooth. Yn moved like a ghost through the corridors, silently disabling targets and leading the way. She took down the final room, disarmed a Hydra tech, and retrieved the data drive.

Suddenly—click.

She froze.

A bombcuff locked around her wrist. A synchronized warning sound blared, and all members’ comms echoed the same words:

"Warning: If any unauthorized individual attempts to remove or interfere, detonation is imminent."

“What the hell—?!” Bucky shouted, spinning toward the source.

Yn stood frozen, her breath caught. The cuffs were glowing—live.

“Yn!” Bob moved toward her instantly, glowing with golden light. “Get that thing off her now—I swear—”

“Stop,” Yn said quickly, holding up her cuffed hand.

Everyone turned to her.

“I… I think I know what this is.” She looked directly at Val, who had just stepped off a nearby unmarked aircraft.

“This was never a mission,” Yn whispered. “This was a setup.”

Val didn’t deny it. Her voice rang over the team’s confusion.

“We’ve received footage. Discreet agencies. Cases covered up by people who were paid off. And now the truth will be public.”

Yelena’s voice broke through the tension. “Val, don’t—”

“Yn,” Bob’s eyes were glowing, his aura beginning to radiate power. “I-I can destroy all of this—I’ll do it.”

“No,” Yn said, her voice soft but unwavering. “If I run… I’ll always be running. If I want to live free… I need to face what I’ve done.”

Bob stared at her, hurt blooming behind his golden gaze. “But you don’t deserve this.”

Yn looked into his eyes. “Neither did the people I killed.”

U.S. Supreme Court – High Security Tribunal – Two Days Later

The courtroom was cold, vast, and clinical. Yn was locked inside a reinforced glass chamber, her neck secured by an inhibitor collar, wrists and ankles chained. She stood tall—but pale.

The media was shut out. But in Thunderbolts Tower, the entire New Avengers team sat in silence in the conference room, watching the trial through a secure feed.

Bob sat closest to the screen, fists trembling, his powers threatening to rise with every flash of horror on screen.

The prosecution played a montage of CCTV footage—old missions from around the globe. Yn in her Red Room uniform. Silent. Efficient. Brutal.

– One clip showed her silently executing a diplomat in Dubai.

– Another, planting a bomb that leveled a meeting between defected spies.

– A final one—dragging a whimpering Hydra scientist through snow, blood marking the path.

Bob’s eyes welled up. Yelena covered her mouth.

Yn watched her own footage, face blank—until the last tape. It was a child. Her target.

She looked away, jaw clenched, breathing ragged.

In the tower, Bob stood up. “This is torture,” he said. “She’s already living in hell.”

“This is justice,” Valentina said, arms folded at the back of the room. “She’s a threat. A loaded gun in the heart of our tower.”

Bob turned slowly toward her, voice dangerously low. “You call this justice? You’re just afraid of what she means to me.”

Val arched an eyebrow. “She’s a killer, Robert.”

Yelena stood. “Most of us here have done what she did. We were made into monsters. Some of us still are.”

Bucky stood beside her. “Even you, Val. Don’t pretend you’re clean.”

Val’s smile vanished.

One by one, the team stood behind Yelena.

Yn, inside a glass detainment cell, her arms chained, her neck restrained with a magnetic collar—just like Bucky’s years ago. Her hair was damp with sweat, her eyes hollow, and her breathing shallow.

Bob sat on the edge of his chair, fists clenched, while Yelena, Bucky, Alexei, Ava, and John watched with aching tension in their eyes.

“She’s scared,” Bob murmured, barely above a whisper. “I can feel it.”

The Prosecutor Stepped Forward

“The following surveillance clips have been decrypted from Hydra's black files, Red Room’s deepest vaults, and allied intelligence bureaus who erased these from existence—until now,” he announced coldly.

He turned to Yn.

“You were known as Deathtrap. What we will show now is the cost of that name.”

The courtroom’s main screen lit up.

There were more

CLIP ONE: Rome, 2013 – The Poisoned Waltz

A ballroom full of diplomats and elites.

Yn moved through the crowd in a silver dress, emotionless. She spun in a slow dance with her target—a high-ranking physicist planning to defect from Hydra.

She whispered something.

He fell dead mid-spin.

The crowd screamed.

She walked away like nothing happened.

“Laced contact lens. No forensic trail. Death within seconds.”

CLIP TWO: Morocco, 2015 – Black Site Silence

A desert prison facility in flames.

Inside the chaos, Yn slipped past burning cells and panicking guards. In a corner cell, a man screamed for mercy—one of the few Red Room handlers who defected.

She dragged him by the collar.

“You broke them. Let’s see how it feels.”

The blade was swift. Her hand didn’t shake. She walked out covered in ash.

CLIP THREE: Seoul, 2017 – Political Execution

A South Korean senator sat tied to a chair, bloodied.

Yn stepped into frame, calm, surgical. Dressed as a hotel maid, she placed a silenced gun to his head and pulled the trigger without a word.

“The Red Room’s message to the resistance. A warning.”

CLIP FOUR: Switzerland, 2018 – Cold Heist

A snowy mountainside. Yn descended on a laboratory. The footage showed her silently eliminating guards—quick throat slits, snapped necks.

She retrieved a glowing vial. Extremis prototype.

“No witnesses. No survivors.”

CLIP FIVE (New): Latvia, 2019 – The Betrayed Mentor

An older woman in a wheelchair—another Red Room survivor—sat before a fireplace. She welcomed Yn in with a warm hug.

Moments later, hidden camera footage revealed Yn’s eyes dim as she was triggered by a command phrase.

Her body language changed.

She stabbed the woman in the heart.

“Her mentor. Her handler. Her friend. All three.”

Bob’s hands trembled.

“She didn’t want any of that,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion. “T-they made her do it.”

Valentina stood near the back of the room, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “People will never believe that. All they’ll see is blood.”

Yelena turned sharply. “Then they’re the problem. Not her.”

Val didn’t even blink. “She’s a ticking time bomb.”

“She’s just a survivor,” Bucky muttered.

Tears streamed down her cheeks now. Her lip quivered. She stared at the cold marble floor, haunted by the ghosts she’d buried.

“I didn’t choose to be her…” she whispered hoarsely.

Silence fell.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

The prosecutor stepped forward, unsympathetic. “But they didn’t have a choice to live either.”

“She’s breaking,” Bob said, nearly rising from his seat. Energy crackled faintly at his fingertips.

Val turned. “She’s too dangerous, Robert. Don’t be blind.”

“I’m not,” he snapped.

“You’re in denial,” she snapped back.

Yelena stepped between them. “We all have blood on our hands. Even you, Val.”

Val’s jaw twitched.

“We fight for redemption,” Yelena continued, “Not to bury people under their trauma.”

Yn finally broke.

tears slid down her face as the prosecutor listed her aliases: “Shadow Widow. Deathtrap. Asset 02-Theta.”

“Do you deny these names?”

She raised her head.

“I don’t,” she said. “But I’m not her anymore.”

Silence fell like a blade after hours of agonizing footage and sharp accusations.

The presiding judge rose slowly from her seat, her voice stern and final as she stared directly at the glass chamber where Y/N stood, trembling and pale.

“Y/N Y/L/N…” she began, her words echoing through the courtroom, “…for the unlawful assassination of 39 individuals including political figures, scientists, and civilians—while knowingly operating under and affiliating with illegal organizations such as the Red Room and Hydra—this court finds you guilty.”

Y/N's breath hitched. Her fingers trembled around her shackled wrists.

“You are hereby sentenced to capital punishment by lethal injection… tomorrow afternoon.”

The gavel slammed down like thunder.

“Court adjourned.”

A collective gasp erupted in the chamber.

The screen flickered as the final verdict was read.

Bob stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat.

Then—

His eyes lit gold, veins glowing faintly under his skin.

His chair screeched against the floor as he stood. “No…” he breathed.

“NO!”

Energy cracked in the air around him like static lightning.

Yelena's eyes widened. “They’re killing her… they’re actually going to kill her.”

Alexei slammed his fist on the table. “This is wrong! She was brainwashed!”

Bucky gritted his teeth, eyes glassy. “They’re punishing the soldier, not the war.”

John Walker stood up, tense. “We need to do something.”

“No…” Bob muttered, still glowing, his voice deeper—warped—the Sentry threatening to surface.

“I should destroy the building. I should burn their judgment to the ground.”

Yelena rushed to him. “Bob—no! That’s not what Y/N would want!”

“SHE IS NOT A WEAPON!” he shouted, his voice booming like a storm, causing the walls to shudder.

Yelena looked near tears. Ava turned her face away in fury.

“I won’t let them take her,” Bob whispered again, face hard, voice hollow.

Valentina stepped back from the room’s edge, silently watching as her plan bloomed into chaos.

Y/N collapsed to her knees after the gavel slammed, gasping for air.

Two guards moved toward her. She didn't fight.

She just closed her eyes and whispered softly to herself:

“I deserve this. For them. For all of them.”

But even as the walls closed in, a part of her clung to the warmth of Bob's hand… the scent of his hoodie… the sound of Yelena laughing in the training room… the little peace she found after the storm.

She had tasted healing. And now, it was being ripped away.

The sun dipped below the horizon, casting a bloody hue across the city skyline as the world prepared to end the life of a woman it once didn't even know existed.

Inside a high-security containment facility, Y/N sat in a transparent cube reinforced with vibranium fibers and gamma-proof seals — a prison designed for monsters. Her hair hung damp and limp over her eyes, her body slouched in defeat, and the red welt still burned on her neck from the restraining collar. She was a ghost of the assassin once called Deathtrap — and even more so, a ghost of the woman Bob Reynolds had come to love.

A low, distant hum stirred in the wind above the facility. Lights flickered. Alarms didn’t even get the chance to scream.

Then, a golden streak split the darkened sky.

A thunderous blast echoed across the complex as The Sentry landed like a meteor, golden energy crackling off his form, boots crushing the pavement beneath him. Dust and debris swept through the prison yard like a storm.

Inside her cube, Y/N jolted as the world outside shook.

Then she saw him. Bob.

His blonde hair messy from the wind, chest rising with erratic breaths, eyes glowing molten gold — not just with power, but with love, desperation, and pain.

She rushed to the glass wall, pressing her palm against it. Bob mirrored her, their hands meeting with only the thick transparent barrier between them.

"Y/N..." he said, his voice low, raw, breaking.

She shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Bob... you shouldn’t be here."

"I have to be here," he said, breath trembling. “I can’t just stand back while they take you away from me.”

Her knees buckled slightly. “I chose this, Bob. I needed to face it... for all the blood on my hands...”

He pressed his forehead against the glass, golden sparks dancing at his fingertips. “That blood isn’t all you are. You’re not just Deathtrap. You’re Y/N. And you saved me when I couldn’t save myself.”

She whimpered, her voice cracking, “You don’t understand… I don’t deserve freedom.”

His voice dropped, raspy and fierce. “Then I’ll fight to make you deserve it. If the world can’t see what I see in you… then to hell with the world.”

Energy surged from his body in golden waves. The unbreakable cube began to hum and tremble. Microfractures spiderwebbed along the glass where their hands met.

“B-Bob—!” she gasped, stepping back.

But he didn’t stop.

"I promised you we'd live our life. Just us. Away from all of this." His voice cracked as a tear fell. “And I don’t break promises.”

With a final burst of light, the glass shattered outward, the force contained and redirected by Bob’s own will so she wasn’t harmed.

The sirens finally started. Guards rushed from towers, orders screamed through comms.

But they were too late.

With a blink — whoosh — The Sentry wrapped Y/N in his arms and shot into the sky like a star ascending. The explosion of flight blew the prison's rooftop apart, debris spiraling as golden light disappeared into the clouds.

They were gone.

No one saw where they went. No one knew where to find them.

Only the wind carried the last echo of Bob’s vow:

“We’ll live free. Together.”

The world would never know what truly happened that night.

The high-security facility meant to contain the most dangerous woman alive was reduced to ash and ruin. What was once a steel-locked fortress now lay in twisted metal and scorched earth. Hundreds of guards, agents, and staff—gone in an instant. No black boxes. No camera feeds. No trace of survivors.

The only thing the authorities could piece together was a growing legend: The Sentry had turned. That he had loved The Deathtrap. That their love brought the skies down in fury.

But there were no photos. No videos. Only whispered theories, exaggerated tales, grainy images distorted beyond recognition.

They became ghosts. No—myths. Echoes in the wind of a love so powerful it rewrote fate.

Yet somewhere, far away from the charred remains and political scandals...

Peace lived.

In a quiet, tree-wrapped cabin nestled on the outskirts of a sleepy town — nameless, unbothered, and almost too ordinary — life found rhythm again.

The early morning light filtered through gauzy curtains, casting golden stripes across the wooden floors. The cabin smelled of pine, fresh coffee, and the warm scent of sizzling breakfast. A pan crackled on the stove, and Bob stood at the counter, sleeves rolled, spatula in hand. His blonde hair was longer now, tousled and soft, a few strands falling over his brow as he focused on the eggs.

Then—arms.

Delicate yet familiar arms slid around his waist from behind, pressing against him with a quiet warmth that made his heart leap.

A sleepy voice murmured against his back, “Good morning…”

The sound of her — rasped, honeyed, drowsy — made him melt.

He smiled, setting the spatula down for a moment. “Morning.”

He turned just enough to press a kiss to her crown, where her slightly messy hair still held the scent of lavender from last night’s shower..

Y/N’s cheek rested against his spine, her arms holding him tighter. “You’re up early.”

“Wanted to make your favorite,” he said softly. “The local shop had fresh sourdough yesterday. Thought it’d go well with the omelet.”

She chuckled lightly. “You spoil me.”

He turned to face her, hands finding her waist. “After everything we’ve been through…” He looked into her eyes, a gentle fierceness behind the gold that barely shimmered anymore. “You deserve peace. You deserve mornings like this.”

Y/N blinked at him, her eyes glinting with emotion. “I don’t care where we live, or if the world forgets us… as long as I have you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her — slow and steady, like time didn’t matter anymore.

Outside, birds chirped. A wind danced through the forest.

And inside that cabin, far away from governments and villains and cages...

Two people—once weapons of mass destruction—had finally found their own quiet heaven.

[platonicaxaxe]

Deathtrap & Bob ⁵

Bob Reynolds (sentry) x Ex Assassin Reader

Context: Protective Bob, Changed Bob?

The Bob(sentry) Masterlist here

It had been two days since the conference—two days of peace, laughter, and an unfamiliar lightness in Bob’s chest. He hadn’t felt this free in… he didn’t even know how long. Not since before the experiments. Not since before the Void.

Those days with YN were like fragments of a life he thought he’d never have. Training in the woods, playful teasing, stolen kisses between punches, long walks by the lake, and the quiet comfort of not having to hide who—or what—he was. The most powerful man in the world, and yet it was her presence that made him feel invincible.

That night, Bob lay in bed, comic book in hand, flipping lazily through the pages while YN stepped out of the bathroom in a fresh shirt and shorts, towel-drying her hair. The scent of lavender soap lingered in the air. She didn’t say a word as she slid into bed, curling beside him, her head resting gently on his chest. He set the comic aside and instinctively pulled her closer, fingers tracing slow lines on her back. There were no words spoken.

But in the silence, there was love. Quiet. Whole. Real.

Two warriors with stained pasts, sharing the kind of moment, neither ever believed they deserved.

Sleep eventually took them.

2:03 AM.

YN stirred.

Thirsty.

She slipped from the warmth of Bob’s embrace, careful not to wake him. A quiet smile touched her lips as she looked back at him—blonde hair tousled, brows relaxed, breathing soft. A man the world feared. A man who once feared himself. But to her… he was just Bob.

She padded barefoot across the wooden floor to the kitchen, reaching for a glass. Cool water spilled from the tap into the cup, the gentle stream masking the faintest whisper—

“Deathtrap…”

She froze.

Her spine stiffened. The glass in her hand trembled slightly.

A faint, disembodied whisper, brushing against the shell of her ear like breath.

“You can never escape your sins…”

Her heartbeat quickened.

She turned—but no one was there.

Her vision flickered. Shadows warped across the cabin walls.

“How many have bled because of you?” the voice hissed again, echoing in a tone that didn’t belong in this world. The kitchen grew colder. Darker.

Suddenly, she saw them—ghosts of her past: faceless men, bloodied hands, young girls screaming in cages, targets with bullet holes through their hearts. Screams. Torture. Crimson-soaked floors of the Red Room. The monster they made her be.

“You are the cause of DEATH!”

The voice ROARED—and then—

CRASH.

Everything went black.

Bob’s eyes flew open.

His hand instinctively reached for her side.

Empty.

“YN?” he whispered, sitting up.

No answer.

Then he heard it.

Glass.

He was out of the bed in seconds, bare feet slamming onto the cold floor as he raced to the kitchen.

There she was—collapsed on the floor, blood trickling from her nose, her body limp beside shattered glass.

“No—no no no—” Bob dropped to his knees beside her, gently cupping her cheek. “Hey—hey, YN. Wake up, c’mon. Look at me…”

Her breathing was shallow.

His vision blurred.

His heart pounded against his ribs like a war drum.

“Please,” he whispered, tears threatening. “Don’t do this. Not you.”

He didn’t hesitate. He scooped her into his arms, cradling her close. Without a second thought, he ran out the door and launched upward into the night sky.

He flew.

Not shaky. Not unstable.

Controlled. Steady. Powerful.

The wind howled around him, his jaw clenched as he ascended above the treetops, above the clouds, her figure nestled against his chest like something sacred.

He whispered against her temple, “Hold on. Just hold on…”

Back at the tower, red emergency lights flickered on the tarmac as Bob landed hard against the concrete, nearly collapsing from panic.

“I NEED HELP!” he bellowed as he stormed inside, his voice echoing through the halls.

Guards scrambled.

Medical teams rushed.

Valentina, awakened by the alert, appeared in her silk robe—but before she could say a word, Bob snarled, “Not now.”

And everyone stepped back.

He disappeared into the med bay with YN in his arms.

And outside, the world’s most powerful man—haunted, furious, in love—waited for someone to bring the only person who truly understood him back to life.

The Tower – Emergency Bay Entrance

Valentina stood still, lips parted slightly in shock, as the blur of blonde streaked past her. Bob—The Sentry—his hair gleaming like golden fire in the artificial lights, had just flown in.

Flown, without chaos, without destruction, without flickering out of control. It wasn’t a burst of unstable power or one of his “moments.”

No.

This was precise. Focused.

Controlled.

She’d never seen him like that.

The med bay doors hissed closed behind him, leaving silence in his wake.

Valentina turned slowly, eyes wide, heart thudding. “Did you all see that?” she asked, her voice low but sharp.

Mel, Yelena, and Ava were watching from a distance—silent, uncertain.

“Bob just flew across five zones of restricted airspace, and didn’t obliterate anything on the way down,” Valentina muttered.

“That’s... not normal, is it?” Mel asked cautiously.

Val didn’t answer. Her eyes narrowed.

Instead, she turned back toward the bay doors. For a brief moment, just before they closed, she had seen her—the woman in his arms. Long dark hair, bruised, unconscious, but unmistakably being cradled like the center of his universe.

Val knew that look.

That wasn’t just anyone.

That was someone he would tear the sky apart for.

“Mel,” Valentina said crisply. “I want a background check on the woman The Sentry brought in. Full file. Don’t just search public databases. Dive into the discreet archives. Cross-reference Red Room leaks, off-grid agencies, blacklisted files. I want to know everything.”

Mel hesitated. “That’s… risky. If her file’s where I think it is, there’s a reason no one’s touched it.”

“I don’t care,” Val snapped. “Get it.”

Valentina’s Private Office

The file appeared on her tablet like a ghost dragged from hell.

Codenames. Kills. Disguises. Missions. Photos blurred and redacted. Everything

pointed to a single conclusion:

"Agent 09 – Codename: DEATHTRAP."

Classified Red Room asset. Escaped operative. Assassin with a record so silent the blood never made it to the surface. Thought to be dead. Covered up by the very hands that built her.

Valentina's heart dropped.

Not just some ex-field agent.

The Deathtrap.

And now, she's with the most powerful, unstable superhuman alive.

She leaned back in her chair, brows furrowed, lips tight.

“This can’t go public…”

If the media caught wind that The Sentry—the beacon of unstable godhood—was in an intimate relationship with a former red room assassin whose history involved disappearances, assassinations, and international sabotage?

The world would erupt.

Critics would feast on it.

The fragile hope the U.S. was clinging to by using Bob as a symbol of control and peace? It would shatter.

“Hell,” she muttered, her fingers tapping rapidly.

The Sentry and the Deathtrap.

Not a love story the public would forgive. Not a pairing politicians would condone.

And definitely not something Valentina was going to let spiral out of her hands.

Medbay

Yelena approached the bay doors cautiously, arms crossed as she leaned on the frame. Bob was seated beside YN’s unconscious form, her hand held tightly in his.

“Bob,” she called gently. “We need to talk.”

He didn’t look up. “Not now, Yelena.”

“It’s about Val,” she added softly.

That made him pause.

He let out a slow breath, brushing his thumb across YN’s knuckles before standing. “Make it quick.”

Yelena led him into the hallway, casting one final glance at the room before they exited.

Medbay Room

As soon as the coast was clear, Valentina entered—silent, composed, her heels making soft clicks against the floor.

There she was.

The infamous Deathtrap.

Now just a pale figure against white sheets, her dark lashes casting shadows against her cheeks, lips parted slightly in slumber. She looked… human. Not the assassin whose file had made Val’s blood run cold.

“I can’t risk all of this because of you,” Val whispered coldly, leaning in just slightly. “You're a ticking time bomb next to a man made of pure destruction. If you go off, he goes with you.”

“Val” Bob’s voice called out.

Val froze, slowly straightening. She turned and found him standing at the doorway, Yelena behind him.

His eyes were glowing—faint at first, golden flickers rising like embers. His jaw was clenched tight, fists slowly balling at his sides.

“Robert—” Valentina forced a small smile. “I was just looking after her. That’s all.”

Bob stepped forward. The lights overhead dimmed slightly as a pulse of heat rippled through the air. “Get away from her.”

Val’s smile faltered. “Robert, listen. This relationship—it’s dangerous. If the public finds out who she really is, it won’t end with headlines. The agencies still watching Red Room defectors—those who want to erase their past failures—will come after her. The media will paint her as a manipulator. They’ll track her. Or worse…”

She hesitated, her voice dropping.

“…they’ll terminate her.”

The air shifted.

Something cracked beneath Bob’s skin.

And when he spoke again, the voice that answered was not entirely his.

It was lower. Metallic. Empty and god-like.

“Not if I terminate them first.”

Valentina’s blood ran cold. She took a step back.

“R-Robert, that’s not you talking right now,” she said carefully. “You’re losing control.”

But his eyes—fully golden now—glared at her with fury and clarity. It wasn’t the Void. It wasn’t madness.

It was The Sentry, and he was lucid.

“I am in control,” he said, his voice calm but vibrating with raw power. “And I will protect her from anyone. You. Them. The world.”

Valentina swallowed hard.

“Robert, please. You don’t understand what she’s capable of.”

“No,” he said darkly. “You don’t understand what I’m capable of when someone threatens the only peace I’ve ever known.”

Yelena quietly stepped beside him, speaking only for him to hear. “Bob, let’s take her somewhere safe. You don’t owe Val anything.”

Bob slowly turned his back to Valentina and walked back toward YN’s room. The light dimmed again. The pressure eased.

As he disappeared behind the doors, Val stood frozen.

Shaken.

And for the first time since The Sentry was under her command…

She was afraid.

Medbay – Late Night

The silence in the medbay was thick, broken only by the gentle hum of the machines monitoring YN’s vitals.

Bob sat at her side, his broad form curled over her still hand, his thumb gently brushing her knuckles. He was no longer glowing, but his eyes were distant, almost hollow—like he was somewhere else entirely.

“I can feel her,” he whispered.

Everyone turned toward him.

“I can feel her mind—even now. It’s like standing in front of a locked vault filled with knives. Everything she hides is screaming beneath the surface. And it terrifies me,” he said, voice cracking softly. “Not because I fear her… but because I know what it’s like to carry that weight.”

He lowered his head and kissed the back of her hand.

“I may possess these abilities… but they crush me. And yet she carries all of this without ever asking anyone to save her.”

Across the room, Yelena sat cross-legged on the small couch, her jaw tight, fists clenched. Ava was beside her, quiet. Bucky stood by the window, arms crossed, his reflection staring back at him from the glass.

Yelena looked down.

“YN was an individual assassin in the Red Room,” she began, her voice low, but steady. “While most of us trained together and worked in assigned departments, she was sent on missions alone. Covert. Isolated. Disposable.”

She paused, biting her lip before continuing.

“They trained her harder than the rest of us. Not because she was the weakest… but because she was too good.”

Everyone looked at her.

Yelena’s eyes grew glossy.

Flash.

A memory seared into her thoughts.

FLASHBACK – Red Room

The training hall was dim and cold. Lined with mirrors and bloodstained mats.

Young girls—no older than 10—stood at attention, heads bowed.

From the center, a sharp crack echoed.

A young girl, YN, lay on her stomach, struggling to breathe. A cold voice rang out from the instructors:

“Again. Get up, Deathtrap.”

A shadowed hand yanked her to her feet, only to strike her back down when her stance faltered.

The others watched, unmoving. Fearful.

Yelena, younger and wide-eyed, stood among them—watching as YN’s mouth bled from the impact of a boot.

“You embarrass us!” the instructor roared.

YN did not cry.

But her eyes…

They burned with pain.

BACK TO PRESENT

“I remember her scream,” Yelena whispered, staring at the floor. “She didn’t cry. But the sound she made when they broke her rib that day… it never left me.”

Bob’s jaw clenched.

“I saw it,” he murmured. “When I touched her hand, I saw it all. The blood. The chains. The way they erased her name and gave her a title like she was a weapon.”

He looked at the group. His expression unreadable, but his voice trembled with something primal.

“She’s not the Deathtrap. She’s not a weapon.”

Bucky turned from the window, nodding slowly.

“No,” he agreed. “She’s survivor.”

Bob looked down at her again. “And I swear… no one will ever hurt her again. Not while I breathe.”

Silence fell again. But this time it was different.

A shared burden. A united promise.

The girl who had been alone for so long… was no longer alone.

Bob hadn’t moved from his place beside her. YN’s hand, cold but steady, remained cradled in his. The others had drifted to sleep or silence, the medbay dim under the glow of a single lamp. But his mind wasn’t here.

His eyes glowed faintly gold.

He was seeing again.

FLASHBACK – Red Room Facility (a year before escape)

The scene unfolded in his mind as if he were standing there.

The Red Room was more sterile now. Cold white lights. Concrete walls.

A steel table sat in the center of a small chamber. Shackles lined its edge. The room reeked of blood and betrayal.

An older YN—perhaps 18—stood tall in the center, her expression unreadable, her face bruised. Her lip was split. Blood trailed down her temple.

A superior paced before her, voice laced with venom.

"You failed to eliminate the target’s child. That child now leads a resistance. Your weakness costs us money, time, and dominance."

“I followed the primary order,” YN said through gritted teeth. “The child was not the target.”

The superior’s eyes flared.

SLAP.

The strike made her stumble, but she didn’t fall.

“Disobeying is treason, Deathtrap,” the woman spat. “And treason demands correction.”

Two guards dragged her by the arms toward the table. She struggled. Kicked. But they were stronger.

The restraints clamped onto her wrists.

A voltage switch was flipped.

Searing pain erupted.

Her scream was guttural, tearing through the walls and echoing into the abyss.

Bob, watching through the vision, clutched his chest.

He couldn’t move.

Couldn’t stop it.

He saw her eyes. Defiant. Broken. Burning.

The vision blurred—fading—

BACK TO PRESENT – Medbay

“NO—!” YN gasped awake, choking back a scream as tears gushed from her eyes.

Bob jolted forward. “Hey—hey, you’re okay. YN, I’m here.”

She sat upright, shaking, her breath rapid and panicked, her eyes wild and disoriented.

He cupped her face gently. “Look at me… it’s me, it’s Bob. You’re safe.”

“Don’t let them take me back,” she whispered in terror. “Don’t let them—don’t let them chain me again—”

“I won’t,” he said, tears brimming in his eyes. “Never. You hear me? I’ll burn the whole world before anyone touches you again.”

She collapsed into him, sobbing into his chest. He held her tighter, wrapping his arms around her like a shield.

Yelena and the others stirred, eyes watching the two silently, solemnly.

“She’s remembering,” Bucky said, arms crossed. “And that’s not always healing. Sometimes it hurts worse than the wounds themselves.”

“But she’s not remembering alone anymore,” Yelena whispered.

Bob leaned down, pressing his lips to YN’s temple, brushing her damp hair back.

“I saw you,” he murmured. “Everything they did. You kept going. Even when it broke you.”

She didn’t speak, just cried quietly.

“But you’re free now, YN. You’re free. And I’m never letting you be alone in that darkness again.”

Later That Day – Sentry’s Quarters, Avengers Tower

Bob had spent the last few hours gently holding her—arms tight but soft—as if to keep her soul from falling apart again. He didn’t speak much, only when necessary. He let the silence do the comforting this time. And finally, YN fell asleep again, her fingers still gripping his shirt like it was the only anchor left in her sea of trauma.

When she awoke, he was already watching her.

“Hey,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

He gave a small, uncertain smile. “I want you to stay here... in the tower. Just until you feel better. I—I don’t want you out there alone.”

YN blinked at him, surprised. “Bob, I’m not exactly... good at staying in one place.”

“I know,” he said, “but I think you need it. You deserve peace.”

She looked at his eyes—so open, so filled with concern—and nodded.

Bob’s Room, Later

“Okay, this is not what I expected from the so-called Most Dangerous Being on Earth,” YN teased as she wandered around his room.

Bob looked embarrassed as she pointed to the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck unevenly on the ceiling.

“Alexei put those up,” he muttered quickly. “Said I needed to ‘embrace inner child wonder’ or something.”

“They’re kinda cute,” she said, smirking. “Just like you.”

Bob flushed immediately. “I—I—uh—thank you.”

YN's gaze moved to a shelf of neatly lined-up photos. Some were framed, others were just taped clumsily against the wall. One caught her eye—a group shot from the recent international conference. The New Avengers in uniform. Bob stood in the center—taller than the rest, golden light faintly radiating from his chest. He looked... powerful. Confident. Like the Sentry.

“You look the most Sentry-ish in here,” she commented, pointing at the image.

“Y-yeah?” Bob stuttered, scratching the back of his neck. “You like it?”

“Well, yeah,” YN said, then smiled, eyes locking with his. “But I like my Bob the most.”

That one line sent his heart spiraling. His cheeks tinted red and his voice got caught in his throat.

The team gathered around the holo-table. Valentina wasn’t present, but the mission brief was loaded. Bucky, Yelena, Ava, John, Alexei and Bob stood in uniform, the tension thick.

“Midnight op,” Yelena muttered. “Extraction job in a Hydra outpost. Minimal resistance if we’re fast.”

“Mel, you cover the comms. Bucky, left flank. Ava, cloaked breach,” Yelena ordered.

YN stood just outside the room, arms crossed. “You know I can help. I’ve breached Hydra bases before you even grew facial hair.”

Bob approached her with a soft smile, taking her hands in his. “I know. But I want you to rest. I need you to rest.”

YN sighed. “Fine. But I’m watching the cams and the comms.”

“Only if you promise not to sneak out mid-mission.”

She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Scout’s honor.”

Several Hours Later

The tower was silent again. YN paced in Bob’s room anxiously, eyes darting between the monitor and the door.

Then—

WHOOSH.

The elevator opened. Heavy boots hit the hallway.

“BOB!” she called, running to the door.

Bob stepped in, his uniform torn, dried blood on his temple, chest rising with adrenaline—but his face lit up when he saw her.

“You’re okay,” YN breathed, hugging him tightly.

“We got it. Everyone’s safe,” he mumbled into her shoulder. “But all I thought about was getting back to you.”

She pulled back, brushing his cheek with her thumb. “You’re such a sap.”

“And you love it.”

They both smiled.

Bob had already showered and changed into a loose shirt. YN was curled under his covers, warm and waiting.

He slid in beside her wordlessly, pulling her close. Her back pressed to his chest, their legs tangled under the sheets. His arm wrapped around her middle like instinct, and her hand rested over his.

They didn’t need to talk. Not tonight.

The stars above them glowed faintly—reminders of peace, childhood, and something to dream about.

They fell asleep like that—hearts thudding in sync, nightmares kept at bay, just a broken man with godlike power and a girl shaped by shadows finally letting themselves be soft in a world that never was.

The training room buzzed with movement, light filtering through the glass panels of the tower. Yn stood in the center mat, opposite Yelena, both women in loose sparring gear. Bucky stood between them, arms folded, acting as both coach and referee.

"Alright, Deathtrap," Yelena said with a smirk, stretching her neck. "Let’s see if you’re still sharp after lying in bed with your glowing boyfriend."

Yn snorted. “Don’t hold back, Belova. I’m not the one who got tossed across the lake last week.”

From the viewing deck just above, Bob watched intently. His arms were crossed, lips pressed into a line. He leaned forward slightly, eyes locked on Yn’s every movement. His heart tensed every time Yelena struck, even in play.

“She’s got this,” Bucky said, standing on the side, correcting Yn’s stance gently with a nod. “Back foot stronger, Yn. Trust your core. Breathe.”

Bob flinched subtly when Yelena faked a punch toward Yn’s face, but Yn caught it swiftly and countered with a clean sweep of Yelena’s leg. Yelena dropped to the mat with a loud thud, laughing breathlessly.

“Damn, okay!” Yelena grinned from the floor. “You’ve still got it.”

Bob exhaled softly, shoulders easing.

Bucky offered Yelena a hand up, then clapped Yn on the shoulder. “Good instincts. Your reflexes are still deadly.”

Up on the deck, Mel approached Bob. “You should relax. She can handle herself.”

Bob didn’t take his eyes off the mat. “I know. I just... I know what she’s been through. And I don’t want her to get hurt again. Not now.”

Mel gave a half-smile, then walked away, leaving Bob alone with his quiet thoughts and the sight of the woman who had unknowingly become his center of gravity.

After a few more practice rounds, Bucky clapped his hands. “That’s enough for today. Stretch it out and hydrate.”

Yelena groaned playfully, wiping sweat from her brow. “You’re a harsh trainer, Barnes.”

Yn offered her a hand towel and a chuckle before subtly glancing up at the viewing deck. Her eyes locked on Bob—he wasn’t moving. He was just standing there, tense, brows drawn together like he was in another place entirely.

“Give me a sec,” Yn murmured to Bucky and Yelena before quietly stepping off the mat and jogging up the stairs.

She found Bob standing by the railing, unmoving. His eyes flicked to her as she approached, but he didn’t speak. Yn stepped closer, placing a gentle hand on his arm.

“Hey,” she said softly, brushing her thumb against his wrist. “You good?”

Bob swallowed, his voice low. “You took a hit earlier. To the ribs. I saw your face for a second—you winced.”

Yn tilted her head and offered a small, warm smile. “It’s sparring, Bob. That’s part of it. I’m okay.”

He nodded slowly, jaw tight. “I know. I just... I guess I wasn’t ready to see you fight again. Not like that. I kept thinking—what if something goes wrong? What if I’m not fast enough?”

Yn moved to stand in front of him, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I’m not glass, Bob. And I’ve been through far worse, you know that. But I’m here. With you. And I’m stronger now—not because I’m alone, but because I have someone who worries. That’s not weakness.”

Bob looked down at her, eyes filled with something tender and almost boyish, like he was still learning how to hold fragile things. “I just want to protect you. Always.”

“You do,” she whispered, rising to press a soft kiss to his cheek. “But you don’t have to shield me from who I am.”

He let out a small breath, his hand coming up to rest on her waist. “Still... maybe I’ll ask Bucky to teach me a few moves.”

Yn smiled, eyes crinkling. “Deal. But only if I get to watch and laugh when he pins you.”

Bob chuckled, finally letting the tension drop from his shoulders.

From the shadows of the upper deck, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine stood with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed, watching the sparring session wrap up below.

But she wasn’t watching Yelena, or Bucky, or even Deathtrap—not really.

Her attention was locked on Bob Reynolds.

No, not Bob—the Sentry. Or at least, the man who used to walk like he didn’t belong in his own skin. The man who once fidgeted in meetings, stammered through reports, who avoided eye contact with world leaders. That Bob slouched. That Bob mumbled. That Bob felt like a glass doll they couldn’t afford to break.

But this man?

This man stood with his back straight, arms folded with quiet control. His eyes were sharp. Focused. Calm but alert. Present.

Even when he didn’t speak, his posture did—and it said: “I know who I am. And I know what I’m capable of.”

It unsettled Val.

“Something’s changed,” she muttered under her breath.

Mel, standing just behind her with a datapad in hand, raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am?”

Val didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head as she watched Bob lean in toward Deathtrap—Yn—and whisper something that made her smile and swat lightly at his chest. It was so casual, so natural, it didn’t make sense.

That’s not how the Sentry is supposed to be. He was a nuclear weapon with a fragile trigger—not someone who looked at an assassin like she hung the moon.

Val crossed her arms tighter. “When did he stop stuttering?” she said aloud this time.

Mel frowned. “Three weeks ago. Ever since he came back from his... hiatus. With her.”

“Hm.”

Something was brewing. Something deep. Something not covered in mission briefs or damage reports. The change in Bob wasn’t just a romantic softening—it was a stabilizing. That woman—that Deathtrap—wasn’t just some fling. She was anchoring him.

And anchors can either keep ships grounded... or drag them under.

Valentina exhaled sharply and turned away.

“Keep eyes on them. Discreetly. I don’t like variables I can’t control.”

Mel nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

As they walked down the corridor, Val cast one last glance at Bob.

He didn’t notice.

He wasn’t the same man anymore.

And that made him unpredictable.

[eyelessfaces]

tbf he's gonna need it

[platonicaxaxe]

😭😭

[platonicaxaxe]

Deathtrap & Bob ⁴

Bob Reynolds (sentry) x Ex Assassin Reader

Summary: Anxious Blonde Bob trains with Deathtrap

The Bob(sentry) Masterlist here

Inside the sleek, high-ceilinged Avengers Tower, the atmosphere buzzed with frantic energy. Assistants in headsets weaved between bustling makeup artists, hair stylists, and suit technicians. Tables were stacked with press kits, bottled water, and neatly folded cue cards. Camera crews were setting up tripods while lighting specialists adjusted panels to ensure every hero would sparkle—literally.

In the center of it all stood Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, heels clicking furiously on the floor as she barked into a comm tablet.

“Chop-chop, people!” she called out, not even glancing up. “We need this press conference to prove that the new Avengers aren’t just here for PR fluff and action-figure deals.”

She spun around dramatically, eyes locking on Mel, one of her top assistants who was holding a clipboard like it was a shield. “This is for the people, Mel. Real heroes. Real impact. Got it?”

Mel hesitated. “Yeah, but don’t you think—”

“Just do what I say, Mel,” Valentina cut her off with a raised finger. “Send the invites. Confirm the press. Go. Run. Now.”

Mel scurried off like his shoes were on fire.

Valentina turned on her heel, surveying her team of so-called heroes now being prepped like runway models in a high-stakes fashion show. Each one stood under a halo of spotlight and scrutiny.

Bucky was having his new vibranium arm polished to a near mirror-shine. It gleamed cold and lethal, a sharp contrast to the bored expression on his face.

Ava Starr stood a few feet away in her newly reinforced Ghost suit, her eyes narrowed in discomfort as someone fussed with the fabric on her shoulders. “Don’t touch the stabilizers,” she warned a stylist with a glare.

Across the room, Red Guardian grinned like a kid on his birthday, striking heroic poses every time a photographer passed by. “Tell them to get my good side! Actually, never mind—I only have good sides,” he boomed.

Yelena sat slouched in a makeup chair, arms crossed and lips pursed, dodging mascara like it was a projectile. “Why do I need blush? I don’t blush, I bleed.”

John Walker adjusted his shield, which still had a dent that made it look vaguely taco-shaped despite endless repair attempts. “This thing’s a design choice now,” he muttered defensively.

Then, there was Bob.

Standing awkwardly in the middle of the chaos in his usual green knit sweater and baggy brown square pants, he stuck out like a kindergartener on a field trip. His hands were deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched, and a quiet look of worry on his face.

Valentina approached him slowly, folding her arms. “Honey… are you really going to wear that to the press conference?”

Bob looked down at his outfit. “I-I thought it was… comfy.”

“You look like you’re about to pitch a tent at a national park, not represent Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” she sighed. “Go. Suit up. You know which one.”

Moments later, the double doors to the conference hall opened.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

A wall of camera lights hit them like a storm.

And then, he appeared.

Bob stepped out onto the stage, now fully transformed into his Sentry persona. The gold and navy suit clung perfectly to his tall frame, the golden “S” emblem gleaming beneath the chandeliers. His hair—freshly dyed and styled by three very exhausted stylists—glowed under the lights.

He still looked a bit nervous, though. His lips twitched slightly and his eyes kept scanning the crowd like he was searching for a familiar face to anchor him.

Valentina leaned toward him, whispering behind her smile. “You look like a god. Own it, sweetheart.”

Bob swallowed. “I-I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“That’s just anxiety,” Val said smoothly. “Or fame. Maybe both. Either way, smile. You’re not in Kansas anymore.”

As the reporters raised their microphones and the questions began to pour in, Bob took a deep breath and straightened his back.

Somewhere in the sea of blinding flashes and murmured voices, someone shouted:

“Who’s the guy in gold?!”

“That’s Sentry,” someone else whispered. “He’s the most powerful one. And the shyest.”

Bob’s lips quirked into a soft, unsure smile.

And in the crowd, Valentina smirked with satisfaction. Her Thunderbolts weren’t perfect—but they were about to make headlines.

The conference lights had dimmed, the applause had died, and the cameras had finally stopped flashing. But inside Bob Reynolds, the storm was only beginning to churn.

Backstage, Valentina paced like a general preparing for war. The team—still half in costume, half in post-event exhaustion—gathered in the sleek conference room behind the press hall.

"Alright," she said, voice sharp. "We’ve got momentum now. This is when we strike. First mission briefing, now—"

But Bob was gone.

He’d quietly slipped away the moment the press conference ended, his heart pounding too loudly to hear anything else. His footsteps echoed against the sterile tile floor as he pushed open the bathroom door and rushed inside.

He gripped the edge of the sink tightly, eyes locked on his reflection.

Blonde hair. Pale face. Sweaty brow.

The suit was gone—replaced by his familiar sweater and brown pants—but the image still didn’t feel like him. The Sentry lingered in his eyes. The power he tried so hard to contain hummed beneath his skin like a distant warning bell.

He took a shaky breath and reached for his phone.

I'm coming over, I hope you don't mind.

He hit send and stared at the screen.

No reply.

“She probably left it on silent…” he mumbled to himself, trying to reassure his spiraling thoughts. “She always does…”

He couldn’t wait. He needed to see her.

Bob left the bathroom, brushing past a pair of security guards and entering the hallway. Valentina spotted him immediately through the meeting room glass.

“Robert! Hey! Robert!” she called after him, voice laced with authority.

He didn’t stop.

Yelena stood up, intercepting Val’s advance. “Let him go.”

Val blinked, surprised. “What?”

“He’s overwhelmed. He needs her. She… grounds him,” Yelena said plainly, arms folded. “You try stopping him now, you’ll have bigger problems than a PR stunt.”

Valentina hesitated, then exhaled and waved her hand in surrender. “Fine. But if he misses this mission, you answer to the board.”

Outside, Bob moved with unusual determination. The noise of the city wrapped around him—honking cars, distant chatter, the subway rumbling beneath the sidewalk.

He stopped briefly by a familiar fruit stand and placed a few bills on the counter.

“Two apples, please,” he said quietly.

The vendor looked up, startled by the seriousness in his tone. “Sure thing, friend.”

Bob took the apples and slipped them into his backpack. His fingers brushed against his blankey inside—his little anchor—and he zipped the bag closed.

As he turned the corner, he didn’t notice the large figure stepping in his path until it was too late.

Bump.

Bob stumbled slightly. The apples rolled inside his bag.

“You again?” came a voice—gravelly, mocking.

It was him. The same tattooed thug who tried to jump him weeks ago.

Bob didn’t flinch.

He stepped around him without a word.

“Oh, so now you’re too good to apologize?” the man sneered. “Wearing your golden cape today, little hero? Or are you still hiding behind your girlfriend’s fists?”

Bob’s jaw clenched. Something cold stirred inside him—not fear. Not Void. Just… power.

He turned slowly.

“I’m not looking for a fight,” he said quietly. “Just let me go.”

“Too late for that.”

The thug shoved him hard, sending Bob skidding across the pavement.

But Bob didn’t fall.

He stopped himself mid-slide, feet dragging like anchors, and when he stood upright, there was a flicker of gold in his eyes.

The streetlights around them dimmed slightly, reacting to the subtle shift in his energy.

The thug lunged, fist cocked—but before it could land, Bob raised a glowing hand.

Wham!

A golden shockwave burst from his palm, not violent—but powerful enough to knock the man back several feet into a stack of crates. The air rippled like heat waves on concrete.

The man groaned, slumped over.

Bob took a deep breath, lowering his hand slowly. Sparks of energy danced around his fingertips before fading.

No Void. No darkness. Just control.

The people on the sidewalk gasped, some backing away, others pulling out phones—but Bob didn’t stay.

He turned and walked, his stride faster now. He was still buzzing inside, but he kept his emotions in check. He needed to get to her. To Yn.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, the Sentry whispered—not in threat, but as a presence.

You’re stronger than you think, Bob.

And this time, he believed it.

Without hesitation, Bob ran to the nearest alley and looked up to the sky. His heart was pounding, chest rising and falling rapidly.

He didn’t think—he just leapt.

This time... please.

Bob focused, summoning every ounce of energy, every fragment of control he had over the Sentry within. His eyes glowed faint gold, and the wind rushed around him as his feet slowly left the ground.

He flew.

Wobbly at first, unbalanced—but he was in the air, really flying.

For the first time.

His wide eyes filled with tears, and a smile cracked on his face before—

Boom!

He crashed down outside Yn’s cabin, right into the tall grass beside the porch with a loud thud and an ungraceful roll.

Inside the cabin, Yn dropped the mug of tea she had just poured. Her eyes widened, and she rushed outside barefoot.

“Bob!?” she shouted, spotting his hunched figure crawling out of the tall grass.

“I was… I was gonna surprise you,” he muttered, dazed, blinking up at her.

“I was about to get ready to pick you up,” she said, crouching beside him, voice filled with concern. “What happened? Are you okay?”

He gave a weak nod, and she quickly helped him up. He leaned on her, wincing a bit, and she guided him inside the warm, rustic cabin.

The inside smelled faintly of cinnamon and pine. The fireplace flickered low. She led him to her bed and sat him down, gently brushing dirt from his cheek.

Bob’s hands trembled as he held his knees, breathing shaky. His chest heaved—like he had been holding it all in since the press conference.

“I-I feel so—”

But the words caught in his throat. His lip quivered.

Yn didn’t wait.

She wrapped her arms around him, gently laying him down onto the bed with her, holding him as if to keep the world from falling apart around him.

“It’s okay,” she whispered softly. “Let it out. Let it all out. We’ll talk when you can, hm?”

And that was all it took.

Bob’s walls collapsed. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he buried his face into her shoulder. His fingers clutched her hoodie like a lifeline.

“I-I tried to be what they needed… what she wanted… the hair, the suit— I couldn’t breathe. I just wanted to come here. I-I needed—”

“Shh…” she whispered, fingers gently running through his hair. “You don’t have to explain right now. You’re here. You’re safe.”

Minutes passed.

The only sound in the cabin was the crackle of the fire and Bob’s quiet sobs, slowly fading into deeper breaths as he relaxed in her arms.

They lay like that for a long while, no words needed.

Because in that small cabin outside the city, wrapped in each other’s arms, Bob Reynolds could finally fall apart—and somehow feel whole at the same time.

“Hey,” Yn said softly, brushing her fingers against Bob’s hand. “Let’s go for a walk, hm?”

Bob looked up at her, eyes a little puffy but calm now. He nodded.

They both stood, Yn grabbing a soft hoodie to throw over her shoulders while Bob tugged at the sleeves of his familiar green sweater. The cabin door creaked open as they stepped outside into the crisp night air.

It was quiet—beautifully so. The moon cast silver glows through the trees, and the woods whispered with the rustle of leaves in the gentle wind. Crickets hummed softly beneath the blanket of stars.

"You know what I do when I get overwhelmed?" Yn asked, walking ahead slightly, letting her fingertips glide over the low-hanging pine needles.

Bob chuckled, catching up beside her. “You go to the music shop and pretend not to see me awkwardly stalking the vinyl section?”

Yn laughed and gave him a playful nudge with her shoulder. “Okay, that too,” she admitted, “but I meant this. Right here.”

She stopped and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of moss and pine.

“I walk here. I listen. I breathe. I let nature remind me that the world doesn’t expect me to be perfect. It just expects me to exist. And sometimes… that’s enough.”

Bob looked around, letting the quiet seep into his bones. It was so different from the constant buzz of New York, the flashing lights, the pressure of headlines and eyes.

“That sounds… peaceful,” he said.

“It is,” she nodded. “And maybe it’ll help you too.”

Bob looked down at his feet for a moment, his voice almost a whisper. “Well, Bucky did advise me to take walks... said it helped with his own thoughts. I tried, but—” he gave a soft sigh—“not sure it ever worked.”

“Probably because your walks were in the busy, noisy streets of New York while, y’know, stalking me from behind hotdog carts,” she teased with a grin.

His cheeks flushed instantly as he scratched the back of his neck. “I-I wasn’t stalking, I was… observing… from a respectful… twenty feet.”

She giggled and gently slipped her hand into his. Bob blinked but didn’t pull away. His fingers trembled a little, but then he tightened the hold.

Yn slowed her pace. “Bob… I know it’s not easy. You carry something huge inside you. Something that scares you. But you’re still trying to be good. Still trying to be you. And I think that’s… incredibly brave.”

Bob swallowed thickly, heart thudding in his chest. “You don’t think I’m… too broken?”

She stopped, turned to him, and reached up to touch his cheek. “No. I think you’re healing. And healing people? They don’t scare me.”

His lips parted slightly, eyes searching hers for any trace of doubt—but there was none.

They stood in the silence for a while, under moonlight and the rustle of wind through trees. The kind of silence that spoke louder than any words.

Then Yn whispered, “You’re safe here, Bob. With me. Always.”

He nodded, blinking back a shimmer of emotion. “Thanks, Yn… for letting me be the quiet version of me. The one who doesn’t always have to be glowing.”

She smiled. “That version? He’s my favorite.”

They walked a little deeper into the woods, where the trees gave way to a small clearing drenched in moonlight. The air was still, thick with pine and possibility.

Yn turned to Bob with a small smile, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie. “Well, since we’re here… just nature, no noise, no eyes—why don’t we see what the Sentry can do?”

Bob blinked, nervous. “Wh-what, here? Now?”

“Why not?” she shrugged, taking a step back to give him space. “No pressure. Just you, me… and the moonlight.”

“I-I don’t know if I can really—control it all yet.”

“I’ll be right here,” she said gently. “You’re not alone in it.”

He hesitated for a moment, heart hammering in his chest. But Yn’s calm gaze grounded him. So he took a breath and closed his eyes.

The air shimmered faintly as golden light began to trace around his body—soft at first, then brighter. His sweater fluttered lightly as the energy rose, swirling around him like a sentient breeze.

“Okay…” Yn said softly, stepping in like a coach. “Let’s start small. Try levitating, like you did outside my cabin.”

Bob furrowed his brow and slowly rose a foot off the ground, arms out like a nervous airplane. His face tightened with focus, feet wobbling mid-air.

“You’re doing great!” Yn said, hands cupped around her mouth. “But maybe don’t look like you’re constipated.”

“Th-this takes concentration!” Bob said through gritted teeth, wobbling in the air.

Yn giggled. “Breathe, Bob. You’re glowing like a sun—don’t let it burn you.”

He exhaled slowly. The wobble eased. He floated smoothly now, golden aura pulsing like a heartbeat. Then, slowly, he lowered himself back to the ground.

“Okay, okay,” he said, panting slightly. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“You did amazing,” Yn grinned. “Now… let’s try strength.”

She led him toward a fallen log the size of a minivan. “Think you can lift that?”

“I-I mean… maybe?” Bob blinked.

“You’re a powerhouse, Bob. Come on.”

He rolled up his sleeves awkwardly—then realized he was glowing again and didn't need to—and placed his hands under the log. With a breath and a grunt, he lifted it slowly, golden light threading through his arms like molten wires.

The log rose into the air.

He looked up, wide-eyed. “I—I’m doing it!”

“Now toss it.”

“What?!”

“Toss it! Gently!”

He flung it, more out of panic than grace, and the log tumbled like a spinning coin before crashing into a pile of leaves, bursting into splinters.

Bob flinched. “Oops.”

Yn clapped. “Ten out of ten for dramatic effect.”

Bob chuckled, running a glowing hand through his now-blond hair. “I still feel… unbalanced. Like it’s not me doing it.”

“You’re not a machine, Bob. You’re learning. And every time you try, you take back a little more control.”

She stepped closer and placed a hand on his chest, over where his heart beat, fast but steady.

“You’re not the power. You’re the person who chooses how to use it. And that’s what makes you strong.”

He looked down at her, eyes shimmering gold now. “You really believe that?”

She smiled. “I believe in you.”

He took her hand, holding it like a lifeline.

“Then maybe… just maybe, I can believe in me too.”

The training slowly fizzled into laughter. After a couple more power stunts—and one accidental tree getting split in half—they finally collapsed onto the soft grass in the clearing, breathless and flushed from both the exertion and the joy.

Bob lay flat on his back, the golden shimmer from his earlier stunts still faintly dancing around his fingertips. Yn curled up beside him, her head nestled gently in the crook of his arm.

The moonlight dappled through the branches above them, stars beginning to wink awake in the purple-stained sky. A light breeze passed, rustling the leaves and brushing against their skin like nature’s lullaby.

They were both giggling softly, the kind of laughter that bubbles up after adrenaline and comfort collide.

“You know,” Yn said between breaths, turning slightly so she could look up at him, “you look good blonde, by the way.”

Bob turned beet red. “I—I do?”

“Yeah,” she grinned, nudging his side with her elbow. “You look like a golden retriever who just got promoted to god-tier.”

Bob chuckled awkwardly, hiding his face with his free hand. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I looked like… like a banana with anxiety.”

“Well, now you’re my favorite banana,” she teased.

He laughed harder, a real, full laugh that crinkled his eyes and made his chest shake. “Th-that’s the weirdest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

She shrugged, resting her cheek against his arm again. “We’re weird people.”

They fell into a warm silence after that. Bob slowly turned his head to look at her, her hair haloed by the moonlight, eyes half-lidded in peace.

“Hey, Yn?” he said softly.

“Hmm?”

“I think… this is the first time I’ve felt safe. Like… really safe. Since everything changed.”

She looked up at him again, her hand gently finding his. “Then that means we’re doing something right.”

Bob held onto her words like a blanket, wrapping himself in them.

And beneath the quiet woods and glittering sky, the Sentry didn’t feel like a weapon.

He just felt… human.

“I know what we’re going to do tomorrow,” Yn said with a spark in her eyes.

Bob looked at her, resting his cheek on her shoulder, slightly out of breath from their laughter. “What is it?”

She smirked, tapping the tip of his nose. “You’ll see.”

Morning dew clung to the grass like tiny stars as they jogged through the forest path behind Yn’s cabin. The air was crisp, the world still wrapped in the serenity of sunrise. Birds chirped overhead while soft beams of golden light filtered through the trees.

Bob kept pace beside Yn, a little clumsy but doing his best. His blonde hair was pulled back slightly by a band she’d given him, and his old green hoodie bounced with each step. Despite the peaceful setting, he was already panting. “Y-you said this was a jog, not a sprint.”

Yn just laughed, not even winded. “We’re almost there, loverboy.”

They rounded a bend and emerged at a breathtaking lakeside clearing. Mist hovered above the water, and the surface mirrored the rising sun in quiet ripples. The area was secluded, peaceful—a hidden world untouched by chaos.

Bob stopped in awe. “Woah… This place is—”

“My little sanctuary,” Yn said proudly, stretching her arms toward the lake. “This is where I usually train.”

Bob turned to her, surprised. “You train alone?”

“Since I got out of the Red Room,” she replied, her voice steady but soft, layered with quiet strength. “Yeah. It’s where I learned how to be me again.”

There was a beat of silence between them.

“Will you be my training buddy now?” she asked, breaking the moment with a wide, playful grin.

Bob blushed faintly but smiled back. “W-well yeah, b-but I don’t really… know how to fight,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We’ll learn,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him gently to the center of the clearing. “Come on.”

They began with the basics.

Yn stood in front of him, adjusting his stance, gently tapping his knees with her foot to reposition him. “Wider. You’ll fall over if your legs are too close.”

Bob wobbled a little. “L-like this?”

She circled him. “Closer. But not like a penguin, soldier.”

Bob gave a nervous laugh. “I-I’m trying.”

Yn stepped in and took his hands in hers. “Try to push me.”

“What?” he blinked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she said, standing firm. “Push.”

Bob hesitated, then gave a soft shove.

She didn’t move an inch.

“Okay,” he muttered, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re… weirdly strong.”

“Years of fighting and espresso,” she teased. “Now again.”

They went on for an hour—stance, balance, simple dodges. She guided him step-by-step, her touch steady and reassuring, and though he stumbled (a lot), he laughed with her, even when he tripped over his own foot and fell into the dirt.

She offered a hand. “Training 101: fall with style.”

After catching their breath by the lakeside, Yn turned serious.

“Now let’s try something else,” she said, kneeling beside him. “Close your eyes.”

Bob looked at her, unsure. “What for?”

“Feel the sun. The breeze. The sound of the water.” Her voice softened, coaxing him into calm. “Let the power in you rise slowly. Like the tide. You’re not fighting it—you’re listening to it.”

He closed his eyes.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

Golden light flickered along his fingertips, dancing like flames but gentle. Controlled.

Yn smiled. “Good. Now lift that branch.”

Bob raised his hand and the thick log beside them levitated shakily.

“Focus,” she said, stepping behind him, placing a hand on his back. “It’s not about the strength. It’s about clarity.”

Bob’s breath steadied, and so did the log, floating with surprising grace.

“I-I’m doing it…” he whispered.

“You are,” Yn whispered back, beaming.

The log gently lowered to the grass.

He opened his eyes, stunned.

“You did amazing,” she said softly, and Bob turned to her with a tired, proud smile.

“I-I wouldn’t be able to without you,” he said.

“You just needed someone to believe in you, Bob.”

They sat beside each other on the soft earth, the sunlight warming their skin and the lake glistening like a mirror of stars.

Bob took her hand, golden energy still humming faintly at his fingertips.

And for the first time, his power didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt like his.

In the high-rise war room of the tower, tension ran like electricity through the air. Valentina's stilettos clicked rapidly across the floor as she paced in frustration, throwing quick glances at the mission timer blinking red on the monitor.

“He’s still not back?” she barked, flinging a tablet onto the conference table. “This mission is in three days and our golden boy is out playing house with some girl?”

Yelena raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word.

Val pointed sharply toward her. “Don’t give me that look, Belova. I know you know something. Where is he?”

Yelena shrugged. “Relax. He’s not lost. He just… took a breather.”

Valentina spun, eyes wide. “A breather? He’s the Sentry! He doesn’t get to vanish! Do you even understand what kind of storm I’m dealing with from the U.N. press office? He’s a nuclear-level asset in a relationship with a complete civilian and—God knows—probably barefoot in the forest somewhere meditating under a pine tree!”

Yelena smirked, chewing her gum louder. Ava stood by the window, lips twitching slightly but kept her arms crossed. John Walker was staring at his phone like it was the most interesting thing in the room. Red Guardian was slowly stirring sugar into his coffee.

Valentina kept rambling. “We’re finally getting attention from major allies! The press conference went viral—viral! You know how many eyes are on us right now? We can’t afford to have our headline hero MIA because he caught feelings for some soft-voiced farm girl who sells jam and reads sad poetry!”

Yelena gave a dramatic yawn.

Val's eyes narrowed. “What is this? You’re all unusually quiet.”

No one answered.

A tense silence followed—until Red Guardian slowly took a sip of his coffee and muttered, “Perhaps… he is exactly where he needs to be.”

Val's head snapped toward him. “And where is that, exactly?”

Red Guardian looked over to Yelena. Yelena glanced at Ava. Ava blinked once and looked at John.

All of them avoided Valentina’s eyes.

“Great,” she muttered. “Now you’re all suddenly Buddhist monks and fortune cookies.”

John cleared his throat. “Look, Val. He’ll be back. He always comes back. Maybe he just needed a break from…” he gestured vaguely around the tower, “...all this.”

“He doesn’t get a break!” Val snapped. “He’s not a puppy. He’s a symbol. He is hope. He’s public trust. The Sentry’s dating life cannot override protocol. I’m trying to run a global initiative here, not a matchmaking show!”

Yelena turned her face slightly to hide a grin. Ava blinked at the ceiling. Even John gave a short cough that suspiciously sounded like a laugh.

Valentina glared around the room. “What? What is it now? You all know something I don’t, don’t you?”

The team said nothing.

Yelena popped a bubble and said with a grin, “Maybe if you spent less time micromanaging his hair color and more time listening, you’d be slightly more informed.”

Valentina blinked. “Excuse me?”

Ava finally spoke up, voice calm. “He’s with someone who helps him stay grounded. That’s all that matters.”

Val threw her hands in the air. “Grounded?! I didn’t pull him out of a psych spiral and rebrand him for him to disappear into the woods like some myth!”

Yelena raised her brows, exchanging a quick glance with Ava.

A myth.

If only she knew.

But no one told her. They all knew better. It wasn’t their place—and if Valentina found out Bob was dating The Deathtrap, she'd either panic or try to spin it into a media circus.

Red Guardian murmured, “Let him breathe. You’ll have your golden boy back soon.”

Valentina narrowed her eyes. “He better be camera-ready when he returns. Blonde and brilliant. I won’t tolerate any more stunts.”

The team watched her storm out of the room.

As the doors slid shut, Yelena burst into a quiet laugh. “Camera-ready, she says…”

Ava allowed herself a rare smile. “He’s training harder than ever.”

John chuckled. “And I bet he’s sleeping better too.”

Red Guardian grinned. “Deathtrap always had a way of making even monsters feel human.”

The room quieted again, the weight of the secret shared between them. Outside, the mission timer kept ticking.

But somewhere far from the tower, in a place no cameras could reach, Bob was learning how to breathe again.

And he was in the safest hands possible.

[platonicaxaxe]

Deathtrap & Bob ³

Bob Reynolds (sentry) x Ex Assassin Reader

Context: Bullied Boyfriend Bob?

The Bob(sentry) Masterlist here

(Can't find any cute Bob gifs🥺)

---

The streets of New York were alive with their usual chaos—honking cars, fast-talking pedestrians, and street performers blaring music on every corner. Bob and Y/N walked side by side, not quite hand-in-hand, but close enough that their shoulders brushed every few steps.

Bob nervously glanced around, occasionally stealing a glance at Y/N when she wasn’t looking. She looked effortlessly cool, even blending in like a regular citizen—nothing like the Red Room legend known as Deathtrap.

He was so distracted, he didn’t see the broad-shouldered, tattoo-covered man in front of him.

BUMP.

Bob staggered a step back. “O-oh—sorry! I didn’t—uh, I didn’t mean to—!”

The man gave a glare, towering over him, but before he could say a word, Y/N had already grabbed Bob’s arm and tugged him away, weaving through the foot traffic like a pro.

“Don’t make eye contact with walking temper tantrums,” she muttered.

“S-sorry,” Bob mumbled, still flustered as they ducked into a small, cozy café.

They took a moment to relax—Y/N sipping something warm while Bob distracted himself with a cookie he didn’t even order.

When they stepped back out, Y/N suddenly stopped in her tracks near an alleyway.

“Oh shoot—I forgot to get that cookie I was supposed to take home,” she said. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Bob nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Y-yeah, sure. I’ll just, uh… stand here. Not get into trouble.”

He smiled awkwardly.

Y/N jogged off.

Seconds later, trouble found him.

Two large men stepped out of the alleyway and blocked his path. One of them was the same tattooed guy from earlier.

“Well look who we got here,” the man sneered. “Little pretty boy.”

Bob stiffened. “I-I’m not lookin’ for trouble, guys—”

One of them shoved him lightly. “Look at this hair. You some kind of washed-up superhero?”

“W-what? No, I—well, I mean—kinda—” Bob stammered, backing up as the two closed in.

“Guy like you doesn’t belong around here. And that chick you were with? Bet she’s just babysitting.”

“Hey!” Bob’s expression changed. Something in him snapped. “Don’t talk about her like that—!”

He tried to swing, but the man caught his fist mid-air and sent him sprawling with one punch.

Bob groaned, trying to blink through the dizziness as his eyes started to glow gold. His pulse quickened. He could feel the Sentry clawing at the edge of his mind.

But then—

CRACK.

A boot to the face sent one of the men stumbling into trash cans.

Y/N had returned.

Silent fury burned in her eyes. She moved like lightning—dodging, striking, flipping one of them onto the pavement with brutal precision. The second guy barely had time to lift his fists before she took him down with a devastating roundhouse.

Bloodied and groaning, one of them hissed, “Who even is he to you?!”

Y/N didn’t hesitate.

“Boyfriend.”

Then she landed the final punch—swift, sharp, and unforgiving.

Bob blinked, wide-eyed and stunned, still sitting on the pavement.

“Y-you… y-you called me—boyfriend,” he stuttered, cheeks blooming red.

Y/N reached down to help him up. “Well, you are, aren’t you?”

Bob nodded way too fast. “Y-yeah! I mean—I’d like to be! I-I am. I… guess I am.”

She smirked, brushing a bit of dirt off his jacket. “Let’s get out of here, Mr. Sentry.”

He looked at her like she’d just saved the world. “T-thanks for not letting me go full nuclear rage mode back there.”

“You’re welcome,” she grinned. “But next time—aim for the kneecaps.”

Bob made a mental note. “R-right. Kneecaps.”

A few days after the alleyway incident, YN texted Bob with a simple message:

“Wanna go for a ride? I’ve got something to show you.”

Of course he said yes—he always did when it came to her.

The sun was beginning to dip into the horizon when they hit the road, the city gradually fading behind them. Trees soon replaced buildings, and the rush of traffic melted into the soothing hum of cicadas and the low growl of YN’s motorcycle. Bob held onto her gently, a soft smile on his face, wind ruffling his hair.

Eventually, they pulled into a gravel driveway, tucked behind a patch of dense woods.

A small cabin stood at the edge of a clearing—quiet, simple, with ivy crawling along the wooden walls and a narrow porch holding an old rocking chair.

Bob’s eyes widened.

“W-whoa… is this… where you live?” he asked, stepping off the bike.

YN nodded, pulling off her helmet. “This is my hideout. No phones. No cameras. No trackers. Just… peace.”

Bob took it all in with a soft breath. “It’s beautiful.”

“I don’t bring people here, Bob,” she said seriously. “You’re the first.”

He looked at her, heart skipping. “R-really?”

She just smiled and opened the door.

Inside, the cabin was small but warm—bookshelves packed with paperbacks, a tiny fireplace, a couch with hand-stitched blankets, and a makeshift kitchen that smelled faintly of herbs and tea.

They spent the evening on the porch, sharing takeout and stargazing, wrapped in a big, old comforter YN had pulled from the couch.

Bob couldn’t stop glancing at her.

“What?” she asked, nudging him playfully with her shoulder.

“I dunno,” he mumbled, cheeks tinted pink. “I just… I feel lucky. Like, crazy lucky.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You're not just lucky, Bob. You earned this. You listen. You care. And you never asked me to be anything other than what I am.”

Bob let out a breath, his hand gently brushing against hers before intertwining.

He looked up at the stars. “Can I… c-cuddle you? Or is that too weird to ask?”

YN chuckled and leaned fully into him, tugging the blanket tighter around them both.

“You already are, silly.”

He let out a tiny laugh and rested his head on hers, feeling more grounded than he had in years.

In the soft quiet of the night, with crickets singing and the stars blinking above, Bob whispered:

“Thank you for bringing me here.”

And YN, eyes fluttering closed, replied softly:

“Welcome home.”

Thunderbolts Headquarters – 9:37 AM

“Okay, don’t freak out…” Yelena said, walking into the room holding a cup of coffee.

“What?!” Ava said immediately, already half-freaking out.

“Bob didn’t check in last night,” Yelena admitted.

John Walker nearly dropped his protein shake. “He what?! You mean like—missing?”

Alexei gasped dramatically. “The boy has been taken! I knew this would happen. He is too soft. Like marshmallow!”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s just on a walk. I told him to do that.”

“For twelve hours?” Ava quipped, pulling up Bob’s last pinged location on a map. “He vanished off the grid halfway through Brooklyn. That’s not a walk, Barnes. That’s a ‘he’s tied up in a basement somewhere’ walk.”

Alexei paced. “We need to assemble. Call in satellites. Call in drones. Call in—”

“He’s probably just with Y/N,” Yelena interrupted coolly, sipping her coffee.

The entire room went silent.

“With Deathtrap?!” John screeched. “You mean the lady who disappears like smoke, punches like a tank, and eats ghost protocols for breakfast?! That Deathtrap?!”

“Yes,” Yelena said, completely unbothered.

Bucky stood up. “Well, if he is with her… I mean, that’s good, right? She’s capable.”

“She also doesn’t do visitors,” Ava said. “If Bob’s with her, we’re not finding him. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t track that woman.”

“Then what do we do?” John asked.

Alexei pointed to the ceiling. “We wait. And we pray to the gods of love and luck that he comes back… with all his limbs.”

—

Meanwhile… in a cozy cabin miles outside the city…

Bob sneezed.

“You okay?” Y/N asked, poking her head in from the kitchen.

“I-I think someone’s talking about me,” he chuckled.

Back at HQ, Yelena checked her phone. “I’m giving him until tonight. If he doesn’t come back, then we send in a search party.”

“Great. I’ll prep the ‘Missing Bob’ posters,” Ava said dryly.

“They should say ‘Reward: One Cookie and a Hug,’” Bucky added with a smirk.

John nodded. “And a warning label: ‘Do not approach if he's in Sentry Mode. Approach only with snacks.’”

Alexei dramatically put a hand on his heart. “If he returns to us… I shall give him my strongest bear hug. He has survived the deadliest assassin and love. The man is a hero.”

Outside Thunderbolts HQ – 10:46 AM

Alexei was fully geared up, wearing his Red Guardian suit with a fanny pack. He gripped the car keys like a man ready for war. “I will drive through every inch of New York. I will not rest until the boy is safe. If we need to kick down doors, we kick down doors.”

Just as he reached the car—

VROOOM.

A sleek motorcycle pulled up, kicking dust and gravel. Y/N hopped off effortlessly, helmet under one arm, cool as always. Bob clumsily climbed off behind her, legs wobbly from the ride, cheeks tomato red.

"You're good?" she asked him, brushing a hand down his arm.

“Y-yeah,” he nodded, totally dazed. “T-thank you… for everything. Especially… the cookie…”

She chuckled, then leaned in, pressing a quick kiss on his cheek—close enough to his lips that Bob nearly melted into a puddle.

Alexei froze mid-step.

PLOP. The car keys fell from his hand.

Without another word, Y/N revved her bike and zoomed off into the streets.

Bob stood there, blinking, goofy smile stretching across his face.

Alexei blinked, then grinned. “Well well well.” and Bob got startled.

Inside HQ – Moments Later

The HQ doors swung open with dramatic flair as Alexei strutted in like he just saved the world. Bob followed, awkwardly hunched, tugging at the sleeves of his hoodie, eyes glued to the floor.

“Found him,” Alexei announced triumphantly.

Everyone in the room turned at once.

“Thank God!” Yelena gasped. “Where the hell were you, Bob?! We were about to storm a warehouse!”

John Walker leaned on a chair. “Was he in a safehouse? Dungeon? Dimensional rift?”

“Deathtrap dropped him off,” Alexei said with a smug smirk, “with a smooch, to be exact.”

Bob audibly choked on air.

Ava raised her brow. “A smooch, huh?”

Bucky leaned forward. “Bob, is that true?”

Bob flushed deep red and muttered, “I-I mean… it was just… like a ‘thank you’ thing… I-I didn’t know anyone saw…”

“She kissed him!” Alexei sang. “And he blushed like a schoolboy!”

“Oh my god,” Yelena laughed, grabbing a throw pillow and tossing it at Bob. “You’re so done.”

John cracked up. “And here I thought I had the worst public crush moment. You’ve topped it, buddy.”

Bob just shrank further into his hoodie. “I-it’s not a big deal…”

Bucky clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It is if she’s Deathtrap. You’re either in love… or in danger.”

Alexei beamed. “Or both! The best kind!”

As Bob covered his face in his hands, mumbling unintelligible excuses, the rest of the team burst into another round of chaotic laughter.

Thunderbolts HQ – Afternoon

The team had settled into a surprisingly peaceful moment after the morning's chaos. The place was buzzing with their usual dynamic—Ava messing with tech, Bucky cleaning his arm while muttering about “things he didn’t need,” John Walker pacing back and forth with a cup of coffee, and Alexei lounging casually on one of the chairs, looking way too comfortable.

Bob, still red-faced from his earlier embarrassment, was sitting at the table, fiddling with a coffee cup, desperately trying to act normal. Every time someone looked at him, he’d stiffen and look away. Great, he thought. The worst day of my life.

“So, Bob,” Yelena began, leaning casually against the wall, “have you finally figured out how to get her to join the team?”

Bob flinched. “I-I didn’t—! It’s not like that. I—She’s, uh... she’s just... different.” He looked down at his coffee cup. "She's not... like any of you."

Alexei snickered from across the room. “Not like us? Oh, I beg to differ.” He leaned in theatrically. “Remember that sweet kiss she gave you, Bobby?” He fluttered his eyes and dramatically leaned toward Bob, mimicking a kiss, “Mmm… thank you, Bob... for being such a good listener.”

Bob’s eyes widened, and his face turned a deeper shade of red than before. “N-no! Stop! It wasn’t like that! I was just... she—”

“Oh no, it was definitely like that,” Alexei interrupted, standing up, hands on his hips. “The sweet, innocent kiss... on the cheek... at the hilltop... mmm... so romantic, so tender,” he mimicked, leaning forward and puckering his lips at the air, “Sooooo, Bob, I really enjoyed our time together...” He exaggerated the movements, making kissy faces in the most obnoxious way possible.

The rest of the team, already trying to hold in their laughs, burst into giggles as they watched Bob squirm, his face practically glowing.

“Alexei!” Bob squeaked, mortified. “Please! I swear, it wasn’t like that! I-I didn’t even mean to—"

“Oh, you didn’t mean to?” Alexei raised an eyebrow, stepping closer to Bob and leaning down. “Then what was that thing you did when you held her waist like that? Were you preparing for some kind of fight, or were you really trying not to fall off the bike?” He smirked. “Don’t worry, Bobby. We saw you hugging her like it was the end of the world. She was all... cool and collected, and you... well, you were all... shaky, like a leaf in the wind.”

“Yeah,” John Walker added, grinning, “I saw that too. You looked like you were trying to survive the ride of your life.” He leaned in with mock seriousness. “But she didn’t let you fall. How... sweet.”

Bob threw his hands up in frustration. “Guys, I was just trying to balance! I’m not good with—people! Okay?! She’s just...” He paused, looking at the floor. “She’s different. And I didn’t think... I didn’t think anyone would notice.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile at Bob’s discomfort. “Hey, don’t feel too bad. You’re not the first guy to get all flustered around her. I mean, come on. You’re in a team full of chaos. Of course we notice.”

Bob sighed, hiding his face behind his hands. “I didn’t... think this was gonna happen. This isn’t like—this isn’t how it was supposed to go, okay? I thought I’d be able to... I don’t know... keep my cool or something.”

“Keep your cool?” Alexei grinned, leaning in again, clearly enjoying every moment of Bob’s misery. “Bobby, it’s okay. We all know how this ends.”

“We do?” Bob said through his fingers, still mortified.

“Yeah,” Alexei said, his voice turning dramatically serious. “You’re gonna get a surprise visit one day. You’ll knock on her door all shy, you’ll stand there, heart pounding like a jackhammer. And then she’ll open the door, and what will you do?” He stepped closer to Bob, his arms outstretched like he was preparing for the worst love confession of all time. “You’ll stutter, just like you always do. And then you’ll say, ‘H-hi, Y/N... I—uh—I wanted to, you know... tell you... that I—I...’ And she’ll interrupt you with a perfect kiss and a perfect smile and all of a sudden, you’re her guy, Bobby.”

“Wait,” John said, tilting his head. “You’re not telling us Bob’s actually planning on telling her about this, are you?”

Bob shook his head quickly, panicking. “W-what? No! I wasn’t! I mean—maybe... but... no! I’m just trying to figure out how to talk to her, okay?”(he already confessed👀)

Alexei grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about! You’re already on the way, Bobby. You can’t avoid it now.”

“Maybe we should all just plan a nice dinner,” Bucky suggested, crossing his arms. “You know, set up a nice place. Play some music. Just to get things awkward enough for Bob to say something.”

“Not helping, Bucky,” Bob muttered under his breath.

“Come on, Bob. You’ve been acting like a schoolboy in love,” Yelena said, casually sipping her drink from the other side of the room. “You were shaking when she kissed you, remember?”

“Ugh! Stop!” Bob buried his face in his hands, completely overwhelmed by the teasing. “I swear, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”

Alexei slapped him on the back, making Bob lurch forward. “You’ll figure it out, my friend. Love’s like punching a wall—you just have to go for it.” He winked at Bob. “But be careful. Deathtrap’s kisses... they’re dangerous.”

Bob groaned, hiding his face in his arms. “This is a nightmare…”

It was early evening at the Thunderbolts HQ, and Bob was in his room, humming softly to himself as he folded the last item into his small blue backpack—his favorite fuzzy blankey. The soft fabric, dotted with faded stars and moons, looked comically juvenile against the sterile metal walls of the compound, but to Bob, it was a source of comfort… especially when he was going to Y/N’s.

He carefully zipped up the bag, triple-checking that he’d packed his toothbrush, a fresh shirt, and—most importantly—a box of instant cocoa packets, because Y/N’s cabin always had that magical quiet that made warm drinks taste better.

Just as he was about to sling the backpack over his shoulder, a loud knock on his door made him jump like he’d heard a gunshot.

“Woah, woah, loverboy,” Alexei's booming voice rang as the door creaked open. He stood there with his arms crossed, one brow cocked and an amused grin playing on his face. “Packing for a date night or your first school camping trip?”

Bob’s face flushed deep red as he fumbled to pull his backpack straps into place. “I-It’s just—uh—I’m just spending the night at Y/N’s,” he stammered, eyes darting anywhere but at Alexei. “I’ve been... having good sleeps there.”

Alexei gasped dramatically, placing a hand over his chest like Bob had just stabbed him through the heart. “You telling me,” he said with mock devastation, “that you’re not comfortable in the room I lovingly set up for you? With the memory foam mattress and the glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars?”

“N-no! I-I mean—it’s not that—I am comfortable here! It’s just...” Bob trailed off, nervously wringing his hands.

Alexei’s face broke into a chuckle as he clapped a massive hand on Bob’s shoulder, nearly knocking the poor guy forward. “Relax, boy. I’m just messin’ with you. Go enjoy yourself.” His voice softened for just a beat. “If she makes you feel safe—makes you sleep better—then cherish her. And if you love her...” he paused, “don’t be stupid. Let her know.”

Bob blinked, looking up at him with those wide, unsure eyes. He gave a tiny nod.

Just then—PEEP!—a familiar sharp motorcycle horn echoed from outside the compound.

Alexei’s head jerked toward the window and grinned. “Your girlfriend’s here,” he said, smirking like a proud uncle sending his nephew to prom.

“Let’s goooooo,” came Yelena’s voice from the hallway.

As Bob shyly followed Alexei out of his room, his blue backpack bouncing lightly with every nervous step, he was greeted by the entire team gathered just outside the main entrance—like nosy parents watching their kid head off for their first sleepover.

There she was. Y/N, seated on her motorcycle like she owned the entire block, her helmet resting on her lap as she leaned back casually, waiting.

Bob swallowed hard.

“Protect our boy, Y/N!” Alexei called out dramatically, wiping invisible tears from his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “He’s sensitive. He folds his socks.”

Bob winced.

“Don’t worry, I got him,” Y/N called back with a slight smirk, revving the bike just enough to make Bob jump.

“Use protection!” John Walker shouted with a snort.

Yelena immediately smacked him in the arm. “Oh my god, Walker. He’s taking his blankey, not booking a honeymoon suite!”

Bob turned scarlet.

Y/N, clearly amused, patted the seat behind her. “C’mon, blue backpack. Let’s go before they start planning our wedding.”

Bob offered a stiff, flustered wave to the team, then carefully climbed onto the bike, hugging his bag against his chest for a second before strapping in.

As they pulled away, Alexei stood with a hand raised in mock farewell. “There he goes... our sweet awkward prince… off to cuddle town.”