Not dead [yet still we rot] P1
How strange it is to be haunted by someone that is still alive
Bob Reynolds x GN reader
Can also be read at Ao3 - Here
Chapter 2 can be read: here
Summary: It should be easier to live having the world's knowledge at your fingertips, yet it has pulled you so deep beneath the waves that you're unsure you'll ever resurface in your own mind.
Valentina had promised to let you get all that information out of your head that you’d no longer be confined within your own head, your own darkness, but nothing stays well forever. You know this.
Despite knowing, it doesn’t make you prepared to meet Bob, or Yelena or any of them, and it’s strange to have hope bloom within your chest. Hopefully you’ll all make it out of this.
Right?
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Chapter 1
It’s almost ridiculous how obvious the trap is. Even with your infinite knowledge at the edge of your mind the way it was too simple getting in - no alarms, no guards and the half-powered cameras barely registered your arrival. Not even the code was hard to crack.
Not that you had much experience breaking and entering to begin with. Had it not been for the very real threat that was Valentina, you would have disappeared off the face of the earth 2 weeks ago. Yet you know that you have to get through this hurdle if you want to untangle yourself from the web that has been spun around you, to escape it before it strangles you.
The facility is supposed to be off the books, a vault of secrets that practically invited you in with its lackluster security.
As you stand in the intel room you can’t help but to look at the mess. There are large crates strewn about, and boxes with files upon files. Even digital drives were strewn about. It was so perfectly messy it looked intentional. Everything the congress needed to pin Valentina to all the accusations thrown at her.
That’s the problem.
It is too perfect. Everything collected at the same place, and soon the rest of the evidence will walk in and destroy themselves and you in the process. It almost makes you want to laugh at the irony of it all and the worst part? Valentina knew that you already know.
That’s the thing when your powers are all tied back to one thing: Knowledge. The ever-watching eye, the soon-to-be omniscient, and whatever stupid metaphors people came up with for you.
The simple truth was that if you put your mind to it you would know almost anything, but that didn’t mean you would understand it. It was overwhelming in the worst ways, like having a voice in your head whispering all the answers to the smallest wonders, the tiniest curiosities. Yet to get knowledge you had to consume it. To constantly learn something new, or it would drain you.
You prefer to call it something closer to “omnivision”, you see everything within your mind, but you don’t know or always understand it. It isn’t yours to know, but still you rip precious, private moments from people without meaning too. Yet people keep mistaking your power for seeing the future, which you can’t. It’s too easy to change or tilt in another direction, too unstable to know.
Most days you curse your powers - the constant headaches, knowing too much about everyone, the lack of normalcy the moment people learn of what you do. Yet standing in that room you can’t help but to thank whatever being that gave you it.
You already knew what was in the crates and files: the “sentry project”. You even worked on it yourself which is why Valentina is so eager to get rid of you. It failed after all despite your knowledge and now with the press down her back, you simply knew too much.
The moment footsteps echoed you do what you do best, you hide. Only bad things can happen if you decide to join in the fray. A few crates and boxes makes a makeshift hiding spot as you almost hold your breath.
One by one they enter, and the chaos ensues so quickly you almost get whiplash, but you stay completely still. As if moving a single muscle was signing your death warrant.
You know these people, well not personally, but you know them.
John Walker. Taskmaster. Yelena Belova. Ava Starr.
All mercenaries for Valentina with blood so deep in their ledger that it’s impossible to get out, and they are fighting each other in a frenzy. Steel meets flesh, someone gets knocked into crates and knives with deadly precision.
It makes you queasy to watch.
While your powers make you a great know-it-all, it doesn't come with physical advantages and while you can hold your own, you have great doubts about going against them. You doubt they would even give you the time of day to explain yourself before you turned cold.
They would kill you.
You can’t help but shrink at the knowledge forced into your mind. The layered, echoing whispers without a sound that paints a clear picture, but you know this fighting needs to stop one way or another.
Before you can rise from your position, there’s movement near you and a man crawls out of a larger box. You almost jump out of your skin. Where did he come from?
The box
Helpful…
He’s retching and seems to almost puke as he clumsily stumbles in front of the others. It’s a miracle he does not see you, but you see him. Oh, you see him so clearly.
Robert Reynolds. Sentry project test subject. Supposed to be dead… and briefly almost your friend.
“Is she actually dead?” he says as he stumbles out with wide eyes. “Oh,” is all he says as he turns to escape only for the door to shut harshly. All of them do as your eyes widen. Your time window was up, you’re officially doomed.
This is it, isn't it?
Only the repeating of “bob” snaps you out of your incoming panic.
“I suppose all of us were sent…except you…bob?” you say with a surge of confidence as you show yourself from your hidden position, barely suppressing a flinch as they turn their guns on you. With a deep breath to steady yourself you continue, “Valentina sent all of us.”
“Who the hell are you?” Walker barks out at you, more bite than bark, seconds away from sending you straight to hell. You supposed dressing sort of like a civilian helped your caught-in-the-crossfire aesthetic.
“It really doesn't matter if we don’t start thinking about how to get out of here,” you manage to mutter back. The way everyone stares at you makes your skin itch, you really don’t like being stared at. Ironic isn't it. A lot seems to be recently. You can’t help but shift nervously.
Yelena understands your words immediately, you know in the way her eyes close with a weary sigh, and she looks back at Walker and Starr. With a shake of her head, she raises her hands in a slow surrender and her gun no longer aimed at anyone.
“Okay,” she begins, “It’s clear we have all worked for Valentina in some sort of shadow ops capacity.
“Yeah, so?” Walker questions as his own defensive stand loosens with a shrug of his shoulders, not understanding Yelena’s implications.
“So all of this stuff is OXE’s secrets” She answers him as she uses her hands to direct to the other things in the vault. “But so are we.” she finishes.
“Which makes us liabilities that no one would miss...” Starr completes the picture for everyone.
“Oh, speak for yourself,” Walker interrupts, not catching the seriousness of the statement.
Yelena barely gives him a chance to continue as she says ”We are the evidence and this is the shredder”, with a barely concealed astonishment at his density. “She wants us gone.”
You sigh wearily as they argue between themselves. At least they weren't looking at you anymore and you feel yourself relaxing against your better judgement.
“Um– you’re… i know you…i think?” comes from slightly behind you, but way too close to comfort and you almost jump out of your own skin. A barely concealed shriek dying in your chest as you stare with wide eyes back at Robert… or well Bob you supposed.
“I suppose you did,” you answer him, but you know you confused him more by your answer than he originally was. His eyes are searching, deep in colour like a stormy sea, and that is what you know him as. Unpredictable in nature and even more so with the serum running through his veins. You don’t say that though, that piece is tucked into your mind.
“Oh! Well, uh,” he stumbles over his words, “your name… I don't remember” he finally mutters out. Shame curls around his words like a vice. Like he’s afraid of being reprimanded of his forgetfulness.
Silence stretches between you as you look at him and tilt your head ever so slightly.
“Call me Omni” you whisper, as if the name can crack and scorch everything that hears it, and you're not sure if it won’t. Bob’s head tilts as he stares at you, a strange mix of emotions flurries quickly past his face, and you can’t help but let loose another sigh.
“Come on,” You say as you slowly reach out and take his hand and lead him back behind the crates you hid behind a few minutes ago. “In case they decide to be trigger happy again, I don’t much enjoy being shot” you say as he stares at your intertwined hands in wonder.
Usually touch makes your skin crawl in the worst way, especially skin on skin, but Bob’s skin sat warm against yours and thawed the cold out of it slowly. You both look towards the other three as they continue to argue. As Starr and Yelena start to laugh at Walker’s absurdity, so does Bob.
“It was getting so tense here for… a second”, his laughter soon dies at the looks he receives and he shrinks behind the crates, and by proxy behind you as well. As though you could cover his frame from the glare that Walker gives him.
Walker seems to take it personally. Very personally.
“I’m not leaving here without completing my mission,” he says as he stalks towards the two of you. “Valentina gave me a clean slate guarantee, and I’m not screwing that up.” He stops as he looks between the two of you.
“But these two weirdos wasn’t part of the job, so I gotta know…” he continues as he takes a few more steps, way too close for comfort. “How’d you get in?” he says with a malicious smile and tilt of his head. It makes you uneasy.
“The same way you did… I just got here before you” You answer honestly and hold your hands in mock surrender. “Not my fault you didn't see me…” You mutter out the last part, but you know he hears you.
Bob just stumbles over his words and shrugs, a “I don’t remember” leaving him, but you know. You know exactly how he got here. You can’t say that though, Walker would kill him, and in your own selfish way you don't want to lose him.
“Terrific answer,” Incrediously Walker spins around looking at the others. “Alright um… tie yourselves up.”
“Wow” and “oh, my god” leaves Starr and Yelena at the same time, both looking back with the same incredulous look that Walker had given Bob.
“No… and goodbye” was all that left Starr as she walked towards one of the shut doors, activating her powers as she went. A moment of anticipation and tension lingered in the air before a loud high-pitched buzzing exploded into the room.
You don’t remember what happened. It all blurred as you collapsed in on yourself. Not only the buzzing screeching into your brain, but the sheer overload of information that followed it in your confusion. Your powers trying to make up for the unanswered questions
Make it stop… maKE IT STOP! STOP-
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Next Part -> Here
