Chapter Text
Bob wakes up and his head is fuzzy again. He can’t remember what happened, which is scary, but the fuzziness always keeps him from feeling anything too much.
He’s somewhere in New York, with his team, that’s good. They’re trying to clean up some damage, and they don’t look too battered, but they all agreed that Bob wouldn’t go on missions unless it was the last resort. Something terrible must have happened. Did Void take over again? Oh god-
And then Yelena is right by his side. “Hey, Bob, you ok?” she asks.
She holds his hand close to her chest, rubbing up and down his arm. It’s comforting, grounding. He tries to smile down at her, but doesn't quite succeed. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
She squeezes his hand. “You did a really good job today.” There’s a siren somewhere in the distance. He tries to ignore it.
“I don’t even remember what happened.”
“That’s ok, you’ll catch up. You tired?”
Bob is always a little tired, but the fuzziness keeps most feelings behind a wall. Now that Yelena mentions it though, he can start to feel the deep exhaustion that normally concludes a panic attack, or perhaps a use of god-like powers.
“Yeah. What happened, exactly?”
Yelena turns to where Alexei is trying to turn off a roque fire hydrant. “Dad, do you mind?” She turns back to Bob as Alexei finally turns off the water and starts walking toward them. “We’ll talk about it in debrief later. Let’s go!”
And then suddenly Bob finds himself being lifted into the air by his armpits. “Oh, woah–”
“That’s our Bob!” cries Alexei. “So strong, so driven! Nothing will keep you down!” he shakes Bob a little in mid-air, overexcited. Then Alexei actually tosses him up a bit! Bob yells in surprise.
Then Alexei catches Bob again, pulling him close and supporting him with an arm under his ass. He positions Bob above his hip like a toddler, bouncing him a little. “Let us go home, yes? We are going to debrief and then have dinner and watch a movie! It is Ava’s turn to pick, it will be wonderful!”
Bob has gone through a lot of things in his life, but this has to be the most surprising. He finds himself clutching to Alexei’s neck so he doesn’t fall and looking toward Yelena for help, but she doesn’t seem fazed! Neither do Bucky, Ava, or even Walker, who are all walking to the jet. The team has always been affectionate, especially when Bob is having a bad day, but almost never so publicly, and never like this. “I can walk you know!” he yells. Alexei just chuckles.
But maybe he can’t? What happened during that battle? He doesn’t feel hurt, but sometimes the numbness can affect that. Bob can’t see his legs right now because of the way Alexei’s holding him, but he’d think that someone would say something if he was hurt.
Bob decides to just let this be for a while. This is all strange, but not necessarily concerning? Hopefully everything will be cleared up at debrief, and he is tired. The fuzziness has started to come back, and being carried is actually a little nice, despite the bizarreness.
Once they’re in the jet, Alexei sets Bob down in his seat, then actually helps strap him in.
Did Bob pass out or something? Like, more than normal? Is that why they’re so concerned? No one else is acting like this is strange at all.
“Okay, seriously guys. What happened?” he asks.
Walker looks up from whatever he’s typing on his ipad. “You don’t remember? Normally once you lose the whole–” Walker gestures vaguely to Bob’s head and waves his fingers, searching for a word. “High puppy routine, you at least have a vague idea.”
On her way past, Yelena flicks his ear.
“What? He walks around like a puppy who just touched grass for the first time!”
“What kind of grass?” teases Ava.
Bucky loses his patience from the co-pilot’s seat. “Just be quiet back there! We’ll be at the watchtower soon.”
John turns back to Bob, and says in a quieter voice “Nothing bad. You and Yelena were out grocery shopping when Freakazoid here–” he turns the ipad, showing the image of a wizard looking guy covered in red light “attacked a nearby credit union. You and Yelena went in to help and called us.”
“And then Sentry came out,” said Bob, bitterly. If Sentry came out, Void was never far behind. How many people had he hurt this time?
Before John could say anything, Yelena butted in from the pilot’s seat. “We’ll talk about it in debrief! I want to just relax at home until then. It’s over, everyone is fine.”
They landed shortly after, but Bob found himself sulking. He thought he’d been getting better! Therapy was hard, but it was working! He had coping skills and a routine, but now he’d messed something up again and he couldn’t even remember what. Yelena wouldn’t even talk about it, it must be bad. Bob could feel himself drifting away, tears pricking at his eyes. The jet and the team seemed so far away now. Why couldn’t he do something right for once?
And suddenly, Bucky was right there, rubbing his thumb on his knee and unstrapping him from the seat. He brushed away his tears and kissed Bob on the forehead, which was jarring in itself. “Come on buddy, no tears, you did good. You’re gonna have a little nap and then we’ll all debrief together. Ok?”
This day couldn’t get any stranger, but Bob felt himself nodding along anyway, even though this was not even close to something Bucky would normally do. A nap? Is he five? But honestly, it might help…
And then Bucky was hauling him up, just like Alexei had– didn’t even give him the chance to walk by himself. Except Bucky held him close to his chest, rubbing his back. Bob was able to wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, and, (though he would never admit it,) nuzzle into his neck.
Bob could deal with the absolute absurdity of this situation later. Right now he’s tired, and Bucky is warm, and if the team was openly giving out affection like this, Bob was gonna take it.
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Surprisingly, Bob doesn’t have any nightmares during his nap. He doesn’t quite remember falling asleep, but he wakes up snuggled under a blanket on the couch in the common room, surrounded by his team. Yelena is snoring slightly on the other side of the couch, her legs tangled into his and clutching a pillow. John is on the recliner, playing on his phone, and Bucky is in Bob’s normal window chair, turned to face the rest of the living room. Ava has sprawled on her back on the floor underneath the coffee table, and Alexei is spread out on the loveseat. Someone has put soft music on the stereo.
A quiet chime announces the arrival of Sam Wilson exiting the elevator, and Bucky rises to greet him. “Guys, time to rise and shine. Debrief!”
Across the couch, Yelena glares at Bucky for daring to wake her, and yawns, stretching. Then, as swift as a spy, she throws herself across the couch and straight into Bob’s chest.
Bob grunts in surprise, but Yelena just curls further into him, using him as a pillow. “No! Five more minutes.” she says, clutching onto Bob’s sweatshirt. “Sam was late enough that I could fall asleep, he can wait for us to finish our nap.”
If Bob’s heart could soar out of his chest and burst into fireworks, it would. He wraps his arms around Yelena and shrugs at the other’s impatient looks. “Five more minutes couldn’t hurt, right?”
Yelena is warm, snuggled right under his chin. Bob can smell her shampoo from this position—almond and vanilla. Her legs are resting tangled into his. If Bob could preserve this moment forever, he’d keep it on his shelf and relive it all the time. He never wanted to let go. This was safety, love, warmth, contentment. All he'd ever wanted.
“All right sleepy heads, we’ll go first, but you are getting debriefed!” Alexei says. He smiles, patting Yelena’s back and ruffling Bob’s hair. The others head into the conference room with Sam, leaving Bob and Yelena to sleep.
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It doesn’t even feel like five minutes later when Ava shakes them awake. “Come on, up, up. You’ve stalled long enough” she says
Bob makes a show of groaning and stretching, even doing a prat fall into the pillows for the girls’ amusement. He actually does feel better, and he’s even remembering a bit of their grocery shopping too (they’d wanted to try making chocolate chip cookies from scratch, something neither of them had done since they were very small). None of the team seem mad at him, and Bob is convinced that reliving the events will surely bring the rest of the pieces of his memory back.
As they join the others in the conference room, Bob lets Yelena do most of the talking, she is the one who remembered most of it after all. But then something doesn’t seem right.
“And we really wanted chocolate chip cookies, like now , you know? So we went to Great Foods, and we started shopping. Bob wanted to get the yellow cart because it's his favorite color, we started grabbing our stuff when–”
“Wait, what?” asks Bob. He must not have heard correctly
“We went to the store, got a cart, started shopping?” says Yelena. She looks confused, a little impatient. This was not the important part of the story, where the details mattered for a debrief.
Nevertheless, Bob can’t shake this feeling. He continues. “No but you said Great Foods. We went to Whole Foods . I mean it's not that important but it was Whole Foods. And they have black carts there. I mean, if they had yellow carts I would know. Like you said, it's my favorite color.”
“I’ve never heard of Whole Foods,” says John. “I mean, what does that even mean, Whole Foods? Shouldn’t they all be whole? Are they selling half–”
Sam cuts in. “Bob, you’re sure it was Whole Foods?” he asks.
“Yes, I mean it’s just a little detail but it was Whole Foods. And I remember it as a black cart.”
“The store doesn’t matter, but we did get a yellow cart. We took turns riding on the front for a while when the aisles were clear.”
Bob makes a face, he does remember that. But he is almost certain it was a black cart. He doesn’t even think he’s ever heard of a store with a yellow cart, and he can see the whole foods logo in his mind. He remembers pushing Yelena around in the baking aisle as she drops items in from the shelf. They were having a really good time until they’d heard the explosions.
“We’ll go back to this.” says Sam. “When did you know something was wrong?”
“There was an explosion.” says Yelena. “People started screaming, coming into the store to hide. Bob and I ran out to see what was wrong”
That’s not right either . Yelena had told him in no uncertain terms to stay put, but he’d gone anyway. She’d gone into the bank to try and stop the guy, and Bob had called the team and started bringing people into the store where they could be safe. Then the guy, wizard, whatever, attacked Yelena and choked her in the air with his magic.
And Bob couldn’t hold back anymore.
Yelena’s still talking. “Bob went into the lobby to get people out, and I went into the vault to distract the robber. He was huge, he had some sort of red magic he kept hitting people with. I think we should ask Dr. Strange what his deal was.”
“I never set foot in the bank.” says Bob. This is starting to scare him.
“What are you talking about? Do you not remember?”
“No, I remember.” Bob has trouble with his memories, but if he remembers something it’s always accurate. And when he was using, the hallucinations were never like this. Why were their stories so close, but so different? “I helped the people in the street get to safety, you’d told me to stay away from the bank and call the team. But then the wizard blasted you onto the street, he had you by the throat. That’s when I had to use my powers.”
“You saved my life.” Yelena grabs his hand, and looks at him intensely. “But it was in the bank lobby, not outside.”
“I never went in the bank, there was no time. He sent you right back out.”
“What happened when you turned into Sentry Bob?” asks Sam.
Yelena squeezes his hand. Bob keeps going. “That’s when it gets a little fuzzy. I made him let go of Yelena, and we fought for a bit. There was a bright light, but I pushed through it and hit him. He seemed to know he was beat, and then he opened a portal and ran away.”
“I got everyone out while they were fighting.” says Yelena. She’s not looking at him anymore. “It wasn’t exactly like before, Bob seemed to be in more control. But when it was over—Void took over quick.”
Of course thought Bob. He put Yelena through all of that again , of course.
“But the darkness didn’t really spread—unless I touched him. I held his hand, and, and I was able to get Bob back. Then the team arrived for cleanup, he forgot what happened, and we went home.”
“I’m so sorry–” Bob starts, but Yelena cuts him off.
“Don’t you dare. You saved my life, I let that bastard catch me off guard. He looked completely normal until he started using that magic, I thought I had him.”
“It sounds like both of you did good,” said Sam. “Yelena, you called in the situation before you entered the bank?”
“Bob did, yeah.”
“Ok, but you ran into a bank with active explosives–”
“He was using dynamite, it’s child's play. He’d used all of it to break open the vault. I did look in before we went in, you know.”
“Alright, well it seems we’re all set.” Sam closed his notebook. “I’m still concerned about the discrepancies from the beginning; you’re both certain that’s what happened?”
“Yes!”
“Alright, we’ll review any footage we find and see if we can get some concrete answers. I’d like you both to go down to medical for some additional screening, just to make sure you’re both okay. Why don’t you head down there right now?”
Bob and Yelena both turn to each other sourly, but head for the elevators anyway.