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Three months after it all, Yelena finds Bob in his room of the tower.
She’s not entirely sure where the rest of The New Avengers are – not that they were calling themselves that. Well, Alexei did, he was so damn proud, and Bucky did when he was being official about it all, but in Yelena’s mind, and she supposes her heart too, they were the Thunderbolts.
Not that any of them called themselves that either. Walker did once, on accident. It slipped out and with a single amused look from Ava he had turned and left the room, not even bothering to finish his sentence.
The two of them are both out with Alexei right now, she seems to recall, doing who knows what. Bucky was somewhere else, visiting with that old avenger friend of his. And Yelena, who had grown bored of the training floor without an opponent to spar, had gone looking for someone too.
Yelena pokes her head through his door like she always does when she passes, and at first she thinks it’s empty, for there was no sign of Bob on his bed, or by the window, or the beanbag that he so often sat on to read.
And then she hears a shaky inhale of breath, and the muffled sob that follows.
She frowns, stepping properly into the room.
“Bob?” Yelena calls softly.
There’s a shuffling, a muttering she can’t make out, and when she takes a step further across the floor she notices the dark hair poking out from the other side of the bed. Yelena moves slowly, quietly, knowing that the last thing a weeping person would want is sudden attention. When she gets him in sight, it’s to find him with his back to the side of the bed, knees pulled up to his chest and wet sleeve pressed to his face.
Bob turns his face from her, and without a word she drops down beside him, criss cross, a mirror image of the moment they shared those months ago.
“Hey,” she whispers, reaching out a hand to lay on his knee.
The shaking of his shoulders doesn’t stop, and neither do the harsh breaths that wrack his chest.
“Can you talk to me?” Yelena tries.
Bob doesn’t look at her, but his head turns slightly in her direction, like he was tuning his mind to the sound of her voice. He opens his mouth, but whatever he might have been about to say is stolen by a sob that claws its way out of his throat. The sleeve of his sweatshirt is stained with tears, and he presses it harshly to his eyes.
Yelena nods. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”
And she waits.
She draws little shapes on his knee with her thumb, absentmindedly, reaches out and drags her fingers through his hair behind his ear, whispers a sorry when he flinches. Yelena hushes him softly, hums, picks a loose thread off his shoulder.
And she waits. Until the sobs turn to sniffs, until his frame relaxes, until he takes a long, deep breath and turns his tear tattooed face to hers.
And she smiles.
“Hi,” she says quietly, “what’s wrong?”
Bob shrugs, gives her one of those sad little smiles he was so fond of.
“Was it Walker?” Yelena goes on. “I’ll kick his ass.”
The man shakes his head, looking down at where Yelena’s hand waits patiently on his knee. He drags his sleeve across his nose.
“I just…” His voice is so raw, Yelena’s heart sinks. How long had he been sat alone like this before she’d found him? And if she hadn’t? She would probably never have known.
Bob didn’t often voice his feelings. He was quick with an I’m fine and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. She suspected that though the Thunderbolts friendship was offered willingly and often, it was going to take Bob a lot longer until he truly felt it. She knew the kind of time trust and gentleness took. Three months wasn’t it. But it didn’t mean they couldn’t keep trying.
Ava, who so often appeared out of nowhere and sent the others out of their skin, never snuck up on Bob. For a ghost she was uncharacteristically loud around him. And kind too. Where she verbally sparred with Walker every moment she could get, she was sweet to Bob, encouraging, and an audible shot was never sent his way. Walker too had laid off on his own snarky comments. The nickname of Bobby hadn’t left his mouth for three months. Instead, he had taken to calling Bob The Sentry, which wasn’t entirely an improvement, but Yelena knew it was John’s idea of a friendly tease, not a harsh quip about the person Bob had once been. Alexei was joyful to have Bob around, as he would have been towards anyone in the world who was part of his team. He offered imported Russian snacks, strong armed him into watching old movies before talking over them the whole time, but Bob didn’t seem to mind. Yelena suspected he quite enjoyed that Alexei spoke enough for the two of them. Even Bucky, who had spent the least amount of time in the tower since they had moved in, had delivered an old book to Bob’s room one night that he thought the other man might enjoy.
And Yelena, she cared for him deeply. There was a very short list of the people she had let herself get close to in her life, but Bob had slipped between her blind spot the moment they met, and was climbing the ladder with terrifying speed. She didn’t always know how to show it, and she could only hope that he felt that care however he could. A hand on his knee, a small smile, a shared glance.
“All those people,” Bob goes on, “just…ash by my hands.”
Yelena’s eyes slip closed. So he remembered. She had hoped that he wouldn't, that the blank mind he spoke about after experiencing a low might last, and spare him. She had been a fool to hope.
When she looks at him once more, he’s looking down hatefully at the palms of his hands. Yelena shuffles closer, takes the hand that isn’t still resting on his knee and presses it into his.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m so sorry. What I made you see, just, shadows, and –“
“Stop it, Bob,” she says gently. There’s a far off look in his eyes, like he’s looking far down upon the world as it crumbles into the void. “It is not your fault.”
“But it was –“
“No.”
“But it was, Yelena. What I did to all those people. What I did to you.”
“I don’t blame you for that.”
“I’m starting to think maybe you should.”
“Do you blame me for what I did to that little girl?” She asks, harsher than she meant to in trying to get her point across.
Bob snaps his eyes to hers, and he looks horrified. He shakes his head quickly. “No, you were…you didn’t…it wasn’t you, you.”
Yelena tips her head in a see? kind of way, and raises her eyebrows pointedly. Bob doesn’t smile like she so hoped he would, but he does drop his gaze when he realises he’s defeated.
“We’ve all done terrible things,” Yelena begins. “It doesn’t define us. It doesn’t make us bad people. What you do after, that’s who you are.”
There’s a pause. Bob looks from their hands before slowly moving his gaze to match hers once more.
“You really believe that?” He asks, something like hope bleeding through his sorrow.
Yelena nods. Says, simply, “I do.”
And there’s another moment of quiet as Bob works this over in his mind. She wants to reach in and spin his thoughts like a zoetrope, watch the images and the light reflect off his bedroom wall.
Bob sighs. “I don’t think I’ve ever known who I am.”
Yelena throws her hands up in disbelief, and the action draws Bob’s gaze back to her.
“You are a Thunderbolt,” she says with such certainty, and that does make Bob smile, “and a New Avenger, and whatever the fuck they name us next. Start there.”
“It is a pretty terrible name,” Bob says shyly, teasing, and Yelena feigns offense, but to have him joking with her like this felt wonderful.
“Alright, Walker. We might have been a shit soccer team but I think maybe we won’t be half bad superheroes.”
Bob sniffs, rubs the last of the water from his eyes. “Because a half bad superhero is all anyone’s ever dreamed of.”
“Oh, you’re funny now?”
Bob shrugs, says quietly, “every team needs a comic.”
Team. Yeah, Yelena supposes they are.
Bob moves then, reaches across to place his own hand on her knee. Yelena thinks they might make a habit of that. “Thanks.”
She smiles. “You’ll talk to me next time?”
He nods, and he smiles again, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, I will…and you can talk to me too, about…whatever.”
Yelena doesn’t respond to that, just lets the warmth in her chest spread up to her smile. She lays her hand gently over his, lets her fingertips curl over his palm. They stare at each other, his hand covering hers, until he drops his gaze down into his lap.
“Now,” Yelena starts, using Bob’s knee to push herself to standing, “get up. I hear there’s a hidden swimming pool in this place, and we’re going to find it.”
She holds out a hand, and for a moment Bob just looks at it, just looks at her, an odd expression on his face before he slips his hand into hers.