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He told them he'd be better off. He could tell they didn't believe him, Yelena especially. Or maybe it was just a lingering look of distrust, the small fear of knowing something the others didn't.
He couldn't remember why it happened. He knew it could, and he knew he could control it—not his first time, something told him, but his encounter with Yelena hadn't been ideal; lying was never his strong suit—but some primal instinct had gut-punched him with the realization that this should never be allowed in the natural world.
If that feeling told him anything else of reason, it was that he should get far away from these people, as soon as possible. He agreed, but his curiosity still lingered.
The group had seemed, at the very least, somewhat decent people. Congressman Barnes, for some reason (or Bucky, as Walker had greeted him, which Bucky made clear he wasn't exactly pleased about), had made it to the bunker before disaster struck, courtesy of someone named Mel—yet another name everyone besides Bob seemed to recognize—giving him the heads up.
"—Yeah, I screwed up and didn't close the surveillance on my tablet. Some guy just like, appeared behind me and said they recognized a box in the corner, I guess it was part of some big project? Wouldn't tell me what it was there for, but was pretty adamant on there being someone inside of it. Said his name is Robert Reynolds. Then Val showed up and they went like, ghost white and ran off. No clue why."
"So what am I gonna do with him? What, you think he's too much for those kids to handle?"
"I think if Val gets to him before you do, you don't stand a chance."
They'd just saved him from a mile-deep bunker with no second thought about it, asked him where he was from, and then... drove. It could be a lot worse. Still, something shadowed the back of his mind, a memory he wasn’t even sure was his, screaming in hopes to silence the urge to stay behind.
Sure, he thought about it. Yeah, three of the five of them had a gun pointed at his head less than 48 hours ago, but who knows? Maybe they could've helped him start over. Maybe this was where he finally got better.
As if it really mattered, that possibility in the form of a shitty rental box truck quickly echoed with halfhearted goodbyes.
Walker had sneered but shrugged awkwardly, told Bob he looked like he'd been on his own long enough that he could handle himself. Bob laughed it off, called him a prick under his breath, and imagined his stares turning into shrapnel piercing Walker's ribcage.
Ava pretended to look bored, indifferent, anything but involved, but Bob could tell otherwise from the way she picked at her nails and tore through the knots in her hair. In a way, it was nice to know she was at least worried. Whether it was for him or for herself, he wasn't entirely sure.
Yelena insisted they'd be back to check on him when the trial was over. He just shrugged and grinned, told her not to worry about him. He knew it didn't reach his eyes. He knew she noticed.
It took about five seconds of Bob standing on a curb a few steps away from the divided highway—looking like some dumped dog waiting for you to throw the ball—for Walker to reach to the front of the truck and slam his hand into the horn.
Yelena, straining already to hold the roll-up door open, gave Bob one last pitiful look before cursing back at Walker loud enough for three blocks over to hear.
The horn sounded again, clearly argumentative, and the roll-up door crashed down to the floor of the truck. Bob cringed at the noise and waved, still smiling as Bucky flashed a hand from the driver's side window. Once they U-turned back onto the road, he let his shoulders drop and his smile fade. His muscles ached.
He looked over at the building beside him—a rehabilitation center he didn't recognize, lights around the windows glowing a fluorescent grimy yellow in the dusk.
Mosquitoes and moths swarmed the frames. He clenched his jaw and looked around, taking in the barely familiar view, and froze when a flickering light caught his eye, just around the side of the building.
• • •
The first time he found it, Bob was eight years old, stumbling down the sidewalk, feet stinging from the cracks in the pavement as he put as much distance as he could manage between himself and the front door of his house. Everything he could see was blurry with the tears spilling from his face, the silence of an otherwise peaceful evening broken by his sobs and the sparse cars passing on the roads beside him.
He held his arms tight to his chest as he ran, fingers clawing into the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. A sense of unfamiliarity washed over him as he wiped his face with the oversized sleeves of his sweater, wincing as he brushed against a tender spot on his cheekbone.
He ran on, further into a part of town he barely recognized. Breath hitching in his throat, he imagined what could happen.
A car swerving a little too far to the right, not quite straightening the wheel in time. A dog over half his size, growling and snapping at his legs, lead tied too carelessly to a fencepost. A sinkhole collapsing the ground beneath him, ready to swallow him whole.
He thought those options didn’t sound too bad.
And suddenly, his breath caught again, accompanied by a burning on his knees and shoulder as he collapsed in the middle of a parking lot with such intensity he thought he might faint.
Instead, he gasped for air, turning himself onto his back to face the washed-out stars above him. If he squinted, he thought he could almost see Orion's Belt.
Yellow street lights glared at the corners of his vision, the moon nowhere to be seen. A building appeared to him as his tunnel vision disappeared, one he hadn’t noticed before.
He squinted as he pulled himself to sit, hugging his knees for support with one hand as he rubbed his bruising arm with the other. The palm trees behind him trembled with him.
It looked to be an unfinished apartment complex, a few stories high, some old project abandoned before completion. Windows still covered with plastic, scaffolding still scaling up the cardboard walls next to curling vines and exposed framework. A single lamppost to the right of the boarded-up lobby door flickered wildly, shuddering at the long-forgotten feeling of company.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the building. Something that could one day be seen as comforting, left to rot in the humid atmosphere of southern Florida with nothing more than a single piece of caution tape left fluttering in the breeze.
It tore through him, the very idea of being simply given up on when so close to being something important. His eyes darted across the building’s walls, admiring its roughness.
After a moment, his gaze stopped on a section of scaffolding that didn’t quite match. A fire escape, he concluded, that led all the way up to the unfinished roof of the structure.
The light from the lamppost reflected off its railings as it blinked, every so often leaving it in a warm, almost welcoming glow. It looked like home—at least, how it used to be. How he wished it still was.
He held his arm tighter and dragged himself up to stand, legs unsteady. A deep voice could be heard faintly through the thick air behind him, crackling with the too-familiar sting of alcohol.
He couldn’t even bring himself to shudder at the thought of the man behind the voice through his exhaustion.
He took a deep breath, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, and glanced at the fading colors of the sky once more before turning around to face his father.
• • •
Bob found himself in the parking lot once again, grimacing at memories he didn't quite have anymore that thrummed in and out with the pressure on the backs of his eyes.
He rubbed a hand along his jaw, frustrated, and scratched briefly at some faint stubble before resting it at the base of his neck. He looked up, following the path of the fire escape, gaze lingering where it reflected muted oranges and yellows of the sunset.
He’d imagined it too long ago to guess what it might feel like, countless days spent wandering through the building's flimsy walls. He never had the guts to do it then.
He'd wonder if maybe—by some miracle provided to him by the occasional Sunday or holiday spent in a suit he grew out of years ago, fingers tracing along lines of a book that left a dirty, dusty film that made you feel like holding it was a sin—maybe he'd get another chance. Out of nowhere, something would change, and he could remain in the brief time of his life he so desperately wished he could return to.
Clearly, he never did. The building was still as abandoned as he could remember, potholes crumbled from an annoyance to a safety hazard. He glanced halfheartedly down the street, straining to think of his house's front door. He could only manage to picture his bedroom.
He grumbled and sunk his palms into his eyes, pushing until he could see colors he couldn't name. He didn't have the luxury to wait for miracles anymore.
He didn't think about much else as he padded across the lot, cursing silently at the falling waist of his medical scrubs. He did think about how, on top of scamming him into signing up for what so far seemed to be some phony drug (which, by the way, barely bumped his withdrawal symptoms down from "Possible Ring of Hell" to "If I don’t die, buy me a lotto ticket"), those assholes couldn't even bother to get him a set of pajamas that actually fit.
Still, the baggy sleeves caught briefly against his forearms, an itch he couldn’t bring himself to scratch. Some string of memories that smelled like metal and disinfectant and cigarettes rang through his mind like VHS tapes tucked away next to a box of magnets.
• • •
Quiet chatter made its way through the air, thick and sterile. His head spun, the room spun, and he gripped the hospital bedsheets like they were stopping him from spiraling along with it. He felt like he was going to vomit.
From where he eventually determined was his left, he heard his father. Complaining about the time, about the inconvenience, about the hospital bills, about the lack of a bottle in his hand to just about any nurse or doctor who would be so unfortunate to pass by Bob’s bed.
Bob grumbled, tossing and turning as much as he could handle, not exactly eager to make conversation with the somewhat disheveled man at his bedside. Bob wondered silently if he looked worse than that.
“Learn your lesson yet?” he sneered, barely bothering to look up at his son. A chill ran through Bob's body, his voice straining and his mouth dry. He really didn't want to have this conversation.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Asleep." He put his head in his hands, clearly bored, rubbing hard around his eyes. "Probably thinks you're still up in your room playing with needles.”
Bob could only stare in disbelief, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes twitching softly. He glanced at his hands, nails and fingertips stained with black dye, both bitten down to dangerous levels.
He looked up his arm at the IV stuck into his vein, following the tubing all the way up to the bag. He scoffed and shook his head.
“C’mon, Bobby, we both know you’re fine. Cut the shit so I can go home." He sniffed, looking irritated enough to justify tearing Bob from his bed and dragging him to the car. "I’ve been sitting here for hours and not one of these freaks has asked me how I’m dealing with your bullshit. Can you believe that? The fuck happened to hospitality in a hospital—?”
“Get out.”
His father clenched his jaw, dragging his hand across his mouth. Then, he pointed at Bob, his hand and voice trembling slightly. “…Say that again.” Bob looked to the side, avoiding his father's eyes, and swallowed hard.
“Get out, or I’m pressing the call button.” Bob's voice crackled, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek.
His father chuckled and shrugged, not even pretending to take him seriously. “What, you think I care?" he asked, incredulous, motioning to himself wildly. He stood, his chair scraping loudly against the vinyl floor. Bob felt himself shrink inward.
"I did this because when you go decide to slit your wrists open in the bathtub, they don’t think it was my sorry ass that told you to do it.”
Bob looked straight into his father's eyes and ripped the catheter out of his arm.
He stumbled out of the opposite end of the bed, his head still swimming and his legs wobbling like a newborn deer. Backing out through the curtains, he held his arms tightly to his chest.
“You’re a piece of shit.”
Without hesitation, he looked down the hallway from his cubicle and started to run. He barely heard his father calling behind him, his heart thumping in his ears, barely leaving room for anything else.
“Jesus, Bobby—where do you think you’re gonna go?” he taunted, hardly taking a step to follow behind. Bob kept running.
Quickly lost, he paused for a moment in the middle of the seemingly endless hallways, his chest heaving—if only to ground himself as the building finally stopped spinning. He heard whispers behind him, and snapped his head around to see a nurse beginning to crowd him, nothing but pity painting her expression. Fuck that.
He turned again and saw an exit sign, pointing straight at a stairwell. He darted for it, just out of the nurse's grasp, narrowly side-stepping a gurney and tripping over his own feet along the way.
He crashed into the stairwell door and yanked it open, bolting up the stairs and forcing himself to ignore the aching in his legs. He raced up, up, practically dragging himself along the handrail, until there was only one set of doors left.
He collapsed through them and felt nothing but a rush of warm, dense air. His whole body ached, the gravel on the roof sharp on the soles of his feet, adrenaline wearing away along with the numbness. He felt his side beginning to bruise.
Finally, he paused, looking to the ground. He was right at the edge of the roof, at least five stories up. He felt his stomach sink all the way down. Bob never quite got over his fear of heights.
• • •
It was quiet. Not exactly how he’d imagined it: flashing lights and wailing sirens below, a voice through a screeching megaphone assuring him it wasn’t too late. A small crowd watching in awe, phone cameras pointed to the poor, poor boy on the roof, just waiting for him to take one more step.
One of them would show up behind the lens of a news camera just hours later, tears of pity stuck in their throat as they placed the blame on the county, because if they just sucked it up and destroyed that godforsaken, ugly, deteriorating building, this never would’ve happened, right?
He was just a kid—too rebellious, too adventurous, too dangerous. An adrenaline junkie, or maybe something harder. He wasn’t thinking straight, wasn’t paying attention, didn’t really want to do it. What could’ve gone so wrong, so early?
He tried once more to picture his home. Deafening screaming, crashing, sobbing, shattering echoed through his head. Whether his stomach churned from the memory or the height, he wasn’t sure.
He sighed, feverishly rubbing his eyes and squeezing them shut tightly. He was so tense it felt like he was suffocating, like his skin was shrinking down to his bones, crushing his ribcage around his lungs.
He was so tired of waiting. He was tired of suffocating, tired of pity, tired of wandering and praying and the numbness in his chest, in his brain, through his entire being that just made him want to tear himself apart until he could fucking feel something. Until all that remained was the blackened, empty void residing where his soul should be.
Bob sighed, running a hand through his hair, tangled by the soft wind blowing in from the bay in the distance. He couldn’t tear himself apart; he didn’t have the energy for that.
All he could do was take one more step.
• • •
Bob was dead. He was sure of it—as far as he knew, he’d felt it before.
He hadn’t been able to open his eyes. He couldn’t feel anything, no pain or comfort. Just a numb buzzing spreading through everything, making his mouth taste funny and his arms stay frozen in place. He could see bright lights through his eyelids, barely hear muffled, urgent voices through the sharp ringing in his ears that made him decide he would rather be deaf.
After a long, long while, he’d get flashes of what might’ve happened. Nothing comprehensive, nothing he was even positive was from that night. He’d hear the ear-splitting screeching of metal, a sound that made his head feel like it was going to explode just from thinking about it. He’d see smoke, lazily billowing up to the stars.
He felt something… wrong. He wasn’t sure how to explain it. A dark, sticky, sickly feeling that bubbled over, pooling on the asphalt around him until it was all he knew existed anymore.
Asphalt. That was new.
He could only remember one thing for certain from that night: His mother, sitting stoically in a chair next to him. One hand rubbed along her neck enough to leave soft red marks, the other gripping the wooden armrest with a ferocity Bob was sure she was unaware of. Her leg bounced relentlessly, strangely in time with the beeps of the machine to his right that reminded him he was alive.
He was alive, but he’d been dead, hadn’t he? He was sure that was what it was supposed to feel like. Or maybe he’d just remembered hoping, praying that this was all there was, and convinced himself he was in his final moments before giving in.
Praying he didn’t have to live in a world where he remembered… well. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be forgetting in the first place. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Asphalt.
It was cold against his cheek, dull cracks of pavement digging uncomfortably into his skin and through his clothes. Not painfully, not deep or piercing, just... inconvenient.
Maybe this really was what death felt like. Not as monumental as they made it out to be, if that were the case. It didn't feel very different, and he certainly didn't feel any better.
It was almost as if he were still alive. He shuddered and glanced back up at the roof, quickly a little dizzy at the height from below. Yeah, right.
And yet, his stomach still churned. He wrung his hands, clammy as he grew more and more lightheaded by the second. He stepped back, attention briefly turning to the ground where he'd landed.
No body remained, no blood, nothing but a pothole-sized amount of damage to the lot, which he wasn't entirely sure hadn't been there before. His breath hitched in his chest. Right?
In front of him, the lamppost flickered once, twice, before suddenly burning out with a loud crack that cut through the heavy air around him. He jolted, shielding his face with his hands, then turned so quickly he swore he felt a rib move the wrong way as the streetlamps behind him followed suit, sparks flying before shattering completely.
The corners of his eyes burned, and he struggled to swallow around the lump forming in his throat. No tears fell as he stared into the distance, looking at nothing in particular.
He barely felt his entire body trembling as he collapsed to the ground without grace, not knowing it to be from fear or relief or sobs or laughter; he couldn't tell and couldn't bring himself to care.
After what could’ve been seconds later or hours, he finally heaved himself up to stand. Legs still trembling, breath uneven and eyes threatening to close at any moment, and yet he began to walk. Barely any confidence or intent behind the movement, but he did move, slowly but surely.
Eventually, he stood teetering in front of a glass door, a piece of paper that said "PUSH TO OPEN" in large, messy letters taped on the inside. Above the paper, "Sarasota Rehabilitation Center" was printed across the glass, lettering starting to peel and crumble at the edges.
The mosquitoes and moths that swarmed the lights before now dove to the ground, getting a little too brave as the fluorescents hummed noticeably brighter than they had before, seemingly at Bob’s arrival. He snickered at the sight—at the very idea—giggling as he brought a finger to the light himself, purely out of curiosity.
It sparked at his touch, sending electricity through his arm and buzzing loudly before flickering out. He didn’t feel a thing. Though the rest of the lights around him remained, the new shadow in the corner of that window caught his eye.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, or a lack of it. Despite the lights behind him and the soft glow of the sun still setting past the horizon, the shadow seemed impossibly dark, climbing the framing and walls like ink spilling across a page.
He blinked, squinting, and rubbed his hand along his jawline anxiously. He couldn’t tear his eyes away as the stain grew larger. He swallowed shakily and forced his gaze away, to find it just… gone. He pushed the door open, still staring uneasily at the corner.
He stepped inside, letting the door fall closed behind him. It clattered as it shut, and he flinched as he shuffled over to the counter. Before he could even consider greeting her, an older woman—tired, eyes sunken in with age and her whole general area smelling faintly of smoke—slid him a clipboard over the desktop, her chair lowered so far down he had to stand on his toes to see her face.
She barely looked up from her phone, which was loudly playing clips of cats howling in assumed conversation. The rest of the room was dead silent.
He quickly took the clipboard, helping himself to a ballpoint pen among a small number that sat in a plasticky souvenir mug that helpfully read 'Orange you glad to see me?' across the front.
He turned away, then faltered, clearing his throat forcefully. The old woman reluctantly paused her video and glanced up at him, very obviously bothered.
He coughed again in surprise, then mumbled before turning to one of the waiting chairs behind him. “I, uh… I think your light out there is broken.”