I would have called you. [ even if he wasn’t okay. even if was dangerous. maybe that’s selfish. he’d call yelena and bucky even if he were halfway gone and hopeless. if he was dying. if it was the end of the world. ] Armand heard me first.
[ in his head, while his fingers fumbled over the keys. ]
He stopped it. [ muscles taut and strained, blood trickling from his ear. the person everyone was so afraid of in october, wounded by the cost of calming him. ] Helped me stop it, like we thought he could. [ weakly. ] Which is good, if you think about it.
— I mean, the whole thing is bad. [ the whole fact of bob, being in a place like this and not esconded in his corner of the watchtower, above it all. ] Sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying.
No, it is good. It's just a start, maybe, but it shows you can control it. With Armand's help, with Wanda's, you can practice and get better at it.
[ Not that Yelena would give up on him even if it seemed like a lost cause. But she knows he already sees himself that way on his worst days. It can't hurt for him to hear otherwise.
He doesn't answer her question, which tells her it was the wrong question to ask. Maybe he doesn't know the answer. Maybe he doesn't know how to say it. Whatever the case, she realizes he doesn't need the pressure of decision-making right now.
She tries a different way. ]
I am going to come and sit with you. Is that okay?
[ with the onus no longer on bob, when he has so little faith in himself — even after getting out of embry’s room the second he could manage it. after fighting the thing in his head with armand’s help (or not fighting it, rather, breathing through it; inhale, exhale — the lamp on in the corner, the record playing to drown out the rest of the noise). ]
[ quieter, ] That’d be nice. I’ll go to Armand’s room, so no one else. Y’know.
[ shows up. risks themselves. it’s an imposition on armand, certainly, and yet it’s been offered without question. ]
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no subject
Date: 2025-12-26 10:15 pm (UTC)[ in his head, while his fingers fumbled over the keys. ]
He stopped it. [ muscles taut and strained, blood trickling from his ear. the person everyone was so afraid of in october, wounded by the cost of calming him. ] Helped me stop it, like we thought he could. [ weakly. ] Which is good, if you think about it.
— I mean, the whole thing is bad. [ the whole fact of bob, being in a place like this and not esconded in his corner of the watchtower, above it all. ] Sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying.
[ let alone what he needs. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-12-26 11:00 pm (UTC)[ Not that Yelena would give up on him even if it seemed like a lost cause. But she knows he already sees himself that way on his worst days. It can't hurt for him to hear otherwise.
He doesn't answer her question, which tells her it was the wrong question to ask. Maybe he doesn't know the answer. Maybe he doesn't know how to say it. Whatever the case, she realizes he doesn't need the pressure of decision-making right now.
She tries a different way. ]
I am going to come and sit with you. Is that okay?
no subject
Date: 2025-12-26 11:37 pm (UTC)[ with the onus no longer on bob, when he has so little faith in himself — even after getting out of embry’s room the second he could manage it. after fighting the thing in his head with armand’s help (or not fighting it, rather, breathing through it; inhale, exhale — the lamp on in the corner, the record playing to drown out the rest of the noise). ]
[ quieter, ] That’d be nice. I’ll go to Armand’s room, so no one else. Y’know.
[ shows up. risks themselves. it’s an imposition on armand, certainly, and yet it’s been offered without question. ]