Chapter Text
Yelena stopped pretending to sleep around 1:37 a.m. That was usually the time she gave up, staring at the dark ceiling of her too-quiet room, sweaty despite the cool sheets, chest tight with leftover fear. She would wake from the same hellscape—gunshots and shadows, blood that felt too real—and try to convince herself that she was fine. That she could handle it.
She was not fine.
But saying it out loud felt like admitting something too heavy.
Across the hall, Bob had stirred the last three nights in a row, awakened not by his own nightmares for once, but by hers. The muffled scream, abruptly cut off. The creak of her bedframe. The long silence afterward.
Tonight, she hadn’t meant to scream. She bit it back too late.
The knock on her door came soft. “Yelena?” Bob’s voice, quiet, kind, worried.
She sat up on the edge of the bed, fingers tight on the hem of her shirt. “I’m fine.”
A pause. “Can I—?”
“No.” She winced at how sharp that came out, then softened her voice. “I mean… you don’t have to worry.”
He didn’t say anything for a long beat. Then came the creak of the hallway floorboards.
She thought he left.
But in the morning, when she opened the door—groggy, eyes half-shut—there he was. Curled up awkwardly on the hallway floor, hoodie bunched up behind his head like a makeshift pillow, his long legs folded to fit. Asleep.
Her heart stuttered, caught somewhere between ache and something warmer. She closed the door slowly. And leaned her forehead against it.
It became a thing.
She wouldn’t scream every night—but enough. Enough that he noticed. Enough that she opened the door one morning to find a pillow added under his head. A folded blanket.
She never asked him to do it.
He never tried to come in again.
She wasn’t sure which fact meant more to her.
It should’ve felt invasive, strange. But Bob just showed up, gently. Like an airport runway flickering on a coast—not trying to reach her, just being there. A little glow in the fog.
They didn’t talk about it. Not at first.
They started sharing breakfast sometimes instead.
Bob made waffles like a man on a mission. He’d offer her the first plate, golden and imperfect, and she’d wrinkle her nose and eat every last bite. They’d talk about nothing—new boots she was breaking in, some movie he thought sucked.
Every now and then, her hand would brush his as they passed the syrup. His breath would catch. She’d pretend not to notice.
But she did.
She noticed everything about him. The way he’d pull at his sleeves when he was nervous. The small scar between his jaw and neck that he’d never told her about. The way he always gave her the bigger half of a shared candy bar without saying anything.
Yelena hadn’t felt this safe around someone in years.
And she supposed that that should have been a welcome feeling but it terrified her instead.
One night, she gave in.
Woke from another nightmare, the air thick in her lungs—and instead of lying there shaking, she opened the door.
Bob was already outside.
He looked up at her, pillow under his head again, eyes wide with quiet surprise.
“I…” she hesitated, arms folded across her chest. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He nodded slowly. “Want company?”
A beat.
She exhaled. “Yeah.”
He stood, stretching the kink out of his neck. She stepped aside. He stepped in.
It wasn’t awkward, not really. He sat on the floor first, back against her dresser. She stayed on the bed, legs drawn up to her chest. They didn’t speak.
After a few minutes, she slid off the mattress and joined him.
She didn’t say why.
Neither did he.
They sat like that until morning.
It was easier after that. Not simple. But easier.
He never pushed. Never asked for explanations. Just kept being what he didn’t even know she needed. Not entirely, at least.
When he had his own sleepless nights—he didn’t hide them either. She’d find him on the roof sometimes, legs swinging over the edge, eyes far away.
She sat beside him the first time in silence. The second time, she brought hot chocolate.
They didn’t say things like “me too” or “I understand.” That was already a given. They just existed together in the dark and let the silence speak for them.
They started reading together sometimes. Swapping dog-eared paperbacks. She teased him for his taste in fantasy novels; he raised his eyebrows at her murder mysteries. They watched bad TV. They argued about plot twists. They shared popcorn, shoulders touching.
She started to miss him when he wasn’t around.
That scared her too.
The first time they fell asleep in the same bed, it wasn’t planned.
She had come into his room with a mug in her hand and shadows in her eyes. He was watching an old movie, grainy and slow, and made space for her without saying a word.
She curled beside him with her head on his shoulder.
Neither of them moved.
Somewhere in the second act, they both drifted off.
In the morning, she woke first. Pulled away slowly. Bob mumbled something incoherent and turned over, pressing his face into the pillow.
She smiled—just a little—and tucked the blanket up around his shoulder before she left.
That became a thing too.
Not every night. Not even most nights. But enough for it to, you know, become a thing.
A quiet knock at the door. A look exchanged. A silent question, a silent answer. Room made, a blanket shared. And that was that. Except it wasn’t.
Because, once, they fell asleep holding hands.
Neither of them mentioned it the next day.
But Yelena smiled more. Bob’s shoulders sat a little looser.
It was… good.
God, it was so good.
Their feelings were growing faster than either of them dared admit.
Yelena knew it every time he laughed at her dumb jokes, that low golden sound that made something bloom in her chest.
Bob knew it every time she fell asleep beside him, lashes fluttering, fingers curled against his arm like he was a safe harbor.
But he kept it buried.
He wanted to be good for her. Whole and stable. He didn’t always feel like he was.
Some nights, he still dreamed of worlds ending. Of himself burning through the sky like a meteor. He’d wake with sweat on his skin and guilt in his bones.
She never asked about the nightmares.
But she never let him face them alone either.
One night, she caught him sitting on the edge of her bed, head in his hands. Just breathing. Like he was holding himself together by a thread.
“Bad night?” she asked quietly.
He nodded.
Without a word, she crawled under the covers and held them open.
He blinked at her.
“I’m not saying anything,” she said. “Just get in, Bob.”
He did.
They lay facing each other. Not touching. But closer than they’d ever been.
She watched the light play on his face, the way his lashes fluttered as he fought sleep. The faint crease in his brow that never really left.
She reached out. Smoothed it with her thumb.
He opened his eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Yelena didn’t say anything. Just tucked her hand back under the blanket.
He reached for it.
They fell asleep like that.
Weeks passed. Things shifted, gently.
They shared space like they were made to. Mornings in the kitchen. Late nights on the couch. The warm tangle of limbs in shared sleep. They didn’t label it.
It didn’t need one.
And if the rest of their teammates noticed, they made no indication.
Yelena had never been good at softness. But Bob made it feel easy. Like she could be herself, messy and tired and afraid—and still worthy of affection.
Bob had never believed he deserved someone like her. But she looked at him like he was more than enough.
They started talking more. About their pasts. Their fears. The future, in vague, maybe-someday shapes.
He learned the names she couldn’t forget. She learned the weight he carried in silence.
Sometimes they kissed.
It was always unexpected. Never planned.
Once in the kitchen, mid-laugh. Once in the rain, just because it was there.
The third time, it was after she’d had a nightmare, and he held her until the trembling stopped.
She kissed him slow, grateful, aching. He kissed her like she was precious.
They didn’t talk about that either.
But they didn’t need to.
Eventually, Bob stopped sleeping in the hallway.
What was the use?
He had a place beside her now.
And when the nightmares came, they faced them together.
Hand in hand.
Heart to heart.
Whole—maybe not perfectly. But whole enough.