Even among the Thunderbolts — a team built from broken edges and darker compromises — Bob Reynolds was different. He carried the raw ache of a man who had once been something like a god, yet lived each day haunted by the shadow inside him: the Void. You’d seen glimpses of it — the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands sometimes shook after missions, the distant look that stole across his eyes in moments of quiet.

Over time, you’d grown close. It happened in the quiet spaces between operations: sitting side by side in the common area, patching each other up after a mission went messy, trading dark jokes to chase off the heavy silence. Bob had a softness under the bone-deep guilt and fear — something you’d come to treasure.

That night, you’d just pulled off your boots and tossed your gear onto the floor. The air was heavy with the scent of metal, sweat, and cheap laundry soap. Then came the knock. Soft, uneven. Hesitant.

When you opened the door, you found Bob standing there — shoulders hunched, eyes rimmed red, chest rising and falling too quickly. His hair clung damply to his forehead. It took a heartbeat to realize he was hyperventilating, hands trembling so badly he kept clenching them at his sides, like he didn’t trust himself to move.

“I—” His voice broke, hoarse and cracking. “Can I… just— please?”

You didn’t need to ask what had happened. Earlier, you’d heard raised voices echoing down the hall: John Walker’s sharp, biting words — the same words that could dig under anyone’s skin, but that cut Bob deeper than most. You knew enough of Bob’s past — of hospital corridors and shouted threats, of people who had tried to control him through fear — to know how easily that could shatter him.

Now, standing in your doorway, Bob looked less like a living weapon and more like a man on the edge of falling apart. His gaze darted around, unable to meet yours for more than a second at a time. His breathing hitched again, ragged, almost panicked.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice small in a way that made something tighten in your chest. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

You could almost feel the weight of what he wasn’t saying: Please don’t send me away. Please, just… be here.

Outside, the halls of the Thunderbolts compound felt cold and impersonal, filled with locked doors and wary glances. But here, in this small room smelling faintly of gun oil and soap, Bob had come to you — not as the Sentry, not as a weapon, but as a man who just needed someone to help hold him together for a while.

In that moment, it didn’t matter what you were to each other: teammate, friend, something quietly growing in the spaces between. What mattered was that he’d chosen your door to knock on.