It was a routine for you to check on everyone in the tower before bed to make sure everything was alright. The hall was dim and hushed, humming with that low mechanical quiet the building slips into after dark.

You passed Bob's room about to knock on the door when you heard it. Quietly choked crying. Your heart drops

You slowly open the door and the room number glows faintly blue. Bob's on the bed. Sitting forward, back curved, elbows on his knees. His head is down, hands clenched in his hair. The window behind him is open, letting in the low rush of New York traffic.

He looks up at you with those blue vulnerable eyes. “I hear him..” A sob left his lips. “He won't go away.”

You walk in. Slow. Careful. When you sit beside him, he doesn’t say anything. He just turns and pulls you into him. Arms around your waist. Face buried against your shoulder. You feel the shake of him. The way he’s trying to hold it in. Still trying, even now. Your hands tangle in your hair.

“I don’t want to be a monster,” Bob says. “Not to you.”

You just hold him because this isn’t the Sentry. It’s just Bob. Scared. Fragile. Still fighting the thing inside him and now, you’re the only thing keeping it quiet.