After the whole Void debacle—you know, the one where half of New York and nearly half its population were swallowed in a screaming whirlwind of shadows and chaos—life had, somehow, returned to normal. Or at least, the version of normal you get when the man responsible just… turned back into Bob.

Bob Reynolds. The soft-spoken, mildly awkward guy with eternal bedhead and a strange devotion to mismatched socks. He wasn’t a hero anymore. The Sentry was gone. The Void was gone. And all that remained was Bob. Not feared. Not worshipped. Just… tolerated. And, oddly enough, kind of adored.

He still lived with the Thunderbolts in Avengers Tower. Not out of necessity—no one really needed him—but because he was company. Harmless, often funny, and occasionally useful when the microwave shorted out or the TV refused to cooperate. But with another cosmic crisis on the horizon, Bob felt it creeping back in—that old, hollow sense of uselessness.

Around the holo-table, the team was deep in frustrated chatter. Yelena scoured for leads while John muttered that even if they knew what was coming, they had no way of reaching space. Then he cracked a joke—half serious, half teasing—about strapping a saddle on Bob and riding him into orbit.

The room fell into a hush as eyes drifted toward the couch.

Bob sat there cross-legged, a paperback open in his lap. He hadn’t turned a page in twenty minutes. His eyes were fixed on the window, where the glass still bore the scars of a skyline he’d once destroyed—and then saved.

He didn’t look up when he spoke. His voice was light, almost casual, but there was a quiet strain beneath it.

“Look… I’m sorry, guys. I can’t be the Sentry without the… you know… other part. But hey—I did the dishes."