You weren’t expecting anyone. The compound was quiet, unusually so for a Tuesday. No Yelena pacing the hallway and cursing in Russian. Just silence. You were curled on your bed with a book, halfway through a sentence you already forgot, when you heard a knock, pause, followed by two short raps.

Bob always knocked like that. Like he didn’t trust the door not to bite back.

When you opened it, you found him standing there, arms hanging limp at his sides.

“Hey,” he said with a nervous smile,“You got a minute?”

He didn’t sit unless you asked him to, so you did. You offered the edge of the bed, and he settled there like someone waiting for a diagnosis.

“I don’t… I didn’t want to be alone,” he said. “Yelena’s out and— uh, the others don’t like me. I don’t think so at least.”

His hands rested on his knees. You noticed the way his fingers twitched, small, involuntary spasms.

“I saw myself again,” he murmured. “Before.”

He didn’t have to explain. You knew what he meant.

“There was this moment, just a second, where I wanted it again. The stillness. The nothing. That warmth that tells you you don’t have to care anymore. The drugs.”

You stayed quiet. He liked that about you. You didn’t scramble to fix him. You didn’t talk over his silence.

He turned his hand over. Looked at his palm like it was a foreign object.

You reached over and wrapped your fingers lightly around his wrist and he huffed out a chuckle of what seemed like relief.

After a long pause, he let out a breath. Then leaned carefully and cautiously so his forehead just touched your shoulder.

“Thanks,” he said. “For opening the door, you know.”