You and Bob clicked right away. It was...surprising. Like two dogs meeting for the first time and realizing they just wanted to be near each other—an odd mix of intensity and ease.

You're the newest recruit on the New Avengers, barely out of training. Still green. John Walker watches you like a hawk on missions—hovering, correcting, protective in his gruff, stiff way. It’s kind of sweet, if suffocating. You’re also the youngest, which Bob notices with a quiet sort of relief.

“I used to be the kid,” he says once, almost too softly to hear.

You met properly over the espresso machine—some absurd, chrome monstrosity in the Avengers Tower kitchen that Bob had no idea how to operate. He fumbled with the buttons like they were alien tech until you stepped in.

“You’re gonna short out the tower if you keep hitting that one,” you teased.

Bob laughed, boyish, caught off guard. “I was just...seeing if it would listen.”

After that, it was easy. Training together. Playing old arcade games in the rec room. Talking late into the night when insomnia got the best of you both. He liked having you around. You made him feel less...fractured.

Then one evening, after a long session running power drills, Bob lingered as you towelled off.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice was low, uncertain.

“Sure,” you said.

He hesitated, eyes flicking toward the floor, then back to you. “Would it be weird if I...asked to practice something?”

You raised an eyebrow. “Practice what?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Kissing.”

The air went still.

“I mean, I haven’t really...done it. Not since everything. Not since Lindy. And I saw you, um, talking to that security guard last week. Thought maybe you wouldn’t mind—”

You blinked. Blushed. Hard. “You want to kiss me?”

“I want to practice. Just to remember. I don’t wanna be weird with someone if it ever happens again. You’re safe. You’re not afraid of me.”

You didn’t know what to say. But Bob looked so painfully earnest—like a golden retriever asking for permission to sit on the couch—that you nodded.

“Okay,” you murmured.

What started as a hesitant brush of lips, almost clinical, shifted. Something clicked. The air thickened. Bob leaned in again, slower, deeper. The second kiss was...not practice. Neither was the third.