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Bob hadn’t been outside for over two months. The realisation struck him like a sudden blow to his chest. He’d watched the others filter in and out the Avengers Tower. Valentina, Mel, builders, the New Avengers. They always had something to do and somewhere to go. An interview, a mission, something big and important. Something world-changing.
But he’d just. Stayed put. There had been a reason, sure, but it was one he couldn’t quiet remember right now. It probably wasn’t all that important.
No. What was important was that he couldn’t sit still anymore.
There were ants under his skin. C rawling and biting. A n itch he couldn’t scratch even when his nails dug so deep they drew blood. He needed movement. That was what he needed. He needed to stop sitting around.
For God’s sake. He hadn’t been outside in two months!
No one else was around—where was everyone? Where had they gone?--good. No one to stop him. And they would try to stop him because of course they would. Y elena would. She’d try and make him sit still again. She thought she could tell him what to do. Just like Valentino had thought . But he knew better. He knew best!
He knew he needed to keep moving. Keep moving to keep the ants away.
Cold air washed over Bob, right down to the his bone s as he stepped outside . His feet slapped against the pavement, icy pain shot up from the sol e s of his feet into his calves. Not that it mattered, he ran hot after all. Soon enough the heat that burned within him left him sweltering.
Bob’s breath misted before him. Great plumes of white. He didn’t have a set destination, he just needed to walk, to keep moving until the ants burrowed their way out from under his skin. He rubbed his arms and felt the rough bumps of goose-flesh beneath his palms.
He had to keep moving. His brain felt like it was about to vibrate out his skull . He had to go. Go go go.
Bob strode down the street. He moved quickly. The others would try to stop him. Was that the reason he never went outside? Because they stopped him? It sounded right. That had to be it. Bob looked up. Massive skyscrapers towered over him from all directions. The sky was dark. Too dark for him to make out if anyone was up there. Watching him. He could see it so clearly, Ava perched up on the rooftop as she watched the ants below her. Jokes on her. He wasn’t some ordinary ant. He was the Golden Guardian of Good—he was a God.
Sentry. He was Sentry.
Bob hadn’t been out in New York, not as himself anyway. He’d not had the chance to properly explore. That was their fault. Had to be. They hadn’t wanted him to go out side. Hadn’t wanted him to be Sentry. Hadn’t wanted him to be good or strong. Fuck them. He didn’t need them. They needed him. Yes. That was it. They needed him, needed him to not be the Sentry because if he was the Sentry he’d show them all up. All they could do was punch and shoot. He could fly! He could--
--keep walking.
The New Avengers?
Don’t stop. Keep moving.
They really thought they could be the New Avengers?!
The crowds around him halted. It was so dark out but the streets were still packed. The city that never slept. It was like him in a weird way. Bob didn’t have to sleep either. He just had to keep moving.
Breaks squealed. Someone slammed on their horn.
Bob’s jaw twitched. His head turned and he squinted against the glare of the headlamps. Had they gotten brighter recently?
“What the fuck are you doing?!” The driver stuck their head out the window. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” He punched the horn again and Bob just had to laugh.
Get himself killed? Didn’t this guy know gods couldn’t die?
Bob turned and reached the other side of the crosswalk. He didn’t pay attention to signs, he knew where he was going.
Just.
Keep.
Moving.
Before he knew it he was running. Bob had never been all that fit growing up. He had always been the one trailing behind everyone else whenever they did the mile. Running had always made his throat hurt and his mouth taste of blood.
Now though?
Now he soared.
His feet struck rhythmically against the ground. Faster. Faster. The people in front of him moved to make room. He was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Like a star cutting through the cosmos. Another laugh escaped Bob’s lips as his hair whipped wildly about his face, his eyes watering from the cold air. It almost felt like that night at the vault, when he’d burst up through the clouds and there had just been him and the sky and the stars.
Why had he stopped flying? It had been so fun!
Right. Because of them. Because they wouldn’t let him.
Bob skidded to a sudden stop and whirled around on the ball of his foot. He could still see the Tower. It cut into the night sky like some festering wound. They’d be looking for him, he realised. The thought made his throat tighten.
People around him were talking, but he could barely hear them over the rush of blood pounding in his ears. The avengers would have noticed that he was gone by now. They’d be after him. They’d make him go back, try to control him again. They liked to think they’d freed him from Valentino’s clutches, but they hadn’t. Not really. It was all the same leash, just someone else holding it.
Bob’s gaze popcorned about, darting from person to person, building to building, sign to sign. He needed to get out of here before they caught him. Get out of sight.
His eyes clapped on a sign and he felt the nervous pressure in his chest lighten. Lexington Avenue Station. He tripped as he bolted down the stairs and into the safety of the subway. Barely had enough time to grab the railing and stop himself from falling.
Bob marched onwards, his hands curled into tight fists at his side. He’d catch a train. Get out of here. Get away from the people who tried to control him.
He had to be quick.
Bob pushed through those who got in his way. Some swore at him. He didn’t listen. Didn’t care.
Finally, Bob reached the station gates. He set his hand against the bar and pushed, only, it didn’t budge. Bob narrowed his eyes and tried again, this time giving it a bit more oomph. Again, it rattled but didn’t let him through. Bob pressed his lips together into a firm line. No. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to let him through. He rattled the gate back and forth the few meagre
centimetres that the mechanism allowed.
“Excuse me—”
He needed to get through.
“Sir—”
He had to keep moving.
“Step back—”
They were going to find him!
“Sir, I need you to step back from the gate.”
Bob’s head snapped up and he found himself eye-to-eye with a...a cop. Cop? Why was there a cop?
“Please step back from the gate.” The words were polite but the officer’s voice dripped with venom.
Bob kept his hand firmly closed around the bar. “I need to get through,” he said, because clearly this guy was an idiot who needed to have simple things explained to him.
“Do you have a card?” The officer gestured to the machine at the side of the gate. Other people were passing through with no issue.
Bob shook his head.
“A ticket?”
Another shake.
The cop sighed. “Sir, step back from the gate.”
“I need to get through,” Bob said again. What wasn’t there to get? What was wrong with this guy?
“Sir, if you don’t get back—”
“I need to go!” Bob snapped.
The officer’s tone grew firmer. “I understand that, Sir—”
“You clearly don’t.”
“Sir—” Sir Sir Sir. He said it like a warning “—if you do not step back I will be forced to make you.”
Make him? Make him?? Who did this guy think he was?!
Bob scowled. He didn’t have time for this. He set his palms against either side of the gate and hoisted himself up.
The cop was on him before he’d managed the to jump the bar. One moment Bob was about to be on his way and the next the officer had him by the back of his collar.
“Get off me!” Bob tried to twist and kick himself free, but only succeeded in getting his leg stuck over the bar. “I have to go! I have to go!” The next thing Bob new the officer had pulled him back from the gate. Bob’s feet fell out from underneath him, his lower body dragging along the floor.
Bob groaned as the officer twist him around and slammed him hard against the ground. He peeked up. People had stopped going through the gate now. They’d stopped period. All eyes were on him.
Staring.
At him.
Bob could feel their eyes crawling over his body. As though he was some kind of exhibition. A butterfly pinned down by its wings.
Bob was dimly aware of that the cop was speaking to him, but it wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was the people, looking at him like they knew him. Bob’s pulse quickened. His breath grew shallow because they did know him. Everyone knew him because he was the one who had drowned the entire city in a blanket of void!
And that’s why he didn’t go outside.
“Bob!” A sharp, accented voice cut through the hubbub.
A shock of platinum-blonde wormed through the crowd. “Bob, there you are! Out of my way, important avengers business.” Yelena was dressed haphazardly with her combat vest tugged on over a pyjama top, sweat pants and a pair of uggs. “Thank you, officer. I will take things from here.”
The cop watched dumbfounded, barely able to get a word in as Yelena not-so-gently pushed his hands off Bob.
“Up you get.” She pulled Bob up, flopped his arm over her shoulder and started moving back towards the exit. Back towards the city. Back towards the tower and Valentino and—
“No.” Bob pulled back. He was stuck between her and he crowd—still looking at him. Stop looking at him!--trapped like a rat in a cage. Like the box. Like the attic.
He pushed himself against the cool wall of the subway. His eyes cycled between the exit, Yelena, the cop, the gate, the crowd.
Yelena’s shoulder slumped at the sight of him. “Have you taken your medication, Bob?” she asked. She was clearly trying to sound comforting, but her accent put a wrench in things.
Bob shook his head. “Don’t need it.” The words flew out of his mouth, almost automatic. “I’m not sick. I’m better and I don’t need it.”
Yelena sighed. It wasn’t like when the cop had sighed, that had been the sound of someone whose time was being wasted. No, this was something else. Sympathy. “You were about to be arrested.”
Bob laughed. Well. More of a snort.
“Bob,” Yelena pressed.
“I don’t need medication,” he snapped suddenly. “I don’t need it. I don’t like it. It makes me want to throw up and my mouth all dry.” The ants were back under his skin again. He’d been still for too long.
Yelena watched him, took in every inch. The tic of his jaw, the way his hands clenched and unclenched, the wide and scared shift of his eyes. “I know the feeling,” she said. “Back when I started taking mine…made me bloat up like a balloon,” she puffed out her cheeks for emphasis. “And my face? Covered in pimples! I was like a teenage boy.”
Did she expect him to laugh? What was he supposed to say to that?
“Do you want to go back?” She asked. She jammed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the tower. “We could watch a movie.”
“No.” Bob had never been so sure of anything in his life. He couldn’t go back there.
Yelena crossed her arms. “Then what did you want to do? Spend the night in jail?”
Bob opened his mouth. Paused. Closed it again. He wanted to be outside. But he also didn’t want people looking at him. Yelena was one of them. One of the people who held his leash.
But.
But he also didn’t want to be alone.
Bob scratched at the inside of his elbow where the ants had gathered. “I want to walk," he said.
Yelena nodded. “Walk.” She echoed. “We could go back to the tower—” she held up a hand to stop him from interrupting “—get you some proper clothes,” she gestured to his pyjama pants and bare feet. “And then we can go for a walk, yes? Does that sound good?”
Bob shifted from foot to foot. He didn’t answer.
“Or,” Yelena compromised. “You could wait outside and let me get you some shoes? Then we can walk. Better?”
Bob swallowed. It wasn’t much but it was a little...just a little…
“Better.”