and the day has come where I have died

[couldbeavoided]

WHO: BOB REYNOLDS and YOU! Visitors or patients or staff.
WHERE: Norman Osborn Hospital of Psychiatric Evaluation
WHEN: Monday (21st) - Friday (25th)
WARNINGS: Not much; expected mental illness mentions.
SUMMARY: Bob has left Avengers Mansion to take a break in a hospital, cold turkey.
FORMAT: Whatever.


It had been several days, now. Bob wasn't keeping track, really, they passed all the same, quiet and lonely and peaceful. Only Samson had been given forewarning for his "leave of absence" but since Bob had come here he had felt a cool weight lifted from him. The building that had created such anxiety within him before was just a building, and now that Samson was here Bob didn't worry that this building might hurt him. He didn't have to leave his room if he didn't want; he got a bed and a bookshelf and a glass wall that outlooked the hallway, which unsettled his sense of privacy but felt better, maybe, than being boxed in completely. He read newspapers and books and did jigsaw puzzles, adjusting to what it felt like again to sleep and eat and reside in an average, nothing special body.

He was just Robert Reynolds, here. Not the Sentry; his costume was gone in favor of something baggy and white, his muscles and shoulder length hair gone with it. Just Robert. Yes; a break, maybe, was exactly what he needed to feel like himself again.

Comments

[hulkacceptcash]

"I'm glad to hear it," said Len, and he meant it.

His office was fairly small, and everything in it gave the impression of having been settled for, or cobbled together, rather than chosen specifically: a plain bookcase, shelves empty but for a stack of notebooks and a metronome; a mismatched sofa and armchair; an empty end table; and plain, hospital-white blinds over the sole window.

"I feel like I'm just out of college, with a room like this," he joked, "but it could be worse. I've seen some of the other offices." He took the armchair for himself and gestured to the sofa. "I want to talk about your memory. What you don't remember, specifically. Would that be all right?"

[couldbeavoided]

"You have plenty of time to decorate," Bob said, looking around the sparse room. He imagined soon at least the bookshelf would get filled, maybe some pictures would get put on the table or walls. He touched the metronome with one finger, not to stimulate it but just to unconsciously assure himself it was there -- it was a nice familiar touch to the office, a reminder he was here for help -- before he sat down on the sofa, hands folded together on his knees.

He nodded. "Do you mean -- do you mean here? Or in general?"

[hulkacceptcash]

"Here." Len leaned over the arm of his chair to pull a notebook off the shelf. "You said before that you've woken up flying. Could you pick the most vivid instance of that and tell me everything you remember? Even if it doesn't seem important, like the weather."

[couldbeavoided]

Bob nodded slowly, closing his eyes for a moment to remember. "It was about a year ago, I think. I was over the ocean... I'm not sure which one, and I didn't know what direction I was coming from. There was ash on my hands and it was dark."

He shook his head. "That's all I remember."

[hulkacceptcash]

Well, that wasn't making it easy. Len nodded, quiet for a second. "When you got back, did you tell anyone? Or did anyone ask where you'd been?"

[couldbeavoided]

"No, I didn't." Bob shook his head quickly. "And no one did. I don't really talk to the Avengers much about... they get worried, and it's my problem. Only mine."

Or it should be. It wasn't always that simple, but he liked to imagine it was.