what kind of heart doesn't look back,
by wickedsong.
The moral of the story is this kids: don't let me listen to Breathe Again by Sara Bareilles while thinking about how it applies to Huntingbird. Just. Don't.
Bobbi thinks that she's almost like a ghost, floating from room to room, taking in every part of the place they've called theirs for years. The uneven bathroom tiles, the small crack in the hallway mirror. Even the tap on the kitchen sink that you have to twist and twist until you feel as if your wrist is about to fall off.
The kind of things that made a soulless house a home.
Eventually she finds herself in the bedroom, trying to feel a sense of peace for even a brief moment. In here half the room has ripped wallpaper, the other a bad paint job they never got the time to fix. She thinks it's perfect.
Well, it had. Now all those imperfections are clear as day. The walls are bare, where a week ago they weren't. The covers have been stripped off the bed and there's nothing on the dresser. She suddenly feels the emptiness at the finality of it all.
She lightly draws her fingers over the surface of the dresser, remembering when it was cluttered with junk from both of them – and God, I married a slob. She'd just tell Lance that she obviously married an idiot, and then he'd laugh and she'd fall back into their bed, laughing beside him.
She feels the lump growing in her throat and it's stupid. No use crying over spilled milk, no use crying over things you can't change.
After all, it's only a dresser.
She wonders if Lance is finished tidying up in the living room, and if it feels as cold as this room does. It used to be filled with so much love. The pictures had proven that, hadn't they? The sleepless nights and the lazy mornings had too. When the sun would peek in through the windows and he'd wake her with a kiss against her shoulder.
She closes her eyes because she can't get lost in the memories of what they had again.
When she eventually goes to check on him she finds him standing in the middle of the bags they'd packed, apparently looking for something. She leans against the door frame, enjoying the flustered look on his face for as long as she possibly can. He's always been cute when he's confused and it's the face she fell in love with – the face she's still in love with.
Eventually he must realise she's just standing there because he looks up, sends a weak smile her way, and she knows it's almost time.
It had been a quiet divorce. She hadn't expected that.
Maybe the first sign was the little things. They didn't see each other as much as they used to. Her job was taking her here, there and the next place every other day. He had no idea where his next one was going to come from.
They had danced around it but time after time he refused to come to SHIELD and to cross over into her world. She understood why, but it still didn't change that more often than not they were on opposite sides of the world.
So one day they had exploded, their words had flown like knives, and the illusion that everything would be fine, that they'd get through it, that they had managed before - the lies they told each other ten times a day - shattered before them.
"I was just looking for the uh-" Bobbi raises her eyebrows, but Lance never finds the end of his sentence. Instead he looks down at his feet and shrugs. "Never mind, I think I have everything."
Their conversations are now simply one word sentences and she hates it. It's so different from the playful bickering she had always loved, and in that moment, she almost wishes they'd even go back to the shouting – just because it fills the silence. Because at least when she was ranting and raving at him, she didn't feel like something inside her was breaking.
Uncomfortably she goes to twist the ring on her finger – and then remembers it isn't there anymore. A habit she'll have to grow out of, and one she now hates for ever getting into in the first place.
He notices - of course he notices - and grabs his jacket, keys lying on top of it. He's carrying bags, with another one slung over his shoulder. "I said to Mack I'd be back soon so-"
"Of course, yeah." Bobbi nods. She moves aside. There's no use in drawing this out any more than they already have. They'd put off clearing out the apartment for weeks since they had signed the papers.
There was no going back now. Maybe it's finally time.
She ignores how wrong it all feels.
She's already moved to an apartment near a SHIELD base. She'll be out on a mission in the morning like nothing's changed.
She had been asked, over and over, if she had needed time. She had scoffed at the suggestion. There was no use in wallowing in pity – in wondering what could've been if they could have salvaged the fragments of their marriage in time.
Lance steps forward and passes by her without a sound.
She almost goes to dig the knife in again – she just wants him to say something. There's now some sort of change in the air and it's real and it's happening and she'll probably never have to see him again.
A few months ago she would have said good riddance.
The door opens and she turns around. Looks back as if it's going to change a damn thing.
"Don't die out there, alright?"
He stops. He goes to turn around, and she can see his lips curve ever so slightly into a smile. He shakes his head and she wonders if he really did almost laugh or if she imagined it.
But his expression is completely sober when he's meets her eyes, with that intensity in his own that always seemed so out of place, except when it came to her.
"If you ever need me, Bob, you know I'm there."
She knows he means it more than anything.
"Back at you," she tells him, with a nod.
He doesn't smile, but he nods back at her.
The door gives a resounding click, so different from when she had slammed it behind him and told him to get out and never come back. That had been the night everything had fallen apart.
She thinks it's different now somehow.
She blinks back tears, smiling, as she takes her own stuff, thinking of the day they'd moved in. The day they'd decided to start a life together.
It feels like a lifetime ago now but she knows she wouldn't trade those memories for anything.
They're a part of her - like they're a part of him - and if she thinks of that, maybe, just maybe, it doesn't hurt quite so much to turn the light off, lift up her bags, and close the door.