TW for mentions of abuse/ableism, swearing
Bobbi honestly couldn't say how exactly they all managed to get in the car and go home. Everything was fuzzy and undefined – too slow and too fast all at the same time – and she had no real recollection of the drive home or the journey from the car to the living room, where they all now sat in stiff silence.
"Is your knee okay?" May asked finally. "You didn't hurt it in the fight, did you?"
Bobbi shook her head. "No. I know how to take a fall so you don't get hurt. And I wasn't really even in the fight." Her voice sounded flat to her ears, stilted and robotic in the way that always made her dad angry. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw momentarily to force the shouts of talk like a normal person, dammit to stop rattling around in her head.
"Do you think you could tell us what exactly happened with the fight? Why were you all fighting in the first place?" That was Phil. She still had her eyes closed, so she couldn't see his face, but his voice sounded tired and sad and serious. It was the kind of voice that had worry lines and greying hair and dark circles under its eyes.
The muscles in her hands jumped, and she clenched her fists to keep them still. She wanted to go to her room. She wanted to lock the door against the world. She wanted to pull her batons out from under her pillow and just twirl and twirl until nothing else felt real anymore besides the rough wood spinning in her hands.
"Bobbi? Are you all right? What's wrong?" It was back to May now. Bobbi tried to swallow down the bitter taste that was rising in her mouth, but the feelings that she'd choked down at the soccer game were bubbling back. Shaky limbs. Sharp chest. Cotton stuffing filling up the space where her brain should be.
"She was like this earlier tonight, too," said Skye quietly. Bobbi's eyes snapped open and locked onto Skye, seeing her but not seeing anything at the same time. The younger girl looked embarrassed at having to admit to witnessing Bobbi's earlier episode, but there was something more powerful than embarrassment lurking in her eyes, too: fear. "Right after Hunter got mad and walked off. I didn't know how to help…" Skye trailed off. She shot Bobbi an apologetic grimace, like she wasn't sure if she should have told, but Bobbi barely registered it.
"We should get her batons," came Jemma's soft suggestion. Something in Bobbi's shoulders unlatched and she felt herself sag somewhat. Her batons would make everything feel just a little bit better.
"Her what?" May and Phil both looked confused, but Jemma was already halfway up the stairs.
"Batons," Skye explained, after it was clear that Bobbi wasn't going to, or couldn't, say anything. "For thinking. And maybe talking, too, I don't really know how they work."
Jemma reappeared then, batons in hand. She held them out tentatively, and Bobbi took them with trembling gratitude. She squeezed the wood tightly, letting the solidness of them tether her to the world. She ran her fingers over the grooves in the wood, one thumb finding the rough patch she had missed with the sandpaper all those years ago in shop class. The scratchiness against her skin reminded her that her senses were still working, that she could still feel something that wasn't fear or numbness. She gave them one twirl, then two, then another and another, until she was spinning them quickly, pumping them round and round to a steady beat. Her thundering heart began to slow until, eventually, it settled into the same rhythm as the batons. She felt some of the film lift off of her eyes.
"What are those?" Phil asked with gentle curiosity.
"Batons," Bobbi said slowly. Talking felt like waiting for molasses to drip out of her mouth, but at least the words didn't snare in her throat anymore. The robot sound was softening, too, she could tell. "Made them a few years ago. They… help. When things get out of control."
"Did that happen tonight?" wondered May. Bobbi nodded. She blushed somewhat, and stared down at her feet.
"Hunter got mad when he found out I had been lying to him. I didn't want him to find out that way. I didn't want to upset him. And then Ward came over, and he was mad about the jerseys. They started fighting before I could wrap my head around what was happening, and… I couldn't make it stop."
"The fighting?"
"I guess. That, and the shouting. I kept hearing him shouting."
"Who, Christian?" Phil seemed a little lost, but his face was soft and open. He wanted to understand her.
"No," Bobbi shook her head. "I mean, yes, Ward was shouting, and so were other people, I think. I don't really remember. But I couldn't really hear them. I just kept hearing…" She faltered. She had never told anyone that she heard her father's voice ringing in her head even when he wasn't around. That was the kind of thing that made people think you were crazy. Her breath snagged in her throat, coming out in a wavery shudder, and the corners of her eyes felt hot.
"You don't have to tell us," May said quietly. "It's okay."
Bobbi shut her eyes tightly and inhaled sharply through her nose. No. She had to pull it together. She had to show them that she was strong enough to keep around. She had to prove that they didn't need to worry about her. She had already scared Skye once tonight, she didn't want to make anyone else fuss over her.
"It's fine," she said brusquely, opening her eyes and forcing herself to look right at May and Phil, even though it made her neck feel tight. Look me in the eye, act normal for Chrissake. Even now, she couldn't get him out of her mind. "It's nothing." Even now, she was still lying for her father.
"Are you sure?" May's eyes narrowed, and Bobbi squirmed slightly. She had to look away from the suspicious face. The old familiar gnawing that came to the pit of her stomach anytime she had to obfuscate the truth had returned. Bobbi hated that feeling. She hated the pressure of hiding things, she hated how horrible everything turned when the truth came out the wrong way, like it had tonight. She remembered how good it had felt to tell Detective Hartley the truth, to tell Natasha, to tell Phil. She took a deep breath.
"I lied. I'm sorry. It… it's not nothing. It's just hard to talk about."
"That's okay," May reassured her. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But," she continued, "if you'd like to try, we're happy to listen."
Bobbi took another breath, squeezed her batons. This was the right thing to do.
"I hear him," she said. Her voice was low and skittish, but she knew she had to keep talking. "My dad. I hear his voice. Not all the time, but sometimes. When I'm nervous, or when things get stressful. I hear him shouting at me like he used to. I can see him sometimes, too. Not like he's standing in front of me, but more like, I remember. And the memories feel real, like they're still happening. And I… I get scared, even though if I think about it, I know they're not real. I know it's stupid, but that's what happened tonight."
"It's not stupid," May murmured. Softly. Sadly. "Just because it's not happening right in front of you doesn't make it not real. The memories are real. The feelings are real. There's nothing stupid about that."
"You can't help remembering," Jemma added. "Memory encoding can happen involuntarily, and certain stressful stimuli can trigger the hippocampus into memory retrieval, whether it's intentional or not." She paused, and her cheeks pinked slightly. "I remember bad things, too, sometimes."
"I wish I could have helped you more," lamented Skye. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do."
"You helped," Bobbi said quickly. "Just being there helped. You don't need to apologize. I should apologize for freaking you out. I shouldn't have let it get that bad in front of you."
"Does it get bad like that a lot?" Skye asked. Bobbi hesitated for a minute, then shrugged.
"I don't know. It depends, I guess. Usually I can just wait it out and keep it locked down enough that people don't really notice."
"You know, Bobbi," Phil began tentatively, "there are people who can help with things like that. People who's job it is to help you process some of the really horrible things you've gone through and help you come up with ways to feel more in control. You don't have to hear his voice all the time. You deserve to live a life without ever hearing him again, if that's what you want."
"You mean like a shrink?" Bobbi frowned. She thought they had understood, but maybe they did think she was crazy. Her father had thought there was something wrong with her, and now Phil and May did, too. "I'm not crazy. I don't need some doctor looking at my head like that."
"I know you're not," Phil promised. "That's not what I meant. I just thought, if you were interested, you could talk to somebody about the things that make you feel stressed or frightened or out of control. That person could help you work through those feelings and give you some strategies for tackling them. It's not about examining you or judging you. It's about helping you."
"I don't need help," Bobbi said abruptly, reflexively. It was the same old line she'd told to countless teachers, coaches, concerned parents. Everything was fine. Dad was just busy. We don't need help, thank you, though.
"Everybody needs help sometimes," Phil pointed out. "There's nothing wrong with asking for it. That's how you let people know what you need, instead of forcing them to guess what might be best for you."
"We're not designed to do everything all by ourselves all the time," May said. "I know it's not an easy thing to remember, trust me. But I've tried going it alone, and I can promise you that so many things are so much better when you have another person to lean on."
"I just don't think I need that kind of help," Bobbi said stoutly. "It's not really that big of a deal. I can take care of it. I've been doing it for a long time."
"We just don't want to see you hurting, Bobbi," said Phil. "You go to the doctor to help heal the pain in your knee. If you wanted, you could work with someone to help heal the pain in your heart."
"It's not the same."
Phil and May both looked like they were trying to come up with something to respond with, but neither one seemed to land on anything to say. Bobbi was about to stand up and retreat to her room when Skye spoke up suddenly and said something that surprised them all:
"I'll go if you go."
"What?" Bobbi felt her eyebrows inch together as she tried to understand what Skye was saying.
"I'll go see one of those doctors if you go, too. May and Phil have been trying to get me to go, and then the school said I should see one to get help with my tests and stuff. I don't really want to, but I'll go if you go."
"Why would you do that?"
Skye shrugged, toed at the ground. "I'd never seen you get like how you were tonight. I know you don't scare easily, but I guess thinking about your dad is different. I don't want you to have to be scared anymore."
"Oh," Bobbi said, a little stunned. "I… thanks, Skye. That's a really nice thing for you to do."
"It's no big deal."
"It's a very big deal," May corrected gently. She smiled. "You've both just talked about doing something very brave. Phil and I are incredibly proud of you." Phil nodded emphatically beside her. Naturally, he too wore a broad smile.
"I think we all just took a big step forward tonight," he grinned.
"A step in the right direction?" Jemma piped.
Phil nodded again. "A step in the right direction indeed."
Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading! Hope you liked these chapters okay - I know they were kind of intense. The next few after these will be a little calmer :)