He opens his eyes when he hears a soft grunt coming from beside him. It's her, and she's just emerged from a painkiller-induced nap, and her eyes are filled with perplexity and bewilderment. He leans in towards her, and her hand – safely in his firm grasp – tightens around his.

"Bob," he greets softly. She's still a little out of it, so he's doing his best not to push her into responding. "It's alright, Bob, I'm here."

He can see the slight motions of her head, and it doesn't take him long to realize that she was shaking her head. "What's wrong? Do you need Simmons?"

Her lips part just a little. "Nightmare," she breathes.

He frowns and presses his lip against her forehead, as gently as possible. "You're okay now, love. There's no need to be scared. I'm here; you can dream of me instead." He lets a cheeky grin ghost over his lips.

"You," she looks into his eyes, "were having one."

His expression falters and he leans back away from her. Almost instinctively, he felt her hand tighten around his again. "Hunter," she tries again.

He forces a smile at her. "I'm fine, Bob." When she doesn't look convinced (she rarely does, by him), he nods a few times. "Really."

/

Truth be told, it wasn't the first time she caught him having a nightmare. The first time was a few days ago, when he insisted on staying by her bedside (he'd been rooted to that chair ever since the very first day, Simmons once told Bobbi), and she woke up to find his head resting on one arm, but with eyes shifting from left to right (she could see the unrest beneath his eyelids), and with slight movements of his lips.

It took her a bit of concentration, but she could hear his frantic whispers, commanding whoever it was to get away from her. She was lying in a bed in a makeshift hospital ward at the base, so clearly whatever it was that was happening in his head, it was about that little kidnapping incident she had gotten herself into a while ago.

Simmons entered the ward at that very moment, busy with her tablet. Bobbi called out for her, praying quietly that the busy scientist would hear her. She did, and came approaching close. Bobbi jabs her head slightly in Hunter's direction, and Simmons finally notices the nightmare-experiencing man. There is a fleeting look of pity that manifests on Simmons' face, and she manages to get rid of it before waking Hunter up from his very restless sleep.

Hunter flinches, opens his eyes, and sees the two ladies looking at him with worried gazes. He brushes it off with a small grin and starts asking Bobbi if she felt alright.

That was the first time he realized that he was letting it show.

Letting his fears and troubles out into the open. He was never like this.

And if Bobbi could help it, she would've gotten up and pulled him into her arms, wrapping them tight around him while assuring him that she was fine.

/

He splashes water on his face and lets the cooling effect take over. He needed this to clear his mind, except it didn't really help. It made him more awake, sure, but now he was even more aware, too.

He doesn't move for a while, lets his eyes wander around the space in front of him. Bobbi needs him. Bobbi just came out of a harrowing ordeal. Bobbi was the one lying in a bed in a makeshift hospital ward. Bobbi is suffering, still on her way to recuperating completely.

And he was the one with the nightmares, crumbling under the pressure?

He so desperately wanted to give himself a beating. He didn't think he had the right to be there for her if he was going to be the weak one in all of this.

He swallows down the lump in his throat and steels himself up, then turns to leave the restroom – only to find Fitz standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with folded arms. To Fitz's credit, though, he was the first person who didn't look at Hunter with that worried expression and the anxious eyes. Hunter hated it when everybody looked at him with that face, when they should be looking at Bobbi with that face instead—

"It's perfectly fine, you know," Fitz says, not even flinching when Hunter's eyes shoot towards him.

"What is?" Hunter has half the mind to push past Fitz to leave, but he couldn't do that to a friend.

Fitz raises a hand and gesticulates slightly at him. "The nightmares," he whispers. "Jemma told me."

Hunter licks his lips and looks away. "I'm fine, Fitz."

When it seems like Hunter was about to flee the conversation, Fitz moves to block him from the door. "You're trying to be."

"Everybody's trying," Hunter responds.

"Exactly. But for you," he shifts closer to his friend, "you won't be, not until you—"

"—stop having these nightmares? Stop being the weak one in this entire equation? Stop being the one that Bobbi can't lean on when she needs to lean on someone the most right now?"

Both of them fall silent for a while. The tensions were high and so were the stakes. Hunter using his raised voice couldn't mean well.

The first one to speak up again is, surprisingly, Fitz. And Hunter listens.

"Not until you accept that it's okay to hurt."

Fitz puts a hand on Hunter's shoulder. "You watched her get shot in front of you, Hunter." He leans closer to him. "I know what you're doing, but pretending to be strong doesn't make you strong. There's going to be a moment of weakness before you find that strength."

He feels something loosen and snap within his system when Fitz squeezes his shoulder. Then there's a sob.

"Bobbi got hurt," Hunter chokes out, "because of me."

/

When Bobbi wakes up again, Hunter is looking at her with clear eyes, and her hand is enclosed tightly in both of his.

He holds her hand up to his lips and presses it against them gently.

"I've been having nightmares," he admits softly.

She smiles at him before pulling him down slowly for a kiss.

"I know," she whispers.

Hunter has been through more than enough to know that fears were overrated. Sometimes you just had to forgo the cognitive process and just jump right in. Fear what? Fear not, or you'll never get the job done.

But watching her throw herself, chains and chair and all, in the line of fire, and watching that bullet pierce through her skin and burst out dangerously close to where he used to put his ear to listen to her heartbeat, he felt the fear in its rawest form.

And now every time he closes his eyes, he sees it happen again. And again. And again, and again, and he doesn't know if it'll ever stop.

But if he opens his eyes and sees her face first thing enough times, he thinks he'll get better.

After all, he's not scared of death, but he sure is scared of losing her.