Chapter Text
The sun had finally come up enough to feel warm, but it didn't help the exhaustion that clung to all of them like smoke. Every breath tasted faintly of ozone, burnt wiring, and the metallic tang of fading adrenaline. It was quiet now - eerily so - broken only by distant sirens or the soft clink of beer bottles tapping against rubble. Around them, other heroes made callouts to one another while helping with the collateral damage of the SDN building.
Three hours since Shroud went down.
Two hours since the last real bit of chaos.
One hour since the ambulance doors slammed and Invisigal disappeared behind them.
The Z-Team gathered in the wake of war.
The news teams had cleared out for the moment, having been satisfied with their footage and gone to cover other major incidents from the previous night.
Malevola lounged like a demon queen of carnage atop the broken pillar, one leg bouncing tiredly as she cleaned someone else's dried blood from under her fingernails. She tossed another wet wipe toward Prism without looking.
Punch Up and Coupé sat close - closer than any two regular teammates would sit. The history between the two was blatant, but no one dared comment on it. Coupé leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, bruised, sore... but completely alert. Her hands clung to a beer bottle like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Punch Up looked almost the same, except he couldn't stop glancing at Sonar like he expected him to spontaneously combust between sips.
Golem sat perfectly still on a slab of concrete, hands resting on his knees, like he was waiting to be mistaken for a statue. Beef had curled up by his foot as if Golem were the safest structure left in the district.
Prism, bleary-eyed and dotted with scratches, had insisted on photographing the aftermath. She'd muttered something about her followers "living for the we survived vibe," and she meant it. Flash after flash lit the air, making the others wince each time.
Tap.
Flash.
Tap.
Flash.
Tap.
After the third accidental flare into Flambae's eyes, he groaned and threw his arm over his face.
"Fucking cruel and unusual punishment," he mumbled.
Phenomaman - glowing with pride from the excitement, not his powers - took a massive, triumphant gulp of beer and looked around like he'd personally saved the city.
Waterboy sprinkled little drips of cool water at whoever looked the roughest. Every time someone hissed at the chill, he muttered a very soft, "...s'good for inflammation."
Mandy - just Mandy now - looked more like a civilian than a superhero in her hoodie and shorts. She was leaning against the wall like gravity wanted to fold her in half, but the pride she had in her eyes as she looked at everyone was undeniable.
Chase floated around, full of energy that he could properly use for the first time in ages, head tipped back, beer dangling from his fingers. He still glowed faintly from the stone lodged over his heart. "My doctor's gonna shit a brick," he muttered, then drank anyway.
Royd was crouched next to a warped tablet, typing away, muttering about corrupted data packets. But every time someone made eye contact, he gave them a raised fist and nod like, we fucking did it, brah.
Sonar...stuck close, feeling exposed every time anyone glanced at him. He nursed his beer and tried to steady his hands. He kept glancing toward where the police cruisers had been.
No cuffs.
No accusations.
Nothing. For now.
Just the team, at last.
Robert stood at the edge of the broken courtyard, beer in one hand, hair a mess, soot and blood staining his clothes. He wasn't sure if he should sit with them... or sprint down the street to the hospital.
He didn't get long to decide.
Flambae cracked open one eye, spotted him, and snorted.
"...The hell are you still doing here, Robertson?" he called, voice gravelly from smoke. "Don't you have a girlfriend to go see?...Or not see? Because she's-"
"We get it." Malevola cut him off, rolling her eyes.
Prism's flash clicked on again - directly into Robert's face as she took a photo. Then another. And another. "Documenting this shit, asap."
Coupé sighed, grabbing Prism's wrist to aim it at the ground. "Pretty sure we only needed one picture. Not... forty."
"This is why you only have four followers, bitch." Prism huffed, but didn't aim the phone at Robert again - mostly because she knew Coupé would break it if provoked.
"I have...what?" Coupé asked, learning that she even had a social media account.
Punch Up smirked and nudged Coupé’s knee with his. Then, louder:
"Aye, seriously. Lad, should ye not be runnin' after her like the lovesick puppy we all know y'are?"
Mandy lifted her beer in a half-salute toward Robert. "She kissed you in front of everyone after getting shot for you. You’re allowed to leave."
Even Sonar - quiet, oddly humbled - lifted his chin and muttered, "You should go."
The whole team looked at him now. Waiting. Smirking. Teasing. But all of it soft.
Robert stood there in the smoky morning light, surrounded by wreckage and people who finally, finally trusted him - and each other.
And someone asked again, from somewhere in the back:
"Well? What the hell are you still doing here?"
The team looked over to see Galen joining the conversation, tablet in hand, still trying to wrangle the morning into something that resembled order.
"Alright, alright, Jesus." Robert rolled his eyes, putting his hands up in surrender.
"...Why don't I walk you there?" Mandy asked, pushing off the wall.
"I could have both you fuckers there in nothing flat." Chase grinned, reminding them with pride. It was clear to everyone how much he had missed being able to do this. He couldn't sit still for a second. "Medical staff will probably pay you both to distract her ass and keep her from breaking out for five fucking minutes."
"...You're probably right about that, but it's good. You keep celebrating not being dead, I'll walk with Blaze- Mandy." Robert corrected himself. No one was used to just calling her Mandy. Not yet, anyway.
Mandy approached, hands in her pockets, trying to remember how to seem casual instead of taking a power stance every time she breathed. "Let's go."
The moment Robert stepped away from the group, a wave of lazy applause and hoots followed him.
"Tell her ya love her, ya coward!" Punch Up called after him with a lopsided grin. He had no qualms about teasing the team, especially after the night they’d all had. They could use some levity.
"Maybe... bring her something cold.. Like... from the... vending machine! If...If she'd like that..." Waterboy added, already half-laughing as he tried to join in and flung a spray of cold mist over Flambae’s singed hair. He got a glare from the other man and slinked a few steps away.
"Get laid or don't come back!" Sonar shouted from where he leaned, making an attempt to act as he normally would have.
"Maybe he will finally lose his virginity." Flambae snorted into his beer.
Golem gave a slow, gravelly chuckle like stone shifting. Phenomaman raised his drink again in an arc of foam.
Prism turned her phone to wipe the camera, accidentally flicking her flash back on and blinding herself. "Ow - goddammit - I need sleep."
While Robert walked off with Mandy, the rest of the Z-Team slowly melted back into that rare, dangerous thing they'd fought so hard to become:
Relaxed.
It was earned. Even the ruin around them couldn’t shake it. For now, they were bruised, bleeding, beer-sipping survivors. The SDN was a crater. The threat was gone. And they'd made it - together.
Beef barked once and curled back up against Golem’s foot. The sun climbed just a little higher. And the team leaned back into the wreckage like it was the comfiest couch in the world.
They'd be sore tomorrow. But for now?
They'd won.
"Alright, confession time," Prism said, finally tucking her phone away and sitting up straighter. "Who thought they were actually gonna die last night?"
"I did!" Waterboy said immediately, raising his hand. "I... uh... fully said goodbye to... my grandma... with my brain. I mean... the... telepathically."
Phenomaman blinked. "Did you speak with her through psychic means? I was not aware you had such great capabilities!"
"No, no... I just...used my my brain just... thought really... hard." He stammered out.
Coupé finally cracked a smile and let herself lean her head briefly against Punch Up's shoulder. "Told you we wouldn't die," she murmured to him.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't go all smug on me now, Coop. Knew I wouldn't die, but the rest of yas are soft." He grinned.
Malevola glanced sideways at Sonar, who hadn't said a word since Robert left. "You gonna keep skulking or say something, traitor boy?"
Sonar glanced up, raised an eyebrow, and raised his beer in her direction. "Still a better track record than Flambae."
"Bitch, I'm a legacy," Flambae shot back from his spot on the rubble. "I commit arson, not treason."
The group erupted into another wave of tired laughter.
As Mandy and Robert turned the corner past the scorched entrance to SDN and headed toward the cracked sidewalk that led up the avenue, behind them, the laughter cracked through the ruins again - someone yelling about arson, another groaning like they'd pulled something just by sitting up.
"...So. You and Visi..." Mandy said softly. They'd already spoken a bit about this earlier, but she was bringing it up now - privately after he'd processed a bit more. She looked over at him as she continued. "...You know she's not going to make it easy, right?"
Robert let out a breath through his nose - part scoff, part sigh.
"...Yeah," he said after a pause. "I know."
His voice wasn't hesitant - just quiet. Weighted.
"She never has."
For a few steps, the only sound between them was the crunch of broken glass under their shoes. Tire marks from first responders still streaked the street, paint scuffed on the curb.
Robert finally glanced at Mandy.
"But she kissed me. In front of everyone. After all that." His lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. "After the whole team found out she’d rigged my damn suit with a bomb months ago. Either she was too deep in shock to think about it, or she actually wants this."
There was something almost affectionate in the way he said it. Like he’d already accepted that this was going to be messy, chaotic, dangerous - and worth it.
"She's gonna test me and push me away. Probably threaten to break my kneecaps if I get too close."
He let out a soft laugh, finally looking ahead again.
"...But I'm not going anywhere."
He walked a little further before quietly adding, "...Don't think I ever was."
"...Good," Mandy said quietly. "That guilt of hers... it's not just leaving her alone. Not anytime soon." It was important that he understood that Visi would try to shove him and the team away again. Maybe not that day, maybe not that week... But she hadn't healed emotionally yet. There was a *lot* going on inside her.
"Obviously, I'm not a relationship expert, but... don’t wait too long to tell her how you feel. She's the kind that'll run off before you get the chance again." Mandy added. She wanted this to work. She had known Visi much longer than he had and she had gotten used to her brand of complicated."...Not just about your feelings for her, but about everything that happened... everything she did."
Robert's footsteps slowed - not stopping, but dragging for a beat as Mandy's words struck right at the part of him still buzzing with leftover fear. Not fear of villains. Of her.
Of losing her again.
"...Yeah." His voice came out rougher than he meant it to - honest. "...Yeah, I figured."
He exhaled, long and steady, rubbing the back of his neck as they passed an overturned SDN sign still smoldering at the edges.
"She'll spiral," he said quietly. "That's what she does. She gets scared, she withdraws, she convinces herself she's poison and runs."
His jaw clicked tight for a second.
"She did it after the locker room - she kissed me and then disappeared like it never happened... I could see it happening and her brain telling her she fucked it all up." He swallowed, a knot forming at the memory of the locker room - of her insisting she wasn’t worthy of forgiveness or love or anything kind.
He looked at Mandy fully now. She knew Visi better than anyone left standing. She'd watched Visi's freefall, the self-sabotage, the guilt, the fear of trusting anyone - especially after everything she'd confessed.
Mandy let him say all of it without interrupting. He wasn't just telling her all that, he was telling himself it too.
"I'm not gonna lie to her," he said. "Not about how I feel, not about what she did, not about what Shroud made her do. I'm not pretending any of it didn't happen."
A beat.
"...But I'm not letting her run from me either."
The hospital's front entrance came into view down the street, a blur of lights and exhausted nurses moving past the glass doors.
Robert shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, as if grounding himself before he faced whatever version of Visi he was about to walk into.
"...I'm coming in with you, by the way." She told him when the hospital came into view. "...I doubted her. Everyone did. She deserves to know that we really are all back in her corner, not just the guy she's... kissing."
Robert gave a quiet nod. "...She'll like that. Even if she pretends not to."
The sliding glass doors opened with a harsh whirr, spilling overlit chaos into their faces. The hospital lobby was a warzone in its own right - doctors barking orders, stretchers weaving through security tape, nurses juggling clipboards, IV bags, and half a dozen trauma codes at once. The air smelled like antiseptic and desperation.
Robert instinctively stepped closer to Mandy as someone rushed past with an unconscious man covered in ash. His grip on his SDN ID badge tightened in his pocket.
They looked like they didn't belong here. No masks, no blatant injuries, no fire coming off their hands or energy radiating from their chests. Just a hoodie and a half-buttoned SDN shirt.
A nurse near the desk was mid-yell into a phone. Another had a tablet clutched so tight her knuckles were white.
Robert stepped forward, showed the badge, and calmly said:
"Dispatch Network. We're here for Invisigal... Or she might be listed as Courtney. She came in about an hour and a half ago. Shot in the shoulder, transferred in with an ambulance."
The nurse - frazzled, sweating, and clearly ready to snap - looked like she might argue. But then her eyes caught something in Robert’s expression. Something immovable.
"...Room 308," she finally said, almost on autopilot. "West Wing. You'll have to pass triage, then second hall to the left - third floor."
Robert nodded once. "Thanks."
Mandy was already moving.
The further they got from the entrance, the quieter it became—chaos giving way to cool tile and humming lights. Machines beeped in gentle rhythm. A gurney creaked in the distance.
At the edge of the hallway leading to 308, Robert finally paused. It wasn't fear. It was something else - like he was trying to slow down enough not to explode the second he saw her.
"...She's probably awake."
He glanced at Mandy.
"...She's probably gonna say something sarcastic. Maybe yell. Definitely swear."
And then, finally -
"...But she's alive."
That was what mattered. He wasn't sure anything else had sunk in yet.
He reached for the door.
Paused.
"...You ready?" he asked Mandy, voice low.
Mandy nodded. Inside, Invisigal - Courtney - had the TV of the room set to the Lifetime network. It was on a commercial break. Her eyes were half open, her shoulder wrapped, exhaustion clinging to her like a second blanket.
Her gaze sharpened when she saw who came in.
"...Coming to tell me I'm so fucking fired?" she joked with a grin, voice dry and tired but alive.