Chapter Text
TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO
The first thing Robert Robertson III always remembered about that night was the sound.
Not the cheering crowds or the news choppers circling downtown, not the kaiju roar still echoing somewhere in his bones. It was the noise of the Brave Barracks’ garage as the Mecha Man suit came home: the deep hydraulic whump of the bay doors sealing, the hiss of venting steam, the clatter of metal-on-metal as the dock clamped the frame into place.
He stood just behind the yellow safety line, toes nudging it, helmet under his arm—the plastic bike helmet Chase had bought him because “you are not riding around here without gear, I don’t care who your daddy is.”
The suit was enormous up close. Out on TV, it was a silhouette against explosions. In the garage, it was a skyscraper squatting in the middle of a concrete room, paint scuffed, scorch marks still smoking where the kaiju’s acid breath had hit the chest plate. The Brave Brigade logo—stylized B made of two wings—gleamed on one shoulder.
Robbie Robertson—Mecha Man II, Astral to his team, “Dad” to exactly one person—popped the chest hatch.
“Docking complete,” the AI intoned in a pleasant, neutral voice. “Kaiju threat neutralized. Returning to standby.”
Steam rolled out as the front of the suit unfolded. A figure climbed down the rungs inside, grunting as he went, armor plates scraping metal.
Robert bounced on his toes, heart hammering. He wasn’t supposed to be in here without Chase or Brandt or someone with a badge. But he’d heard the sirens an hour ago, seen the kaiju on TV—huge and ugly and tearing up Harbor Boulevard—and then the blue comet that was Mecha Man dropping into frame. There had been no way he was going to bed after that. He’d called Chase and had him run him over to the Barracks right away.
Robbie’s helmet came off first, dark hair plastered to his forehead. He was still in the undersuit, half armor, half sweat.
He spotted Robert in approximately half a second.
“Hey,” Robbie said, pausing on the last rung. “What’d we say about the safety line, kiddo?”
“That I’m not supposed to pass it,” Robert recited, hands clasped behind his back.
“And where are your toes right now?”
Robert looked down. His toes were absolutely on the line.
“Not passing it,” he said.
Robbie snorted. “Get over here, kiddo.”
Robert darted forward, arms outstretched for a hug. Robbie dropped the last couple of feet and landed with a thud that made the concrete shiver. Up close, he looked tired in a way the TV never showed—eyes shadowed, smile a little saggy at the edges.
Then his smile disappeared altogether.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Robbie crouched down, big hands gentle as he took Robert’s chin, turning his face toward the overhead light. “What happened?”
Robert’s left eye was an ugly purple, swollen at the edge. He’d forgotten, for a minute. It had been less than six hours and felt like a different lifetime.
“Nothing,” he said automatically, as he put his hands down. It was clear his hug was going to have to wait. “It’s fine.”
“Bobby.” The way his dad said his name left zero room for lying. “You walk in here looking like you lost a fight with a cinderblock, it’s not ‘nothing.’”
Robert shifted, heat prickling under his skin. “It wasn’t a fight. Not really.”
“One punch can be a fight,” Robbie said. “Start talking.”
Robert chewed his lip, then muttered, “It was at school.”
“Of course,” Robbie said. “What’d this kid look like? Where does he live? Do I need to go have a very stern conversation while wearing the suit?”
“Daaaad,” Robert groaned, but there was a little laugh under it. “You can’t Mecha-punch a fifth grader.”
“Technically, I can punch anything the hydraulics will support,” Robbie said. “But sure, let’s call that plan B. Why’d he hit you?”
Robert hesitated. This was the part that felt weird to say out loud, like maybe he’d misread the whole thing.
“He was picking on Jesse,” he said. “The kid in Ms. Carlsbad’s class. The one with the, um…” He mimed a limp he knew he shouldn’t mime. “He was knocking Jesse’s crutch away. Making fun of him. Calling him ‘Tripod’ and stuff.”
Robbie’s jaw tightened. “Okay,” he said. “And you…?”
“I told him to stop,” Robert said, cheeks hot. “I said if he wanted to hit somebody so bad he could try hitting me. So he did.” He shrugged. “End of story.”
“Did he stop bothering Jesse?” Robbie asked.
“Yeah,” Robert said. “He, uh. He called me some names I am not allowed to repeat in front of you, and then Mrs. Kinsey showed up and dragged him to the office.”
Robbie’s mouth quirked. “You can write the names down later.”
Robert’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“No,” Robbie said. “But I admire the hustle.”
He thumbed gently under the bruise, inspecting it from different angles. His brow furrowed in that way that meant he was upset but trying not to freak out.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“A little,” Robert said. “I put ice on it. Chase helped when I got home. He said I looked ‘ridiculously hardcore.’”
“Sounds like him,” Robbie murmured.
He sat back on his heels, hands braced on his thighs, and really looked at his son. At the small shoulders, the scuffed sneakers, the stubborn little lift of his chin.
“You know I don’t like seeing you hurt,” he said.
“I know,” Robert said, heart starting to sink. “I’m sorry I—”
“Hey.” Robbie reached out, tapped the center of his forehead with two fingers. “I didn’t say you did anything wrong.”
Robert blinked. “You’re… not mad?”
“Oh, I’m mad,” Robbie said. “I’m furious. At that kid. At the parents who taught him it’s okay to pick on someone who can’t hit back. At a school system that still can’t get its act together on basic anti-bullying policy…”
He trailed off, shook his head.
“But at you?” he said. “No, Bobby. I’m not mad at you.”
Robert let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Even though I… kinda started it?”
Robbie smiled, small but real. “Heroes don’t start fights. They finish them.’”
He rested his forearms on his knees, bringing himself down to eye level.
“You saw someone who couldn’t protect himself,” he said. “You put yourself between him and the guy throwing punches. That’s the core of the job.”
“You mean, like, the hero job?” Robert asked.
“I mean being a decent human,” Robbie said. “The hero job is just… that, with better branding.”
Robert huffed a little laugh.
Robbie sobered.
“Being a hero isn’t about flying or punching or looking good on a poster,” he said. “It’s about who you choose to stand in front of, and who you choose to stand up to.”
He tapped Robert’s bruised cheek, just once, feather-light.
“Some people,” he went on, “are going to choose to be villains. Bullies, crooks, giant lizard monsters, guys in fancy armor who think they’re above the law. We don’t get to control that.”
Robert nodded. He’d heard this in pieces, here and there, when he’d snuck around corners at Brigade briefings. It felt different, hearing it just for him.
From his dad. A real life superhero.
“What we do get to control,” Robbie said, “is whether we’re the ones who stand there and say, ‘No. Not today. Not this kid. Not this city.’”
He leaned back, looking at his son like he was seeing the future and a scraped-up ten-year-old at the same time.
“Heroes hold the line,” he said. “On themselves first, then on everybody else. That means we don’t get to throw the first punch. We don’t get to hit harder than we have to. We don’t get to turn into the thing we’re supposed to be stopping. But when somebody crosses that line? When they go after people who can’t fight back? That’s when we plant our feet, and we don’t move.”
Robert’s chest felt too tight and too big all at once.
“So… I did the right thing?” he asked, small.
“You did the right thing,” Robbie said. “You got hurt because you did the right thing, and I hate that. I wish you lived in a world where that didn’t happen. But I’m proud of you.”
Robert’s throat did something embarrassing. He ducked his head so his dad wouldn’t see.
“Jesse said I was stupid,” he muttered. “For taking the punch.”
“Jesse’s allowed to think that,” Robbie said. “He didn’t ask you to get hit for him. That’s another part of the job: knowing some people aren’t going to like the way you help them. Doesn’t mean they didn’t need it.”
He reached out and tugged lightly on the strap of Robert’s plastic helmet.
“And hey,” he added, “I didn’t start with a suit either, you know.”
“You punched a kaiju in the face with your bare hands?” Robert asked, eyes huge.
“Okay, not kaiju,” Robbie said. “Small-time stuff. Bank robbers. Radioactive weirdos. Guys named ‘Dr. Fission.’ But the principle stands.”
“One day I’m gonna have a suit,” Robert said, the words out before he could think better of them. “A real one. Not just a bike helmet.”
Robbie’s expression did something complicated—pride and fear and something like regret, all tangled up.
“One day,” he said softly, “I bet you will.”
He clapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself up with a groan.
“Speaking of the job,” he said, “I gotta go talk to Brandt before he has a coronary.”
“About the kaiju?” Robert asked.
“About the fact that a certain giant lizard decided to use a downtown parking structure as a back-scratcher,” Robbie said. “Apparently ‘property damage in the line of punching a monster in the throat’ still generates paperwork.”
Robert grinned. “You knocked it into the ocean. Everyone cheered. They should name the new parking lot after you.”
“Oh, they’ll name it after me,” Robbie said. “The ‘Robert Robertson II Memorial Lawsuit.’”
He reached for a towel, scrubbing off the built-up sweat from hours on hours in a gigantic metal suit of armor.
“Anyway,” he added, “I called Chase. He’s coming over to hang with you while I get yelled at by Legal.”
Robert perked up. “Chase is coming here?”
“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Track Star, world’s fastest babysitter. Don’t tell him I called him that.”
“He hates being called that,” Robert said, delighted.
“Exactly,” Robbie said. “Use your powers for mischief, son. Carefully.”
He checked his watch. “He should be here in, like…” He trailed off, tilting his head toward the ceiling.
Somewhere above them, there was a whoosh and a distant, “SORRY, BRANDT!” followed by an alarmed shout from the lobby.
“…now,” Robbie finished, sighing. “Okay, revise ‘carefully.’ Use your powers for limited mischief.”
Robert laughed, the ache in his eye fading under the warm fizz of it.
Robbie crouched one more time, pressed a quick, careful kiss to the unbruised side of his forehead.
“Remember what we talked about,” he said. “Holding the line. Protecting the ones who can’t. And if a kid hits you again—”
“Hit him back?” Robert guessed.
“Tell a teacher,” Robbie said. “Then if the teacher doesn’t do anything, then we’ll discuss strategy.”
Robert giggled. “Okay.”
Robbie straightened, already shifting back into hero mode, shoulders squaring, the weight of the world creeping back in.
“Love you, kiddo,” he said, heading for the garage door that led deeper into the Barracks.
“Love you too, Dad,” Robert said.
He watched his father go—out of the armor, yet somehow still enormous—then looked back up at the Mecha suit, standing silent and hulking in its dock.
Ten-year-old Robert squared his shoulders, bruised eye throbbing, heart full.
Heroes held the line, he thought.
One day, he told himself, he’d stand there too.
TWENTY YEARS LATER / TWO YEARS AGO
The first knock was too soft for Robert to hear over the TV.
The second one he felt more than heard—an impatient little vibration in the thin wall by the door, a rattle in the picture frame that was crooked and had been for days.
“Rob? You alive in there?”
He didn’t answer. The whiskey in his glass was almost gone. The ice had melted a long time ago.
It took maybe three seconds for the deadbolt to jiggle, click, and roll. The door didn’t even open all the way; it just blurred, then Chase was suddenly inside, chest heaving like he’d run up a flight of stairs he didn’t need to.
He was still getting used to stopping. It had been a while since he’d gotten to use his superspeed this freely.
“Okay,” Chase said, pushing the door shut behind him. “So, privacy is dead, but you left your security app logged in, so that’s kind of on you.”
He was wearing a hoodie over the costume that came with the superpowered necklace that Blazer had given him, which was glowing faintly at his throat, light pulsing in time with his heartbeat. The usual joking glint was in his eyes for exactly half a second—right until he actually looked at Robert.
The apartment was dark except for the TV’s pale flicker. Some nature documentary played on mute, penguins stumbling across ice they couldn’t hear. The coffee table was a clutter of takeout containers, an empty pizza box folded like a shield, a bottle of whiskey bleeding amber in the glow.
Robert was on the couch in sweats and a half-open SDN button-up he hadn’t bothered to change out of in days, bare feet on the rug, a glass loose in his hand. There was stubble where there was usually a careful shave. His eyes were red in that way that was part crying, part not sleeping, part liquor.
Chase didn’t make a joke.
He was across the room in a second, but this time the blur was just a blink, not a bit. He stopped himself before he overshot, dropped to normal speed like peeling off a costume.
“Hey,” he said, soft. “You missed practice with the Z-Team. Flambae almost turned Golem into fucking ceramic. Dumbass.”
Robert blinked at the screen like he was just realizing there was someone talking who wasn’t a penguin. He turned his head slowly.
“Didn’t feel like running drills,” he muttered. His voice was rough. “You’re fast enough for both of us.”
Chase’s gaze skimmed the coffee table, took in the bottle—half gone—and the second, empty one on the floor half under the couch.
“Yeah,” he said lightly. “But doesn’t take much to be faster than you. With this sorry as shit state that you’re in now.”
He dropped onto the couch beside him, leaving a respectful foot of space. The cushions dipped. Up close the room smelled like stale alcohol, sweat, and the ghost of something fried.
A few months ago, Chase would’ve led with a roast. Damn, Rob, when did your place start smelling like a frat house graveyard? Something to make him roll his eyes and maybe shower.
Tonight he just rested his elbows on his knees and let the silence sit for a second.
“How long’s it been since you left this couch?” he asked.
“I’ve left,” Robert said.
“Uh-huh. For…?”
“The bathroom.”
“Robert.”
Robert took a slow sip instead of answering, eyes back on the TV. A penguin slipped, and faceplanted. It would’ve been funny to Robert on any night before this one. Chase laughed anyway, before catching himself.
Chase watched Robert, jaw working.
“You know Mandy’s worried, right?” he said. “She pretended she wasn’t, but she said ‘Where’s Robert’ in that way she only does when she’s already checked three city traffic cameras and tracked your phone.”
“She’s got enough to worry about,” Robert said. “She doesn’t need to add my… whatever this is.”
“Cool, I’ll tell her that word-for-word,” Chase said. “‘Hey, Mandy, Rob says he’s fine marinating in cheap whiskey while the rest of us do damage control.’”
Robert flinched, just a little. Then he exhaled, sagging.
“She killed him,” he said.
Chase didn’t ask who. The phantom of Shroud’s mask hung in the room like a bad picture.
“She killed him,” Robert repeated. “She slit his throat. To save me. And then she walked away.”
His fingers tightened around the glass.
“I know,” Chase said softly. “I was there, remember?”
“Yeah, well, I can’t stop replaying it,” Robert snapped, the first heat in his voice all night. “Every angle. Every call. Every second I could’ve… I don’t know, said something different, done something different, been a different person, and maybe she doesn’t end up on that rooftop, maybe she doesn’t—”
He cut himself off, jaw locked.
Chase waited a beat, then asked, “And the whiskey helps?”
Robert let out a humorless laugh. “It turns the volume down.”
“On her?” Chase asked.
“On me.”
That landed between them. The TV cut to footage of a glacier calving, a chunk of ice falling in slow motion that they couldn’t hear.
Chase leaned back, pressed his shoulders into the couch, stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds. When he looked back down, his expression was stripped of everything but tired concern.
“Look,” he said, “I know I’m usually the comic relief in your very serious mech anime, but… can I be real for a second?”
Robert snorted. “You’re wearing a glowing friendship necklace and flying at Mach two. Nothing about you is real.”
Chase lifted a hand and the air between his fingers sparked faintly, light from the necklace answering. “Yeah, well, pretend it’s opposite day.”
He turned, facing Robert more fully, ankle on knee. The faint golden pulse from the necklace painted both their faces.
“What happened up there sucked,” he said. “It sucked for you, it sucked for her, it sucked for all of us. You were in an impossible spot. She was in an impossible spot. Shroud made sure of that.”
“That doesn’t change what she did,” Robert said, small and harsh. “And it doesn’t change that I was the one who put her on that roof.”
“Yeah,” Chase said. No flinch, no deflection. “You did.”
Robert’s head jerked, like he hadn’t expected agreement.
“And you cut her from the team,” Chase continued quietly. “And you let Blazer and the team pressure you into it. And then she went back to the only life she knew before Z-Team. That’s on you. That’s real.”
Robert’s fingers flexed. The ice clinked against glass.
Chase laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “But you’re forgetting all the good things you did. Mal. Victor. Bruno. Alice. Chad. Colm. Fuck. Even that psycho bitch Coop once she finished her shift as Shroud’s lackey. They were bad motherfuckers. Now they aren’t.”
He paused.
“Well, except maybe Coop.” When he noticed Robert wasn’t meeting his eyes, he reached over, gently held his chin, and turned Robert’s face toward him so he could look directly at him. “They’re heroes now. That’s on you too.”
Robert’s eyes shifted downward, and Chase released his grip on his chin.
“For what it’s worth,” Chase added, “I still think if Shroud had lived, the world would be worse.”
“That’s not the point,” Robert said sharply.
“It is a point,” Chase said. “There’s a universe where you die up there, Bobby. And she still has Shroud whispering in her ear. I like this one better.”
Robert stared at him. His eyes were glassy, but his voice was sharp. “You think the world’s better with… with this version of her? Running around with his mask and my failure on her conscience?”
“I think,” Chase said slowly, “the world was better with you still in it. And I think the world was better without Shroud. Both could be true.”
He let that sit a second, then sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Look,” he said. “We both know what your dad would say about this.”
Robert went very still.
Chase had said it casually, like he was pulling something down off a shelf between them.
But Robert knew exactly where this was going.
“‘Heroes are there to hold the line,’” Chase quoted quietly. “‘On themselves first, then on everybody else. Because some people are going to be villains, and somebody has to be the wall that stops them.’”
Robert’s eyes closed. For a moment he looked younger, like the ten-year-old kid Robbie Robertson II had given that speech to for the first time twenty-two years ago.
“He’d say you got knocked on your ass,” Chase went on. “He’d say you crossed some lines yourself, going around with a death wish and dropping motherfuckers into dumpsters just to find that sorry ass human magic eight ball, getting him all worked up, and then setting off this whole chain of events that led Invisigal to that rooftop and you right here. He’d tell you to own that. To fix what you can, and stand in front of whatever comes next.”
He shifted, leaning his forearms on his knees again, looking at the TV without seeing it.
“And he’d say,” Chase added, softer, “that if Invisi—…”
Chase hesitated, as if deciding how to refer to her, before finally electing to go with her human name. While he’d had his differences with her, and hated what her actions had done to the man he looked at as a younger brother, even he had to admit that her care for Robert was genuine. He’d seen enough evidence of that in how she treated Robert compared to how she treated everyone else. That was human. So, despite how he felt about everything else, he could give her that much respect.
“…If Courtney crosses that line… if she keeps going down this road… then you don’t get to pretend she’s not dangerous just because you care about her.”
Robert’s fingers tightened on the glass so hard it squeaked.
“I know you love her,” Chase said, very gently. “You don’t have to say it. I may be old as shit, but my eyes still worked.”
Robert’s jaw clenched. He didn’t confirm, didn’t deny.
“But if she keeps killing,” Chase said, “if she becomes the thing Shroud was… then we have to be on the same page about doing what has to be done. For the city. For everybody else who never got a choice.”
The words landed like weights. Robert’s stare went through the penguins, through the wall.
“So what?” he said. “We hunt her down? Lock her up? Should I put a bullet in her head and call it heroic?”
Chase’s throat worked. “I’m not saying that’s what I want.”
“But it’s what you think might have to happen,” Robert said quietly.
“I think,” Chase said, “that you can’t sit on this couch and drink until you don’t recognize yourself, and then expect someone else to make that call for you. If it comes to it, I need to know you’ll stand next to me. Not behind a bottle. Not behind the suit. You and me, same side of the fucking line.”
Robert looked at him with a thousand-yard stare that didn’t quite make it all the way to his friend.
He raised the glass and took another long, burning swallow.
“Right now,” he said, voice rough, “the only thing I know how to do is sit on this couch and make sure I don’t call her.”
Chase was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Then that’s where we start.”
He reached over, gently pried the bottle from Robert’s other hand, and capped it. He didn’t pour it out, didn’t moralize. He just moved it out of immediate reach, set a glass of water down in its place.
“I’m not asking you to be okay tonight,” Chase said. “I’m asking you not to drown so deep you can’t climb back out if we need you.”
Robert didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on nothing. The glass of water sweated between them.
Chase leaned back, settled into the couch like he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m gonna sit here,” he said, “and pretend this penguin documentary is Mission Impossible fucking 100 or some shit, and every time you reach past the water, I’m gonna annoy the shit out of you until you pick the right glass. That’s the deal.”
Still nothing. Then, after a beat, Robert’s mouth quirked, just barely.
“Your motivational speeches have really gone downhill since the necklace,” he muttered.
“There he is,” Chase said softly.
He picked up the remote, turned the volume up just enough to hear the narrator. On the TV, a penguin slid off of a glacier into the water below. Chase’s eyes shot open in shock.
“DAMN THOSE FUCKERS CAN MOVE!!!”
On the table, the capped whiskey bottle gleamed in the TV light, like a decision deferred instead of a foregone conclusion.
Robert stared into the middle distance, then slowly, almost grudgingly, reached for the water.
That lasted until Chase decided to go home.
NOW (2 YEARS LATER)
Two years later, Robert’s face was on a toy box.
Well—not his face, exactly. Just the angular blue helmet and big block letters:
MECHA MAN™
With Realistic Rocket Punch Action!
On the screen in the SDN Torrance break room, a hyperactive kid swung a plastic Mecha Man at a plastic Malevola, who portaled a plastic Sonar through a glowing cardboard ring. A tinny jingle played over a roaring crowd of CGI extras.
“Z-TEAM! LA’S MIGHTIEST HEROES! Collect Malevola, Coupé, Punch Up, Waterboy, Prism, Golem, Flambae—and MORE!”
The commercial smash-cut to a shot of all seven figures, posed heroically against a matte-painted LA skyline, Mecha Man towering in the middle like the proud dad in a superhero Christmas card.
The TV’s volume dropped with a pneumatic wheeze as someone leaned over the couch and thumbed the remote.
“Every time they say ‘and more,’” Sonar grumbled from the corner, bat ears twitching, “I feel personally attacked.”
On the couch, Punch Up kicked his (much smaller) legs, the soles of his boots not quite reaching the floor. “You hear that? ‘Realistic rocket punch.’ That’s all? Meanwhile my figure’s got ‘Kung-Fu Dick Punch.’ That’s prestige.”
“Please stop saying that shit in the break room,” Prism said, half-laughing, half-horrified as she snapped a selfie with the frozen frame behind her. “Also, the lighting on my figure is a hate crime.”
Golem stood in the doorway, arms folded, roughly the size and color of a particularly well-muscled mudslide. “I think they did a nice job on my calves,” he rumbled. “Very accurate mud definition.”
Mandy walked through the chaos with a clipboard and a coffee she clearly didn’t trust. Without her amulet, she was back to brown hair, normal human proportions, and the perpetual vibe of a woman juggling twelve crises and one hangnail.
“Okay, children,” she said. “Break’s over in three. And remember, if anyone asks about the toys: ‘We are grateful for Mattel’s support, but we encourage kids to see us as people, not products.’”
Prism scoffed. “Please, girl. Speak for yourself. Money talks.”
The break room door swished open again, and the room shifted—just a little—as Robert stepped in.
He looked exactly like he did on the box and nothing like he did on the box.
On the box, Mecha Man was bold, bright, chest out, rocket fist cocked. In person, Robert was in an SDN button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and a slight coffee stain on his collar. His hair was a little longer than the promo art, stubble a touch past “endearing scruff” and edging into “your Uber driver’s going through something.”
His smile, though, was dead-on: practiced, polite, the one he used when an SDN board member was in the room.
“Wow,” he said, taking in the frozen shot on the TV. “We look… plastic.”
Prism beamed. “I look amazing.”
“You look like a Cardi B Funko Pop,” Coupé said from her spot by the counter, where she was cleaning throwing knives like it was a perfectly normal break room activity.
Mandy checked her watch. “Robert. You’re late.”
He gave her an apologetic shrug, heading straight for the coffee machine. “Long night.”
Chase appeared behind him like he’d been conjured by the phrase. He leaned on the doorway, arms folded over his faded Track Star merch tee, looking every bit the world-weary ex-speedster whose body had decided forty was the new eighty.
“You mean a long dispatch shift,” Chase said mildly, “or a long ‘staring at the bottom of a glass’ shift?”
Robert didn’t look back. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”
He poured coffee that had been sitting long enough to achieve sentience. When he lifted the mug, his hand shook just a little. Only Mandy and Chase were close enough to see it; Mandy’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
“Hey, boss.” Golem tipped his chin. “LA Times says we’re ‘the beating heart of LA’s post-Red Ring renaissance.’ Does that mean we get dental?”
“You did get dental,” Robert said, taking a too-casual sip. “You just never filled out your forms.”
Prism scoffed. “Shit, we get dental? Someone tell Flambae. Fucker’s had that mile wide gap in his teeth for the past two years.”
Punch Up clutched his chest. “Paperwork? This is oppression.”
Coupé snorted. “You’re Irish. You were born for bureaucracy.”
“Oh my God, you’re racist,” Punch Up gasped theatrically. “I knew it.”
It was almost normal. Almost.
Then Sonar said, “Good thing about that medical and dental, I’ll need it for the heart attack Robert nearly gave me last night. You almost sent me and Malevola to two different bank robberies at the same time.”
Robert’s eyes flicked over, brows knitting in something between confusion and irritation. “I corrected that before you left the building.”
“Only because Mal was yelling in your ear,” Sonar said. “Not a complaint, just—data.”
“We made it,” Robert said, a little too sharp. “Muggers are mugged, civilians safe, bank mostly intact. That’s what matters.”
“Most heroes measure structural damage, not emotional damage,” Malevola said, stepping in with that lazy Hell-queen drawl of hers. She was half in uniform—leather jacket, portal-sword strapped across her back like it was the most natural accessory in the world, horns catching the fluorescent light. “But sure, bank’s fine.”
There was an edge under the banter no one quite named. Mitch from Facilities walked through the room, paused just long enough to clap Robert on the shoulder and say, “Nice save on that freeway pileup, Mecha,” before moving on.
“See?” Robert said. “Validation. We’re good.”
Punch Up leaned toward Sonar, stage-whispering, “He says that every time he almost drives the suit into a billboard.”
Chase cleared his throat.
“Okay,” he said, clapping his hands once. “Show’s over. Mandy’s right, you gremlins have calls in five. Robert, can I steal you for a sec?”
Robert checked the wall clock. “We’re due to start the morning shift.”
“I could press ‘answer call’ as well as you could,” Mandy said, dry. “Go. Before Chase decides to be earnest in front of everyone.”
The team dispersed in a swirl of chatter and caffeine. Coupé brushed past Robert with a muttered, “Try not to forget which bank is which today,” not quite quiet enough.
Robert’s jaw tightened, but he let it pass.
Malevola hung back, eyes flicking between him and Chase. There was something like a question in her expression, but she tucked it away for later.
Mandy’s office was all glass and stress.
Through the window, the dispatch floor was already humming to life: rows of cubicles, glowing monitors, a mural of the Z-Team on one wall that some marketing intern had designed based on the Mattel art. Prism hated her pose. Punch Up loved his. Golem wished his had bigger arms.
Mandy dropped into her chair, set her coffee down, and rubbed at her temples.
Chase perched on the edge of the visitor chair instead of sitting properly. Robert took the other one, posture straight, coffee balanced on one knee.
“Okay,” Mandy said. “Rapid-fire good news/bad news. Which do you want first?”
“Bad,” Chase said. “Always bad.”
“Good,” Robert said at the same time.
Mandy sighed. “Compromise: I start talking and you both regret giving me options.”
She tapped a folder on her desk, logo stamped in fresh federal font: DEPARTMENT OF POWERED HUMANS.
“SDN national board called last night,” she said. “Our friends in Washington are very proud of us. Z-Team is officially ‘America’s First Successful Post-Villain Reform Cohort.’ Which means…”
Chase read the header. “DPH is sending us a liaison.”
“Bingo,” Mandy said. “They want to ‘help us develop the brand’ and ‘align messaging with federal standards.’ Their words, not mine.”
Robert stared at the logo like it might peel off and crawl across the desk. “We’re not a cereal.”
“Tell that to Mattel,” Mandy said. “Look, I pushed back. I reminded them SDN is technically a private contractor. They reminded me we now get federal subsidies, and public perception is ‘a matter of national interest.’”
Chase frowned. “Translation: they don’t just want us to be good. They want us to look good doing it.”
“Welcome to heroism in the twenty-first century,” Mandy said. “Capes and KPIs.”
She looked at Robert.
“I need you on your game for this,” she said, softer. “You’re the face. In the field and in the file photos. They’re going to be watching every move you and the team make.”
“I can play nice with a liaison,” Robert said. “Shake hands, nod along, use all my big boardroom words. You know the drill.”
Chase studied him. The lines around Robert’s eyes were deeper than they’d been two years ago, and the sleeplessness had settled in for a long-term lease.
“You doing okay, kid?” Chase asked, quietly enough that it didn’t ping as an official question.
Robert smiled. It was thin, but practiced. “I’m running a federal pilot program, a superhero daycare, and a call center on a budget that wouldn’t cover a Brave Brigade lunch buffet. Define ‘okay.’”
Mandy’s gaze didn’t move.
“He’s drinking before he puts the helmet on,” she said aloud, because somebody finally had to.
Robert’s head snapped toward her. “I am absolutely—”
“Not drunk at work,” she said. “Yet. But you’re showing up to the night patrols with the same smell you had the week after Shroud died. You’re snapping at people on comms. You almost sent Sonar and Malevola to opposite ends of the city last night because you were ‘multi-tasking.’”
“That was a system glitch—”
“Rob,” Chase said, just his name, and it shut him up.
The room went very quiet for a second.
“I’m fine,” Robert said eventually, more quietly. “I’m just… tired.”
Chase leaned back, studying him with that old-man patience his body had forced him to learn.
“We’re not asking you to be invincible,” he said. “We’re asking you not to become the hazard.”
“DPH won’t just send a liaison,” Mandy added. “They’ll send auditors. If they get even a whiff that the guy in the big metal suit is self-medicating, they will shut us down so fast you’ll still be pulling your helmet off when the lawyers arrive.”
Robert took a breath, then another. He nodded once, clipped.
“I hear you,” he said. “I’ll tighten it up.”
“Tighten it up,” Mandy echoed, unconvinced. “Start with ‘no patrols after three drinks.’”
“Mandy.”
“That’s a joke,” she said. “Mostly.”
Chase looked between them, then pushed himself off the desk.
“Tag out,” he told Mandy. “I’ll keep an eye on him this week. You take next.”
“Already planned,” she said, then sighed. “I’ll email you both the liaison’s file once D.C. stops redacting everything.”
Robert’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at it: an alert from the Mecha Man maintenance app, a note from Royd about calibrations, three missed messages from “Galen – floor.”
He stood. “Duty calls,” he said. “We do still have a city to save between brand meetings.”
“Rob,” Mandy said again, stopping him at the door. He looked back.
“You don’t have to be fine,” she said. “You just have to let us help.”
He held her gaze for a long heartbeat.
Then his phone pinged. He sighed and fished it out of his pocket.
“We got a call coming in from a convenience store downtown. Can we pick this up later?”
Mandy’s expression softened as she gave him a look that silently said I’m in your corner, please let me help.
Robert took a deep breath. As uncomfortable as he felt being on the receiving end of yet another intervention from his two closest friends, he knew they were trying to help. He gave her a small smile.
“Hey, I appreciate your concern. And I am trying. It’s…fuck it’s just hard.”
Mandy smiled back. “I know. But it’s been two years. I’d be a pretty shitty best friend if I just let you keep going through this without reminding you we’re ready for the old Robert to come back.”
Robert nodded.
“Thanks. I don’t deserve you.”
And then he was out the door.
The elevator doors barely finished opening before Coupé was on him.
She stalked out of the elevator like a thrown knife, wings still half-flared from the fight, and her blade-feathers caught the fluorescent light. Robert flinched as she barely missed him with her wings as she blew past him.
“Coupe—”
She spun on her heel in the middle of the SDN corridor, right under the big wall decal of the Z-Team logo. A couple of junior techs saw her expression, saw Robert behind her, and instantly pretended to be fascinated by the vending machines. He’d been waiting by the elevators for her to come up. He’d known there was no way this conversation would go well, but his father had always taught him to own up when he made a mistake.
“You don’t get to say my name right now,” she said. Her voice was calm. That was how he knew she was livid.
Robert stepped forward.
“We’re not doing this in the hallway,” he said. “Conference room. Now.”
“Why?” Coupé tilted her head. “You worried the children will see Mommy and Daddy fight?”
A passing Sonar’s ears perked up in alarm and he silently chose a different hallway.
“Conference room,” Robert repeated, low.
Coupé’s jaw clenched. Then she turned and stormed down the hallway to the conference room, metal blades singing against each other as they settled.
The conference room door banged shut behind them hard enough to rattle the doorframe.
Robert leaned against the wall of the room and gritted his teeth, as if he was bracing himself for impact.
Coupé whirled on him.
“What the hell was that back there?” she demanded.
“Me preventing you from taking a man’s head off,” Robert said. “You’re welcome.”
Her laugh was sharp, humorless. “You nearly got us both shot.”
“That guy had a gun to the cashier’s throat,” Robert said. “You closed the distance with your wing up and your blade out. What did you think it looked like?”
“Like I was going to disarm him,” she snapped.
“You were lined up for a kill strike,” Robert said. “Center mass, full momentum. You know what that does to an unarmored human.”
“Yes,” she said, stepping closer. Her eyes were bright, furious. “Because I’ve done it. That’s why I know I wasn’t doing it today.”
He opened his mouth, but she barreled on.
“You saw the angle,” she said. “You have three hundred and sixty degrees of glorious HUD footage bouncing around your skull. Did you actually look at it? My wing was cocked. I was going for the gun hand.”
“You had seven inches of sharpened metal pointed at his neck,” he said. “You were one slip away from—”
“One slip away from him not shooting the cashier in the face,” she said. “You yelled ‘stand down’ in my ear at exactly the wrong second. I flinched. That is why his finger even got near the trigger.”
“But he didn’t pull it,” Robert said. “No civilian casualties. That is the point.”
Coupé stared at him, breathing hard. Her shoulders rose and fell, blade-feathers shivering with the motion.
“The point,” she said, “is that you do not trust me.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. The adrenaline was wearing off and the exhaustion rushed in to fill the gap.
“You’re a former contract killer with knife wings,” he said. “I promise you, I’m working on it. But trust is… an ongoing process.”
Her expression shuttered, then went colder.
“You know what’s funny?” she said. “If I wanted that guy dead, he’d be dead. You wouldn’t have seen it. You wouldn’t have had time to yell. There’d just be a body on the floor and a lot of paperwork for Blazer.”
“That is not making your case better.”
“I’m not trying to make a case to you,” she shot back. “The only reason I’m not on the other side of a jail cell is because I decided I was done being the Ring’s pet executioner. Not because you believed in me. Not because the Phoenix Program hugged it out of me. Me. I made that call. Every time I don’t end somebody, that’s my choice. Not yours.”
He met her glare. There was something tight under it, something that looked suspiciously like hurt.
“I am trying to keep people alive,” he said. “That includes the cashier. And you. And the guy with the gun, if possible.”
“And I am trying to do my job without you slapping the controls out of my hands every time my past makes you nervous,” she fired back.
Silence stretched. The hum of the vent system, the faint clink of metal as her feathers settled.
“When I said I don’t kill anymore,” Coupé said, more quietly, “you nodded and said ‘Good.’ But you never actually believed it, did you?”
“That’s not fair,” he said automatically.
“Isn’t it?” She gestured with one wing. “Let’s review, shall we? You cut me from the team the second things got politically inconvenient. You took me back when it made a good press release. Every time we’re in the field, you put an invisible leash on me. I move half an inch past what you think a ‘reformed villain’ should do, you yank.”
“I cut you because I was told I didn’t have a choice,” he said, voice tightening. “And then you chose Shroud over us.”
“I had nowhere else to go. And then I came back as soon as I had the option. But thanks for forgetting that part.”
He flinched like she’d slapped him.
“Coupe,” he said. “I saw what happens when I ignore warning signs. I had a member of this team slit a man’s throat in cold blood—” His voice cracked as he relived the memory. “—Right in front of me—”
“Courtney,” she said, flat.
“—and I spent months after that telling myself she’d come back… that there was no way she’d go back to being a criminal. Even though I saw her…” He let it go before he broke down at exactly the wrong time in front of exactly the wrong person. “I am not making that mistake again.”
“And I’m not her,” Coupé said.
The words were sharp, sure. But there was a flicker in her eyes, something fragile and offended.
“I know that,” he said.
“Do you?” she asked. “Because from where I’m standing, every time I fight too hard, every time I look too comfortable with a blade in my hand, you don’t see me. You see her.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The truth sat there, heavy and ugly.
“I see patterns,” he said finally. “Someone with a history of lethal force, under pressure, moving faster than their own conscience. I see risk.”
Her jaw ticked.
“Right,” she said. “Risk assessment. Your favorite phrase.”
“You were about to bring a very lethal umbrakinetic knife to a gunfight,” he said. “I acted.”
“I was about to end a gunfight without a body on the floor,” she said. “You panicked.”
He let out a slow, angry breath. “I didn’t panic.”
“You did,” she said. “I heard it. In your voice. You were back on that rooftop, and you decided I was about to be your next mistake. So you didn’t trust me to make the call.”
She took a step closer, close enough that he could see the little nicks and imperfections along the edges of her blades. Evidence of countless hits taken, not just given.
“You want to talk accountability?” she said. “Fine. You saved that robber’s life. Good job, Mecha Man. But you also almost got that cashier killed because you don’t know how to stay in the chair and let me do my job.”
He finally snapped. “Your job is not to play God with people’s lives.”
“Neither is yours,” she snapped back. “You don’t get to decide that my margin for error is zero because you’re scared of history repeating itself.”
They were both breathing hard now.
“You think I want to screw up again?” Robert said. “You think I enjoy second-guessing everything you do out there?”
“You sure act like you enjoy the part where you’re always right,” Coupé said.
“I don’t—”
“You do,” she said. “Because if I’m ‘about to lose control,’ then you get to be the hero twice. First for cutting me. Then for taking me back and ‘saving’ me from myself. It makes a nice story. Very Mattel-friendly.”
The mention of the toys made something bitter twist in his gut.
“That’s not what this is,” he said. “This is me trying to keep everyone breathing long enough to make it to the next call.”
“And this is me telling you,” Coupé said, voice low and fierce, “if you don’t learn the difference between ‘keeping people alive’ and ‘punishing them for who they used to be,’ you’re going to lose more than just Courtney.”
He went still.
“Is that a threat?” he asked quietly.
“It’s a forecast,” she said. “From someone who’s been on the other side of your shit decisionmaking.”
For a second, neither of them moved. The tension was a rope pulled taut between them.
Then she stepped back, wings scraping the conference table behind her.
“You want people who never scare you?” she said. “Go recruit some limp fucking noodle who never did anything worse than unpaid parking tickets. You want me on your team? You’re going to have to deal with the fact that I know where the line is because I used to stand on the wrong side of it.”
He swallowed, throat tight.
“I’m not your enemy, Coop,” he said.
“Could’ve fooled me,” she said. “Because right now, the only difference between you and the board is that you occasionally feel bad about it.”
That one landed.
She turned on her heel, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To sharpen my wings,” she said without looking back. “Unless I’m not allowed to use them, oh great leader.”
The door swung open; the bright light of the hallway spilled in around her silhouette.
“Next time you don’t trust me in the field,” she added, over her shoulder, “do us both a favor and keep me on the bench. I’d rather be sidelined than sabotaged.”
The door closed behind her with a soft, final click.
After the last shift later that day, the Z-Team began dispersing as they gathered their things and prepared to head home for the night. LA glowed outside, a glittering map of everything they’d broken and put back together. Just as Robert slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to head home himself, his phone chimed.
MAL: In locker room. Got a min?
Robert’s brow furrowed. Malevola was usually not the type to ask to talk in person unless she absolutely had to.
Um yea. 1 sec.
In the locker room, Malevola leaned against a row of metal doors, in street clothes now, boots kicked off, horns catching the fluorescent light.
“Nice work with the portal catch,” he said. “If that car had gone over—”
“Yeah,” she said. “It didn’t.”
There was a beat. He knew that tone. He’d heard it from her in the field, right before she called him on some tactical mistake.
This time, it landed differently.
“Thanks for coming. I figured we should talk,” she said.
“If this is about the royalties for the Mattel likeness rights, talk to Mandy,” he said.
“It’s not,” Malevola said. Her eyes were steady, golden, too kind for someone who was a portal-sword wielding half-demon. “It’s about us.”
He went still.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”
For the past few months, “us” had meant after-shift drinks that had turned into something else. Hookups in the wrong order: first as stress relief, then as habit, then as a thing they never quite named.
He liked her. She liked him. It had been easy.
Too easy.
“I like you,” she said, like she was reading his thought. “You know that.”
“I like you too,” he said, reflexive.
“But you don’t actually want me,” she said, soft, no heat. “You want the part where you don’t have to be alone with your head after midnight.”
He opened his mouth, closed it. There was a denial sitting right on his tongue that even he didn’t believe.
“That’s not—”
“It is,” she said, gently. “And that’s okay. I’ve done the same thing. A lot.”
She twirled one of her earrings, thumb brushing the little carved hellstone. “But I promised myself the Phoenix Program wasn’t just going to be about changing how other people talk about me. It’s supposed to be about me not repeating my own worst habits.”
He looked down at the floor. “So this is the part where you dump me for being emotionally unavailable.”
“This is the part where I say we should stop sleeping together,” Malevola said. “Not because I don’t care. Because I do. And because I can see you using this as a bandage over something that needs stitches.”
He laughed, but it cracked. “You and Mandy rehearsed this intervention together, or is it just Hell-girl intuition?”
“She wants you to see a therapist,” Malevola said. “I want you to not flinch every time someone says her name. Or—” a beat, “doesn’t say it.”
His breath caught, just a fraction. She didn’t press that yet.
“I still want to hang out,” she added. “You’re funny when you’re not spiraling. You need friends who aren’t your boss or your childhood babysitter.”
“That’s a weird way to describe Chase,” he muttered.
“Tell him I said that,” she said, a little smile flickering. “See how fast he outruns that label.”
He leaned back against the lockers, staring at the ceiling.
“So,” he said. “No more… whatever this was.”
“Not for now,” she said. “But team movie nights are still on. And if you ever want to talk about Hell, trauma, or the horrors of dating apps, I’m your girl.”
He huffed. “I thought you were giving up bad habits.”
“I said my bad habits,” she said. “Yours I’ll still listen to. Just not in your bed.”
It hurt. It helped. Those two things arrived in the same breath.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Friend sounds… good, actually.”
“Good,” she said. She smiled.
For a second it felt like the conversation was over. She could have walked out now, clean break, boundaries set.
She didn’t.
Instead, she studied him in the humming silence, gaze tracking the way his fingers drummed restlessly on his thigh, the way his eyes flicked, just once, toward his backpack on the floor, where a small, nondescript inhaler peeked out of the mesh pocket on the side.
“You know what you don’t do?” she said.
He frowned. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“You never talk about her,” Malevola said. “Visi.”
The nickname landed between them with a thud.
Robert’s face shuttered. “We’re not doing this.”
“You talk about Shroud,” she continued, like he hadn’t spoken. “About the rooftop. About cutting Coupé. About the board. About literally everything else I know you regret. But not Courtney. Not really.”
His jaw tightened. “She’s a wanted fugitive who murdered a man on live TV. There’s not a lot to talk about.”
“Uh-huh,” Malevola said, unimpressed. “And you totally don’t carry her like extra armor under the suit. Definitely not thinking about her every time someone almost crosses a line. Definitely not chasing shadows in your spare time.”
He stiffened. “Did Mandy put you up to this?”
“No,” she said. “Mandy’s too busy pretending not to notice you smell like whiskey some nights.”
He flinched, just slightly.
“I’m saying this as a friend now,” she went on, voice gentler than he’d probably earned. “You can’t keep carrying all of that by yourself. Not the rooftop. Not your regret for cutting her from the team.” She looked at him pointedly. “Which we pressured you to do, by the way… And not the part where you fell in love with someone and then watched the world call her a monster.”
His eyes flicked up, sharp. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” she said calmly. “You love her. You hate what she did. Both can be true. You’re allowed to say that sentence out loud without the universe exploding.”
He looked away, throat working.
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Mandy already tried this speech. I’ve had my quota of feelings for the day.”
Malevola huffed a soft, disbelieving laugh. “You really think just saying ‘I’m fine’ is going to fool me? I’m literally half demon, Robert. I can smell repression.”
“Great,” he said. “Congratulations, you’re Mandy now, but with horns.”
She grinned, quick and crooked. “Flattering, but no. Mandy’s the one who makes sure you still have a job. I’m volunteering for the ‘sit on a rooftop and actually let you say her name without flinching’ shift.”
He shook his head, defensive instinct snapping back into place. “I don’t need—”
“Yeah,” she cut in softly. “You do.”
They let that hang there. The locker room hummed. The distant clank of weights filtered in from the training floor.
“If you ever want to talk about Visi,” she said, more deliberate this time, “really talk about her—not just ‘case file’ talk—I’m here. Not as your… whatever we were. As your friend. Because that weight? It’s going to crush you if you keep pretending it’s not there.”
He stared at the towel hook above her shoulder rather than at her face.
“I said I’m fine,” he insisted.
“And I said I don’t believe you,” she replied, without heat. “Same page?”
He didn’t answer.
She pushed off the lockers, grabbing her boots.
“Offer stands,” she said, slinging them over her shoulder. “You want to keep bottling it up and pretending it’s not there, that’s your choice. Just don’t confuse ‘numb’ with ‘okay.’”
She gave him one more long, searching look, like she was trying to memorize him in this exact state so she’d recognize when he finally started to change.
“Goodnight, Tin Man,” she said.
He didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded.
When the door swung shut behind her, the room felt bigger and smaller at the same time. The inhaler in his pack’s pocket looked suddenly very loud.
He stared at it, at the space Malevola had just left, then at his own reflection in the dull metal of the locker door.
“I’m fine,” he told the empty room.
Even he didn’t sound convinced.
The office was mostly dark by the time Robert made it back to the dispatch floor.
Most of the cubicles were empty, monitors dark. Cleaning staff hummed in the distance. Somewhere, a vacuum whined.
Galen was still at his cubicle, headset on, eyes half-closed, fingers idly tapping on his keyboard. The light on his console glowed a faint green. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a napkin.
“You ever go home?” Robert asked, dropping into the neighboring chair.
Galen shrugged. “LA rent is expensive. May as well get used to living here in case rent goes up again.”
He tapped his right ear. “Also, super-hearing plus thin walls? Turns out, office is quieter than my apartment building.”
Robert smiled despite himself. “Fair.”
Galen tilted his head, listening to something only he could hear. “Speaking of the wonders of super hearing, Coop was… sharpening knives in the parking lot. Again.” He grimaced. “Awful sound.”
“Great,” Robert said. “Everything’s normal.”
Galen glanced over. “You wanted to talk ‘side project’ stuff?”
Robert’s smile dropped.
“Uh... yeah,” he said. “You got anything new?”
Galen tapped a few keys; a separate, unmarked window slid onto his screen. It wasn’t SDN official—no logo, no ticket numbers. Just a map of LA, dotted with colored pins, and a list of incident reports that never made it through the front desk.
“Whispers,” Galen said. “Stuff that doesn’t ping main dispatch. Off-the-books cops, street chatter, people calling crisis lines who don’t want the government involved. I tracked what I heard. Patterns.”
Several pins were circled in red. Around them, he’d drawn a little heat-wave symbol—a ripple in the air.
“These,” Galen said, tapping the cluster, “were all in the last three months. Grab-and-runs with no cameras catching the perp. Bouncers swearing they saw ‘a shimmer’ walk through a crowd. One guy called in, full-on panic, saying a girl ‘faded like bad reception’ right in front of him.”
Robert leaned in. The pins weren’t random; they orbited a specific block like planets around a sun.
“At first I thought it was just that neighborhood being weird,” Galen went on. “But they were all within a few blocks of the same place.”
He zoomed in. The map labels snapped into sharp relief.
A bar’s name sat at the center of the cluster: THE SIN BIN.
Robert’s heart gave a hard, stupid lurch.
“I’ll go check it out,” he said immediately. “Tonight.”
Galen actually barked a laugh, short and disbelieving. “Cool. Make sure you leave your Mecha Man armor to Mandy in the will.”
Robert frowned. “If it’s a lead—”
“It is a lead,” Galen said. “It’s also a known hangout for ex–Red Ring. Guys who used to take orders from Shroud. Guys who watched Z-Team and Mecha Man take their whole operation apart.”
He met Robert’s eyes, expression serious for once.
“You walk in there alone?” Galen said. “That’s suicide.”
Robert exhaled through his nose. “Then I don’t go alone. I bring backup. Malevola can portal us out if things go bad, Golem can—”
“Robbo.” Galen held up a hand. “You bring Malevola, or Golem, or Punch Up, or literally anyone from the ‘Mattel Seven,’ you’re not walking into a bar. You’re kicking in the door with the Red Ring’s most wanted. Every former Ring lieutenant in there is going to recognize them on sight.”
He tapped the map again. “Best-case scenario? Bar brawl with a body count. Worst-case? Somebody decides to make their rep by putting Mecha Man in the ground. And it wouldn’t be hard. This was basically a bar full of trained assassins.”
The word hit Robert like a truck. The idea the word carried wasn’t far behind.
“Assassins?”
“Yeah,” Galen said. “You, in a metal suit, in a confined space, surrounded by people who used to get hazard pay to kill powered cops? They’d line up for a shot.”
Robert leaned back, staring at the map, gears turning behind his eyes.
“What if,” he said, “we don’t walk in as the people who took down the Ring.”
Galen raised an eyebrow. “You planning to grow a mustache and call yourself Kevin?”
“I mean,” Robert said, ignoring that, “what if I walked in with someone who used to be on their side.”
Galen tilted his head, listening to the building again, or maybe just giving Robert room to say it out loud.
“A former Ring asset,” he said.
“Someone they’re used to seeing in rooms like that,” Robert said. “Someone they associate with Shroud’s operation, not SDN’s.”
Realization flickered across Galen’s face. “Fuck. If you’re thinking who I think you’re thinking, you do have a death wish.”
Robert’s jaw tightened. “She knows their habits. Their tells. Who’s still in the life and who’s just drinking the ghosts away. And they know her.”
“Let me tell you what I know,” Galen said carefully. “The reason she was even so close to them is that you cut her from Z-Team. And she doesn’t give a shit that you brought her back after Shroud was dead. She was far from your number one fan.”
“I’m aware,” Robert said dryly.
“Just checking,” Galen said. “Super-hearing, not mind-reading.”
Robert’s gaze stayed on the ring of pins around the Sin Bin.
“If I walked in with her as my escort,” he said slowly, “I’m not Mecha Man crashing their bar. I’m the guy the deadly assassin who used to work with them vouches for. Or at least the guy she hasn’t stabbed yet.”
“High praise,” Galen murmured.
“They might still want to kill me,” Robert said. “But they’d think twice about starting something with someone who used to be one of them watching. Or at least they’ll give me five minutes to ask questions before someone decides I’d look better with a knife in my throat.”
Galen grimaced. “Love the optimism.”
He leaned back, chair creaking, considering.
“It’s not a bad play,” he admitted. “Escort plus hero-to-criminal translator. She’s the only one on the roster who can walk in there and not immediately start a riot just by existing.”
He paused. “You sure she’ll even agree to go with you?”
Robert thought of Coupé’s glare in the break room, the way her words still came serrated whenever she looked at him.
“No,” he said. “But if I want to find Courtney without blowing the whole thing up, she’s my best bet.”
Galen nodded, just once. “Then maybe wear the armor when you go ask her. At least then you stand a shot of not getting turned into Swiss cheese.”
Robert huffed out a breath that might almost be a laugh.
“I’ll… take that under advisement,” he said.
On the screen, the cluster of pins around the Sin Bin glowed like a small, stubborn constellation.
Tomorrow, there would be liaisons and brand meetings and carefully curated heroism.
Tonight, there was a bar full of ghosts, a girl who’d turned invisible, and a reformed assassin with knife-wings who might be the only thing standing between Robert and a bullet.
He reached over and tapped the map, right where the Sin Bin sat.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to Coop.”
Galen winced in sympathy. “I’ll start drafting your eulogy.”
The SDN parking lot was half-empty and humming.
Floodlights painted the asphalt a harsh white. Beyond the chain-link fence, the city glowed—freeway noise, distant sirens, the pulse of LA still going long after the building’s windows had gone dark.
Coupé was exactly where Galen had said she’d be.
She was sitting on the bumper of a beat-up sedan that definitely had seen better days, even before getting scratched halfway to hell by dozens of razor sharp blades. Her wings were half-spread behind her, blades catching the light. A whetstone slid along metal as she sharpened one of her blades with slow, steady strokes. The sound carried further than it should have in the open air: shhhk. shhhk. shhhk.
He was starting to wish he’d taken Galen’s advice and brought his armor. The night air hit his face and made him suddenly, acutely aware of how exposed he was.
He walked anyway.
Coupé didn’t look up. “If you’re here to tell me I almost killed someone again,” she said, “I’m going to test that hypothesis on your kneecaps.”
“Not tonight,” he said.
He stopped a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets. From here, he could see the small nicks and scars along her blades, the places where impact had left a permanent mark.
“Pretty late to be doing maintenance,” he said.
“Gotta keep them sharp,” she said, finally glancing over, eyes catching the light like chips of glass. “Never know when your boss is going to try to bench you mid-fight and you need a new hobby.”
He deserved that. He let it land.
For a moment, all he could hear was the electric buzz of the lights and the scrape of stone on steel.
“I need your help,” he said.
The whetstone stopped.
She studied him, expression unreadable. “Wow. Four words. No ‘hi,’ no ‘how’s your evening.’ You must be desperate.”
“I am,” he said, and there was no joke in it.
That got her attention. Her brows pulled together, suspicious.
“What did Mandy do,” she asked, “and how much do I have to pretend to be surprised?”
“This isn’t Mandy,” he said. “Or the board. Or DPH. This is… me.”
Her eyes narrowed. The whetstone was still pressed against the edge of one wing, but she hadn’t resumed the motion.
“Okay,” she said. “Spit it out.”
He took a breath, felt it catch in his chest.
“I’m trying to find Invisigal,” he said.
The name dropped into the space between them like a weight. For a split second, something flickered across Coupé’s face—surprise, anger, maybe a flash of something softer. It was gone before he could name it.
“Of course you are,” she said flatly. “Can’t even say I’m shocked.”
“Galen’s been helping me track possible sightings,” he pushed on. “Incidents that feel like her. They’re clustered. Around one place.”
“Let me guess,” Coupé said. “Not a yoga studio.”
He forced a humorless huff. “A bar. The Sin Bin.”
That made her actually laugh, sharp and disbelieving. “Oh, perfect. You want to go sightseeing in the ex-murderer lounge.”
“It’s a Red Ring hangout,” he said. “Former lieutenants. Associates. People who took Shroud’s money. People who might know where she went after that rooftop.”
“People who’d love to put a bullet in Mecha Man’s skull and hang your helmet over the bar,” Coupé said. “In case you missed that part.”
“I did not,” he said dryly.
“Good,” she said. “Because walking in there alone would be—”
“Suicide,” he finished. “Galen used the same word.”
She tilted her head. “Smart boy.”
He shifted his weight, looking at her directly now.
“I thought about bringing someone from the team,” he said. “Malevola, Golem, anyone who could back me up if it went bad. But…”
“But they helped burn the Ring down,” Coupé said. “Every drunk with a grudge in that place has their faces on a dartboard.”
“More or less,” he said. “So… I need someone they know from the other side of the war.”
Her jaw worked.
“You want me to walk you into the Sin Bin,” she said slowly. “Past people I used to work with. People who remember me as the girl who put bodies in trunks for a living. You want me to vouch for you.”
He didn’t look away. “Yeah.”
She barked a disbelieving laugh. “Wow. From ‘I don’t trust you not to kill a guy’ to ‘please escort me into the assassin bar’ in under twenty-four hours. That’s… development, I guess.”
“You were right,” he said.
She blinked. “About what?”
“In the field,” he said. “In the conference room. I’ve been treating you like a walking risk assessment instead of a person who chose to be here. I can’t fix that with an apology. But I can choose to trust you when it actually costs me something.”
He spread his hands, empty.
“This isn’t a mission I can do in armor,” he said. “If I go in at all, I need you. Not as a weapon. As someone who understands that world better than I ever will.”
The parking lot hummed. Somewhere out on the street, a car backfired. The sound made them both flick their eyes in that direction, the reflex too ingrained to break.
Coupé looked back at him, eyes searching his face for the catch.
“And what happens,” she said quietly, “if we find her? Your prodigal girl. You going as Mecha Man? As the guy who cut her? As the guy who loves her? Because those are three very different uniforms, Robert.”
His throat tightened. “I don’t know yet.”
“Great plan,” she said.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” he said. “I’m asking you to walk me into the lion’s den and make sure I walk back out. Or at least that if I don’t, somebody who knows the truth is there to tell Mandy I didn’t fall down an elevator shaft.”
The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
He took one more step forward, close enough now that he could see his reflection in the flat of one of her blades.
“Please,” he said. “I know I don’t deserve it. But I need your help.”
The whetstone was still pressed to the steel of her wing. Her fingers flexed around it, knuckles popping.