Work Text:
You got into a bar fight last night.
He tumbles out of a nightmare, of heated air and red-hot metal, to find his dog’s warm, damp nose nudging at his cheek. Beef’s bone breath rolls, like a stinking pyroclastic flow, directly up Robert’s right nostril.
He puts up his hand, letting Beef nuzzle his palm instead.
The little dog yips.
“Shit, inside voices only please, bud. Let me die in peace, okay?”
He’s lying on his back, on his apartment floor, while sunlight streams in through the sliding balcony door.
His pants are off, but he’s still wearing his work shirt which is drenched in booze and blood. The smell of it makes something bubble up in the back of his throat, and he can tell by the burn already present that it’s not the first time he’s thrown up in the last twenty-four hours. There’s an aftertaste of ground meat and spices and a small, bothersome cut on the roof of his mouth.
He remembers…tacos.
You told them who you really are.
“Fuck. I did.”
He tries to roll onto his side, swallowing back the vomit, but he’s all stiff. Useless. No better than his busted mech-suit.
His body is too fucking loud right now, off-beat and throbbing.
Beef yips again, pushing his head past Robert’s hand and landing a direct tongue hit on his open lips. Weirdly, the dog slobber actually tastes better than whatever the fuck else is going on inside his mouth right now.
Robert coughs and spits, turning his head away.
He has no idea what time it is, but it’s clearly well-past Beef’s usual breakfast time.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I am being just the absolute worst dad in the world right now.”
Beef steps back, tail wagging and tongue hanging out, as Robert starts to peel himself off the floor.
He’s not sure why past-Robert chose the hard cement when there’s a perfectly good garden chair inches away from him.
Something in his neck pops and a feeling of relief and queasy, chalk-white pain radiates down his spine.
He manages to get onto his front — a move which almost sees him almost vomit for the second time since waking up.
His chest feels like one big bruise. A chorus of broken blood vessels, and maybe a cracked rib or two.
His knuckles are swollen, no cuts that he can see but lots of redness. Even some dirt. Fuck, did he not even stop to wash his hands? His fingers are curled, like claws, until he concentrates, breathes through the pain, and makes them extend.
The right hurts a little more than the left.
Something’s broken in there for sure. He’ll need to ice it. Wrap it, to avoid further injury. Hopefully he won’t have any hacking jobs to do on Monday.
But first, Beef needs to eat.
He rises up onto his hands and knees. He can feel his left shoulder complaining bitterly. He supposes he should be grateful it’s still in the socket at all, since it doesn’t usually take much to pop it out. It’s always been a little unstable following the first time it dislocated back when he was a kid — the day he lost the little piece of his ear — but it’s been a nonstop pain in the ass since the crash. Blazer must have some kind of healing powers, because it’s stayed where it’s meant to be ever since she popped it back in for him the first time they met.
He shifts his weight, putting most of it through his right side, debating whether to try and stand or just crawl to the kitchenette. Beef’s food is in one of the lower cupboards anyway.
Fuck it. There’s no one around to judge him.
Just Beef.
“Not one word to anyone, okay buddy?”
As much as it hurts at first, the more he moves the more the stiffness eases.
All things considered, he feels pretty good.
Flambae tried to kill you.
Shit. He’d almost forgotten about that.
The memory of the flash of heat coming towards him mingles with the nightmare he woke up from. For a second the bruises feel like burns and the stiffness in his joints is contracture from scarring.
Golem defended you. Z-team accepted you.
Well, Z-team minus Flambae. Thank fuck none of them know where he lives, although he supposes he’ll have to watch his back the next time he walks into work.
Honestly, it’s a weight off his shoulders.
He’s never had a whole lot of patience for being just Robert, so he’s glad the mask is off.
It’s like he said, ‘Robert’ is a front. Robert doesn’t even really know how to be just Robert. Robert’s the miserable fuck who needs food and sleep, who wakes up some days wishing he was dead and has pants-wettingly awful nightmares from time to time. Being Robert sucks.
The only good thing Robert has that Mecha-man doesn’t is a dog called Beef.
“I really don’t deserve you, do I, boy?”
Beef barks as Robert makes it behind the kitchen bar.
Almost there, now.
With one last push Robert is able to sit back, leaning against the fridge.
He brings his knee up, towards his chest, and something about the movement causes his balls to shift and he remembers, suddenly and painfully, another part of the night he’d managed to forget.
Getting punched in the dick by a three-foot-tall Irishman with the strength of ten.
He spreads his legs out carefully as he leans forward and yanks open the cupboard in front of him.
The bag of kibble is almost full. He screws up the pour, overfilling the bowl and spilling food on the floor.
Beef dives in before Robert has a chance to scoop some of the extra kibble back into the bag, pinning Robert’s right lower leg under his belly. His back paws are in the air, butt wiggling as his wagging tail becomes a motion blur.
“I’m real happy for you, bud.”
The apartment is filled with the soothing sounds of crunching as Beef enjoys his breakfast, and Robert sighs and accepts the fact he’s stuck where he is for now.
With his back pressed up against the cool surface of the refrigerator he can feel the stinging lines of broken skin. Hopefully nothing too deep. He can’t exactly reach back there to stitch himself up.
Probably the mirror. When that dragon-faced prick tossed you into it.
He rolls his shoulders, feeling for any debris stuck in his flesh. He should’ve taken a shower right away when he got in. Who knows how much gross stuff has seeped into his shirt, into his open wounds? Fuck, when was the last time he had a tetanus shot?
It’s probably fine.
If he starts feeling sick, he can deal with it then.
At least he has the rest of the weekend to recover.
#
His dick is purple.
The bruise extends out, his balls caught in the radius along with most of his pubis. It’s honestly a little impressive. Robert almost goes to find his phone just to document it.
While uncomfortable pissing is thankfully bloodless, so he doesn’t think there’s any longterm damage done. Nothing that matters anyway.
He’s not totally convinced it was an accident — he did fire Coop after all — but hopefully Punch-Up has it out of his system now and they can move on.
The chick with the green glowy spider-limbs really did a number on him. He can count about half a dozen small, reddish-blue circles on the upper part of his chest. Some have even broken the skin. Nothing needs stitching, already scabbed closed in the hours which have passed.
He feels along his ribcage. Definitely bruised. Maybe cracked.
He can’t feel any bone fragments moving under the skin though, which is a big relief. Back when he was nineteen a broken rib managed to puncture a lung, and it was not fun.
No, that’s a major understatement.
It was terrifying.
It felt like you were dying, and everyone thought…
“Honey, if you’re scared of whoever did this, you don’t have to be. We’ve got people who can help get you out of that situation. You don’t have to go through it alone.”
He remembers the nurse now, though he hasn’t thought about her in years.
Kind, patient. Motherly, although he has no real frame of reference for what exactly that means.
He’d already earned a few of his scars at that point, and his skin was a patchwork of yellow-green, purple and red from the bruises which never had time to heal. Without his suit, without his mask, pale in a hospital bed, he probably looked every bit the frightened, abused teenager she thought he was.
At the time he’d found it frustrating, the way she kept pushing; offering safety, peace and comfort if he just asked for it.
His dad was bones by that stage. Chase had finally stopped calling.
He was alone. She was right. He was scared.
Beneath his ribcage, on the left-hand side, is the biggest single bruise of the bunch. Robert can’t remember exactly what caused it. Hitting one of the tables, maybe?
For how big it is, it doesn’t hurt all that bad — compared to the ribs and the constant, rumbling headache drumming on the top of his skull.
Robert swallows down a couple of painkillers and turns on the shower. It takes a few seconds for the water to get up to temperature, before Robert steps under the spray.
Immediately he becomes aware of several nasty, stinging bumps on his scalp. He runs his fingers through his hair, feeling scabs and swelling skin.
The hot water helps, smoothing away the residual stiffness and easing some of the duller aches in his limbs. He starts to feel a little lightheaded before he’s done. The painkillers seem to be kicking in, and he leaves the shower feeling somewhat more human.
The only thing which refuses to shift at all is the headache.
#
Beef is asleep on his cushion when Robert comes out of the bathroom. He wakes up while Robert’s getting dressed and proceeds to stare at him with his tongue hanging out, before trotting over and planting himself next to the running shoes by the door.
“You trying to tell me something, bud?”
Robert finishes getting dressed, slipping on his jacket. Beef’s lead is already in one of the pockets, along with a small collection of poop bags.
With minimal fuss — he absolutely does not groan like an arthritic old man — he bends over and clips the lead to Beef’s collar.
“Ready to go?”
#
Once he’s moving, it’s not too bad.
There’s a rhythm to the rib pain, one he can tune out. The pulse of the headache is a little harder to ignore, and he holds the lead loosely in his hand to avoid irritating the battered knuckles he has neither iced nor wrapped.
There’s a small dog friendly park a few blocks away. Robert hasn’t taken Beef there in a while, and he hopes it’ll make up for getting home late and making Beef wait for his breakfast.
He keeps looking over his shoulder or looking up at the sky, wary of a human fireball coming back for another attempt at incineration.
He’d hoped…maybe…well, it doesn’t really matter what he hoped.
It wasn’t a decision he took lightly. Flambae didn’t leave him with a whole lot of options, since, well, Robert wasn’t all too keen on dying.
If the roles were reversed, sure, Robert would be pissed about losing his fingers but he likes to think he’d be a bit more upset about accidentally roasting someone to death.
You’d never be able to forget the smell, for one thing.
“What do you think, Beef? Should I apologise?”
Beef stops walking, squats, and shits on the sidewalk.
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought you’d say.”
#
He’s a little out of breath by the time they make it to the park. He’s doing his best to breathe deeply, despite the cracked ribs, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.
Beef whines and when Robert looks down at him there’s two fuzzy outlines. He blinks and they merge.
“I’m okay, bud. Just need to sit down for a second.”
There’s a bench a couple of steps away and Robert makes a beeline for it.
Something isn’t…
…his heart is beating way too fast.
Beef’s scrabbling against his leg, nails clacking against the wooden seat of the bench.
Robert pants as lights flare and his vision starts to swirl. The beat in his head won’t stop, getting louder and sharper.
He feels in his pockets.
His phone.
Gone.
Must be…
…on the floor somewhere…
…or still in the pocket…
…of his work pants.
My head.
His fingers are numb.
He remembers…how many times…did he hit his head anyway?
One. The mirror. The floor. The start. Lights go out as he’s looking at Invisigal and…
Cold.
He’s gripping the edge of the bench as the whole thing lurches, spinning. If he lets go he’ll fall…ing already.
Vomit in his mouth, burning in his nose.
Beef’s going nuts, howling and howling like he wants to bring down the moon.
Robert tries to speak but it’s garbage, all of it.
Shit.
If only the headache would just—