Chapter Text
"You want another, honey?"
The new bartender at The Sardine is a significant improvement on the last one, Robert thinks, peering at her through the haze of three tequilas. She's tall and olive-skinned, her brunette hair pulled into a low ponytail, her black blouse cut in a deep V-neck that Robert tries not to stare down as she leans on the bar in front of him.
"You look like you could use it."
"Yeah. Thanks?"
The woman chuckles and pours him another glass. "This one's on me. By the looks of that black eye, you fought too hard today to be drinking alone in this shithole and paying for it."
Robert's not entirely sure why she's being so nice to him, until she adds:
"I know today was rough, but, honestly, I think Visi's gonna be better for us than Shroud anyways."
Oh, Robert realizes. She thinks I'm a bad guy.
He glances down at himself, at the hoodie hiding his SDN shirt. "Right. Yeah."
"From what I heard-" The woman leans in closer. "We nearly lost her to those cucks over at SDN. But they fucked her over so bad she came all the way back around. She is amped up, man. She's got big plans."
"Cool," Robert replies weakly into his glass.
"So cheer up, honey." She pets his head affectionately. "Things are looking up."
Maybe she's right, he thinks as she walks off to serve another customer. Maybe I am a bad guy.
Why else would he be sitting here 'drinking alone in this shithole' — as she so succinctly put it — after essentially saving the city?
Well, 'saving' is a strong word. LA is almost completely destroyed. But Shroud is dead, at least.
He should be celebrating that with his newfound team and the girl he thought he was falling for. Instead, that girl is plotting to take over the world or something. And it's all his fault.
He couldn't face drinks with the rest of Z-Team after the fight, using his battered normie body as an excuse to go home and wallow in his misery alone. But the apartment felt empty and shitty, and its current abundance of lamps is weirding him out. So now he's here instead. In a villain bar. Where he belongs.
He's nearly finished his fourth tequila when something painfully hot glances off the side of his head, leaving behind the faint scent of burning hair.
Robert turns slowly on the barstool to find Flambae standing behind him, hands on his hips.
"What the fuck, dude?"
Flambae points an accusatory finger. "You said you were too much of a little bitch to come out for drinks!"
"I think what I said was, 'I'm tired and everything hurts so I'm going to go home and die'," Robert corrects.
"Then you should have had the decency to be dead at your apartment right now," Flambae growls. "Instead of lying. Again."
"What?" Robert is too tequila-soaked and, consequently, flammable for this right now. "What are you talking about?"
"Ooh, I don't know, Bob-Bob." Fire shimmers over the tips of eight digits. "Maybe the fun little fact that you're fucking Mecha Man??"
Oh. Oh shit.
Flambae wasn't at the party when Chase accidentally outed Robert to the team. Robert kind of conveniently forgot to enlighten him afterward, half expecting one of the others to do it. Then everything kicked off with the Red Ring and he forgot about Flambae entirely.
Which means the first time Flambae found out Robert's real identity must have been earlier today — when Mecha Man turned up in the middle of the fight.
Robert's first thought, surprisingly, is a strange sense of warmth that Flambae didn't walk out on them all there and then. He stood and fought alongside everyone else, Mecha Man included. He had Robert's back more than once-
The thought is rapidly drowned out by the sound of several chairs scraping simultaneously, as every other patron at The Sardine stands up in unison.
"Sorry to interrupt." A young woman raises a polite hand, the thin arm underneath tattooed with a full sleeve of multicolored snakes. "When you said he's 'fucking Mecha Man', did you mean this guy is Mecha Man or this guy is in a sexual relationship with Mecha Man?"
"What?" Flambae looks around, finally noticing that the entire bar is on its feet and staring at them both. "No, he is Mecha Man."
"I see!" The woman beams at Robert, the snakes on her arms coming to life and writhing around her wrists, fangs bared and hissing. "Well hello, Mecha Man. My brother sends his regards from prison."
Other voices follow, echoing around the room. "And my dad!" "And my uncle!" "And my mawmaw!"
"Thanks, 'bae." Robert takes a weary sip of his drink.
"Wait-" Flambae turns in the other direction, taking in the swords and daggers and hammers and claws slowly being extended. "No. Everyone fuck off. This is my-" He gestures between himself and Robert. "We are having a thing."
"So you're fucking Mecha Man?" a nearby meathead asks, scratching his metal helmet in confusion.
"No," Flambae sighs, in a tone Robert might think was strange if he wasn't so distracted by what appears to be his own imminent death. "Not that kind of thing."
"We're not greedy," the young woman with the snakes sneers. "Why can't we all have a thing with Mecha Man?"
"Just to clarify," another voice pipes up from the back of the crowd. "We're not talking about fucking Mecha Man, right? Because I don't want to do that, but I do want to kill hi-"
"Everyone shut up!" Flambae complains. "No one will be killing him except me."
"Are you going to stop us, birthday candle?" Snake woman grins.
To Robert's surprise, Flambae turns his back to him completely and lights both hands with a quiet whoosh.
"Yes, I am. Bitch."
*
Fifteen minutes later, Robert and Flambae burst out of the bar in a cloud of smoke. Robert's clothes are singed through in several places and his face is throbbing. Flambae's lip is bust open and blood pours from a cut on his cheek.
"You have another black eye." He peers closely at Robert's face. "At least they're matching now, I guess. You look kind of like a weak little panda."
"Uh, yeah." Robert glances down at where one of Flambae's arms is hooked under the crook of his knees. He can feel the other wrapped tightly around his back. "Thank you for getting me out of there, but you can, uh- you can put me down now."
"Which makes sense," Flambae continues, unceremoniously dumping Robert on the curb with a displeased huff. "Because pandas are dumb and they are bad at fucking."
"I'm not bad at fucking," Robert mutters, hauling himself up to standing via the dirty brick wall, head still spinning after the punch he took from a guy with two hands for hands.
"Oh yeah? Wanna prove-"
"You're both getting fucked if you don't leave right now." The Sardine's doorman casually flicks his head towards the bar's entrance, where the sound of foot and hoof and pawsteps can be heard thundering up the stairs inside.
"Shit." Flambae looks Robert up and down.
"No, no. I'm fine. I can walk by myself- I don't need you to-" Robert doesn't get a chance to finish protesting before Flambae throws him over one shoulder and starts running.
*
"I'm a bitch, my name's Robert. Such a bitch, whose name is Robert…"
Robert gingerly rubs at his bruised eyes as the few remaining customers at the karaoke bar let out a collective groan.
He knew he was going to regret this.
An hour earlier, Flambae had put him down — marginally more gently this time — right outside his building.
"Thanks," Robert had wheezed, then: "Why is there a hole burned through my lobby door?"
Flambae shrugged. "You weren't answering the buzzer."
"I wasn't here…"
"Yeah. I found that out when I burned a hole through the wall into your apartment too."
Robert had stared at him, but Flambae wouldn't meet his eye, instead kicking a lump of charred door around the sidewalk. Robert sighed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"What is there to talk about? You're Mecha Man, you ruined my life, and you lied to me about it while pretending to be my friend. Couple's therapy session done. I'll take $200 and two fingers, please."
Robert had snorted so loudly it echoed down the empty, lamplit street. "At least buy me a drink first."
To his astonishment, Flambae went completely red. "I didn't mean it like- I meant my fucking fingers that you fucking cut off, you dick. Fuck."
He was beginning to smoke at the hem of his suit, and Robert had raised both hands. "Okay, okay. How about I buy you a drink instead?"
Flambae eyed him suspiciously. "I'd rather suck Sonar's baculum."
"…That's some kind of bat-dick-related term, isn't it?"
"Yeah, he keeps talking about it on shift. It's gross."
"I wasn't pretending, you know?" It wasn't really the right time, mid-bat-dick-fact-chat, but Robert didn't want to let that comment slide. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you who I am, but I wasn't pretending to be your friend. That was real. For me, at least."
Flambae had frozen, eyes flicking between Robert and the road back into the city. Then his shoulders sagged, and he ran a hand through his hair.
"Whatever, man. Don't cry about it in the street like a bitch. Let's at least do this over alcohol. Is there anywhere to drink in your shitty neighborhood?"
Robert had nodded. "I know I'm going to regret this, but there's a karaoke bar just around the corner."
*
"I tell lies, to my friends, who are handsome big strong men. I'm a lying little prick, I do not give a shit-"
At least he's mixing it up this time, Robert thinks as he drains his glass and pours himself another from the bottle on the table. The sweet, peppery liquor burns the back of his throat as much as it warms him from the inside out — some Afghan spirit that Flambae was delighted to spot behind the bar.
"I drive a big machine, to make up for my small peen-"
It's those moments — the childlike joy at spotting an obscure drink from his hometown, not the way he's currently prancing around the stage pretending to be a malfunctioning Mecha suit — that Robert can't help but find weirdly intriguing. There's no way he'd be sitting here right now if he thought Flambae was genuinely anything like the character he portrays. It's become a form of fun, in a way, trying to crack the "Chad" persona to see what's underneath. It's dopamine-inducing. Addictive.
Just like in his suit, an array of warning lights starts flashing on the dashboard of Robert's mind. This is, after all, how it started with Invisigal. Like it was a personal victory that Robert could get close to her when no one else could. Like it made him special somehow. It's got to be some kind of psychological problem on his part.
Yet more warning lights flash at the realization that he just compared Flambae to Visi. Robert toys with the bottle in front of him. What the hell do they put in this stuff?
"You know I wouldn't want it any other way…"
On stage, the song is ending with a dramatic flourish, Flambae tearing his hair loose from its ponytail and whipping it around like a shampoo commercial. Then he takes a series of bows, arching his back in a way that's kind of obscene in that suit. There's a half-hearted smattering of applause, seemingly in relief that it's over.
"Do you feel better now?" Robert asks as Flambae slides into the booth next to him.
"Yes, a little bit."
"Did you need to sing it four times?"
"Did you need to put me in prison and leave me scarred for life?"
"…Touché." Robert holds out his glass and, after a moment's hesitation, Flambae grouchily clinks his own drink against it. "In my defense, you were trying to kill me at the time."
"Nuh uh. You attacked me. I was minding my own business."
"You were burning down a mall-"
"I don't judge what you do for fun!"
"I don't do anything for-" Robert sighs. "You know what? Forget it. I am sorry about your hand. Really."
He's surprised to find that he means it. It's been bugging him for a while, this strange feeling he gets whenever he notices the way Flambae always hides his missing fingers in a clenched fist, like he's self-conscious about them. It took Robert a long time to work out that the feeling was guilt.
"Is that why you told everyone except me?" Flambae asks, watching his drink as he swills it around his glass.
"I didn't tell anyone." Robert shakes his head. "The others just found out. Chase outed me at my housewarming party before you arrived, and then-" He waves a hand. "Shit, fan, etc."
"You could have told me after that." Flambae is still gazing intently at his glass. "I thought everyone was being nicer because we'd become a family, but it turned out they just felt sorry for me because I got my ass kicked by a little bitch in a tin can."
Jesus. Multiple responses scroll through Robert's mind.
I didn't want to get my ass kicked right back.
If I'm such a bitch, how come I won?
We didn't tell Phenomaman either…
In the end, though, he settles on honesty.
"I didn't tell you because I was afraid you'd leave, and I needed you."
Newly regrown eyebrows shoot up at that. "Fuck off."
There's a weird hesitancy in his response, and Robert nods, confused by the reaction. "Honestly. We'd lost Coupe and then Visi by that point, we were already drowning on shifts — Z-Team would have crumbled without you."
"Right," Flambae growls into his glass.
Robert senses he's made a mistake of some kind, though he has no idea how or what. In an attempt to smooth things over, he nudges a giant arm with his elbow. "I was also maybe slightly concerned about being incinerated."
"Psh." Flambae rolls his eyes, but his expression softens. "Not so tough without your tin can, I guess."
"I guess."
There's a pause, and then: "I wouldn't have incinerated you, by the way. I would have been mad but I wouldn't have attacked you or anything."
"Please," Robert scoffs. "You would have roasted me alive-"
"I wouldn't have left you either." Flambae cuts him off. "The team, I mean. I think I fucking proved that today."
"Yeah." Guilt tightens Robert's jaw again. "Yeah, that must have been- Well, thanks for not bailing on us when you found out who I am. Thank you for not bailing on me."
Flambae shrugs. "And let Mecha Bitch steal my spot as the best superhero in the city? Wasn't gonna happen."
He still won't meet Robert's eye, but his voice is low and soft — not his normal, peevish tone at all — and, damn it, there it is again: dopamine.
"Hmm, I don't know if you're the best…"
The tease in Robert's own voice is entirely unintentional, and it seems to surprise Flambae as much as it surprises himself. He does look at Robert for a moment, then, frowning as though he's trying to work something out. Then he tosses his hair.
"C'mon, who the fuck is better than me in this team?" He holds up his right hand and counts down, starting with his thumb. "Depressiomaman? Leakboy? Fuckin'… baculum dick?" He makes a point of looking at his hand with an exaggerated pout. "Oh no. I ran out of fingers…"
"All right, all right." Robert tops up Flambae's glass as well as his own, not doing a great job of hiding his smile. "Fine, you get my guilt vote. I guess you're my best guy."
Flambae raises an eyebrow. "…Yours?"
The bar is refilling now that Bitch has finally stopped playing, and the extra body heat must be cranking up the temperature in the room, because Robert feels hot all of a sudden. Or maybe Flambae gives off heat even when he's not actively on fire. Robert drains his drink, clears his throat, pours another, then pulls his hoodie over his head in annoyance.
When he emerges from the shadows of cheap, navy polyester, he finds Flambae staring at his shirt. Robert glances down; there's a huge blood stain over the SDN logo.
"Ah." He dabs at it. "It's not as bad as it looks. I'm more annoyed about the buttons."
The top three on his shirt must have gotten ripped off in the bar fight, and now the blue cotton hangs uselessly open over his bare chest.
"I think it was that woman with the razor-nails." Robert gingerly inspects the shallow gash over his left pec. "Did you see her? Wild."
Flambae makes a noise that might be affirmative, though it's so high-pitched it's hard to tell. When Robert looks up, he's drinking directly from the bottle.
"Whoa, there. Easy, Chad." A thought occurs to Robert, and he tilts his head. "That is not your real name, is it?"
"What are you saying?" Flambae puts the bottle back down, wiping his mouth. "Of course it is. Chad is obviously a fine, traditional Afghan name from 1987 Herat-"
"All right-"
"I wouldn't lie to you any more than you'd lie to me," he finishes with a smirk.
He looks so smug that Robert can't stop the corners of his own mouth from curling upwards. "Yeah, okay. You got me."
"Ey kash…" Flambae mutters. He takes another swig from the bottle. "You were obviously bullshitting with your little 'I'm just Robert' pep talk that night. I didn't see why I should tell you who I was either. How did you even come up with a fake-ass alias like Robert Robertson anyway?"
"No, that's, uh- that's actually my real name."
"Oh. Shit." Flambae snorts. "Sucks to be you."
"Tell me about it."
There's a lull in the conversation as Flambae starts to say something, then appears to change his mind, instead pulling his hair back into its usual ponytail, the muscles in his neck and shoulders flexing as he tilts his head to reach.
Not for the first time, Robert wonders how he gets his suit to stick to him like that. It's so ridiculously tight. What is it even made of? Robert's eyes run down the thin, red hem that hugs the curve of his chest and every line of his six pack, all the way down to his navel. How does he pee? Robert's gaze travels lower, sucking his lower lip between his teeth in thought as he contemplates touching the material to find out what it is-
"It's Atash, by the way."
"Hm?" Robert croaks, looking away, reaching for his drink to ease the dryness in his mouth. "What?"
"My name, dumbass." Flambae frowns at him. "My real name. Keep up."
"Atash?"
"Yeah. It means 'fire', where I'm from. Fucking imaginative, huh?"
Robert huffs a laugh. "Still a lot better than 'Chad'. You had your powers from birth, then?"
"Yeah, I guess I burst into flames right after my mom had me. That shit's stressful, being born, you know?"
"Must've been a shock for the doctor."
"Right. I didn't-" Flambae — Atash — pauses again, cracks his neck. "I wasn't the best at controlling it when I was a kid. My powers, my temper, whatever."
"I think that's pretty normal," Robert nods. "I've heard a lot of heroes say the same."
Flambae doesn't reply, only shrugging with a non-commital hum.
"Your family still back in Afghanistan?"
"No, my dad brought me here. My mom died when I was small."
"I'm sorry."
"In a fire."
"Oh." The look on Atash's face is terrible, and it takes Robert a moment to catch up. "Oh, fuck."
"Yeah."
"Fuck, I'm sorry."
"Yeah, you said that already."
Robert doesn't know what else he can say. They sit in silence for a minute, sipping their drinks, then Robert holds out his hand. Atash shoots him a sceptical look, rolling his eyes when Robert proffers his hand again. He groans, but accepts the handshake.
"Well, it's nice to finally meet you. Atash."
It might be curiosity, it might be guilt. It might be a weird urge to soothe. For whatever reason, Robert finds himself running the tips of his fingers over the scarred skin where chopped-off digits used to be. Not stroking, exactly. But kind of stroking?
Atash regards him with a burning mix of what looks like alarm, suspicion, fear, and something else Robert is sure he'd be able to pin down if he wasn't chasing tequila with whatever it is they're drinking now. He smiles, and Atash pulls away.
"That's- lame- you're lame." He snatches up his glass with his left hand, the other diving below the table. "That was already lame the first time you did it with the others. Now I'm getting second-hand lame."
Robert snorts again, the tension broken. He's laughing too much, come to think of it. He's definitely starting to feel blurry around the edges.
"Talking of-" He sips his drink to clear his head. Counterproductive, on second thoughts. "Why aren't you out celebrating with them tonight?"
Atash leans back and stretches his left arm out along the top of the leather booth. He's so tall that it's essentially around Robert's shoulders now.
"I had unfinished business with my boss," he shrugs. "But actually, because they went to Crypto, and I'm barred. So I couldn't go. Which is also your fucking fault, by the way."
Robert lets out an exaggerated gasp. "Did you just admit that I'm your boss?"
"No," Atash shoots back. "You're imagining things. How would a weedy normie like you ever become the boss of me?"
"I'm sure I could surprise you."
What the fuck, Robert? He was trying to make a lighthearted joke about his secret identity as Mecha Man, but instead he said it like a fucking dominatrix. Worse, Atash's lips have parted like he is surprised, and maybe it's just the low lighting of the bar, but his eyes almost seem to be glowing…
Robert leans in to get a better look. They are glowing. It's kind of pretty.
Atash leans back in tandem. "What is- what are you doing?"
Does he look nervous?
What am I doing? Robert thinks, but what he says is: "Did you know your eyes glow sometimes?"
"Yes. I know. It's very pretty."
"That's what I was thinking."
"Okay!" Atash stands up so quickly that he almost upsets the table. He knocks Robert's drink out of his hand, sending it smashing across the floor.
"Hey!" Both Robert and a barman yell at the same time, as other patrons scatter to avoid the shattering glass.
"That's enough araq for you. Time to go."
"I don't want to go-"
"You two!" The barman looms over the table. "The hell are you playing at? Get out! And don't come back!"
"Oh noo, am I barred?" Atash shrugs. "I don't give a fuck, this place fucking sucks. What kind of karaoke bar doesn't have Whitney Houston anyway? Have you heard of this new thing called having good taste in music? You should try it sometime-"
He's still bitching as he walks out the door. With a groan, Robert grabs his hoodie and follows.
*
Ten minutes later, the pair stand in front of the giant, scorched hole in the drywall next to Robert's apartment door, where Beef is waiting patiently to greet them, tongue out and tail wagging.
"Next time you want to ask me out on a date-" Robert clambers through, trying not to take any more of the wall with him. "-you can just call, you know?"
"Fuck you."
Something in Atash's tone catches Robert off guard and he glances back just in time to catch a deep frown turn into an eye roll.
"Whatever. Where's your bathroom? I need to piss." Atash marches through the hole in the wall without bothering to duck or sidle, ripping out several more chunks of plaster in the process. "Never mind, I'll find it; your place is embarrassingly tiny."
He disappears down the hallway.
"Come on in," Robert murmurs, with a half-hearted wave of his hand. A cold nose nudges at his leg, and he drops into a crouch to scritch Beef behind the ears.
"Do you know what's happening here, boy?" Robert asks him. "'Cause I sure as hell don't."
Beef has no insight to add. Or, at least, nothing he feels like sharing right now. So Robert stands with a heavy sigh, stretching his aching back before grabbing a beer from the fridge and popping the lid off using the edge of his counter.
After a moment's hesitation, he cracks open a second beer and leaves it on the work surface, in plain view of the corridor. Then he drags his plastic chair out onto the balcony, Beef following at his heel and jumping into his lap when he sits down.
It's still warm out, despite the hour, and Robert's sure the stars must be real beautiful behind the thick haze of smog and smoke from the burnt-out city beyond.
He sips at his beer, trying to ignore the jolt that runs through his chest when he hears footsteps behind him, and the sound of a glass bottle scraping on Formica.
"Why do you have so many fucking lamps?"
Atash walks out onto the balcony, one hand dropping to stroke Beef as he passes, his thumb accidentally grazing Robert's stomach. Robert digs the cold glass of his bottle into his lower lip, pressing it hard into his teeth as Atash leans against the balcony wall, his back to the view.
"Seriously, it's like 8:1 ratio lamps to furniture. What's with that?"
"One of the many questions I ask myself about my life daily."
Atash hums, regarding him thoughtfully.
"Is one of the other questions: 'Did Visi leave me because I own a creepy number of lamps?'?" he asks.
"No," Robert replies coolly. "I know the answer to that one: she left me because I chose my team over her."
Atash seems to mull this over. "I think the lamps probably were a contributing factor-"
"Okay-" Robert stands, putting Beef on the floor. "I'm tired-"
"She knew you were Mecha Man, right?" Atash says quickly. "You told her."
Robert hesitates. "That's another no, actually." With a sigh, he walks over to lean on the low stucco wall. "She spied on me on my first day."
"Ohh, yeah." Atash nods. "We wondered where she got those pictures."
"…Pictures?"
Atash pulls a phone from his suit. Robert is about to ask where the hell it came from when he's presented with a slightly blurry photo of himself, shirtless in an SDN meeting room.
"The fuck?" He grabs the phone, scrolling through several more images of himself in various states of undress, followed by one of Atash in even less, flexing in front of a mirror. "Holy fuck- ah-"
Robert shields his eyes as Atash snatches his phone back.
"Hey, I look pretty good in this one-"
"Was that your phone gallery??"
"Yeah?"
Robert stares at him. "You saved the pictures of me to your gallery?"
"What?! No, I didn't." Atash shoves his phone back into his suit. "They must have downloaded automatically from the group chat..."
"Jesus Christ." Robert leans back on the balcony, chugging his beer.
Of course. Of course, he thought he was having a breakthrough with Visi right at the same time she was cyberbullying him to their colleagues. Could he be any more dense?
"…You guys have a group chat?"
"Yeah," Atash nods. "We didn't invite you because we didn't like you. And then because you were, you know, management."
"Right…"
"What-" Atash scowls. "No. C'mon, I can't be the guy who adds the boss to the group chat. Don't look at me like that, you look like Beef."
Robert wasn't aware he was looking at him like anything, but Atash groans and pulls out his phone again, tapping away at the screen. "Fine! There."
A barrage of vibrations in his pocket makes Robert jump. The group chat name, when he checks his phone, has him shooting Atash a look.
"I came up with it," Atash grins back.
"Of course you did."
Bob-Bob is a Little Bitch Club
Pris
Yoooooooooooo!!!! Look who it is!
Mal
Robboooooooo
Herm
Hey OObert!
*Robet
*damn it Robet
hey boss
Chase
My main man!
R.R.
Chase??
Punch
Well fuck me sideways, how'd he get in here?
R.R.
Chad.
Pris
Shoulda known :p
Sonar
Look what the Chad dragged in
Mal
Wait are you two together right now? Is that why he's not here?
Pris
👀
did he come to the cottage????
R.R.
You guys still at Crypto?
what cottage?
Mal
?
We never went to Crypto
When Robert looks up from his phone, Atash is leaning on the balcony wall again, staring out at the plumes of smoke still rising up at various intervals across the horizon.
"If we didn't have our-" He doesn't look at Robert, but gestures between the two of them. "-history, would you have told us you were Mecha Man that night?"
Robert leans on the wall next to him, feeling the heat of him through the thin material of his shirt. He thinks about the question for a while. "No."
"What? Why not??"
Robert shrugs. "Nothing personal. I just never really told anyone. I guess I don't expect other people to understand the whole secret identity thing."
Atash stares at him in disbelief. "We're a team of fucking superheroes, you idiot. I'm a gay guy who grew up in Afghanistan; I know a little something about secret fucking identities."
Robert stares back. "You're gay?"
If Atash looked incredulous before, it's nothing compared to how he looks now. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, I-"
"I literally told you that."
"What?? When?"
"Over the- with the- the fucking radio at work! A lot of times!"
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to dispatch and listen to you guys talking shit at the same time? I'm not paying attention to, like, 80% of those conversations."
"Oh my god!" Atash turns to look out over the city again, shaking his head. Then he seems to have a realization. "You didn't get my blackout message, either?"
"What message?"
"Fuck…" Atash laughs and swigs his beer. "Unbelievable."
Frowning, Robert pulls out his phone again and opens his messages. He only has one from Atash.
Flambae
Boo.
"I don't get it? When was this? The blackout day?"
"Forget it." Atash puts his empty bottle down. "It doesn't matter."
Bob-Bob is a Little Bitch Club
Sonar
Helloo?
Robert Roberts Robertson the Nineteenth?
Punch
Where'd he go?
Pris
They fightin or fuckin, fr
Herm
Uh guys I don't think we should
Chase
Please stop
Herm
Yeah that ^
R.R.
What did it mean when Flambae texted me 'boo'?
Pris
omfg
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Mal
he sent that to YOU??
R.R.
What does it mean?
Sonar
Golem knows
Golem
I ATE A KEG
Sonar
Oh noo golem is droo tunk to explain.
Wait so am I
Robert gets another notification. A private message from Prism.
Pris
You really didn't know?
He thought you just weren't into it
R.R.
Into what??
Pris
That day there was a blackout
He asked us all what would be a good thing to text a guy
Something stirs in Robert's memory. A tinny conversation half-heard over a headset.
"What's a good line to text a guy in a blackout?"
"I'm looting the Ralph's, you want anything?"
"Oh, 'You always did look hotter in the dark.'"
Pris
and golem said
R.R.
just say 'boo'
Pris
Yeah!
R.R.
Fuck
I thought he meant 'a guy' like
A drug dealer or something
Like 'I know a guy'
Pris
you're so dense
R.R.
Yeah.
Pris
He's had a crush on you for ages
When he realized you were MM today
I thought he was gonna cry
R.R.
cool
anything else you wanna tell me
to make me feel even worse?
Pris
Nah that's all :)
Wait, actually
he was planning to ask you out on a date
and the next day
he found out you went to the movies with Visi
🥲
R.R.
Awesome
Thanks Pris
Pris
Anytime boss 🫡
R.R.
Have a good night
Pris
You too ;)
Robert's phone is still going wild with notifications from the group chat. He catches a glimpse of one that says 'Robbob use a condoooooom' before turning off his phone.
Atash is watching him quietly.
"Hey, were you, uh-" Robert clears his throat. "Were you hitting on me when you sent that message?"
"Fuck no!" Atash splutters. "Don't flatter yourself, Mecha Bi-"
"Atash."
Broad shoulders sag, and orange eyes slide up to the sky. "I don't know." He shrugs self-consciously. "Would you have been into it if I was?"
Robert really wishes he hadn't had so much to drink before having this conversation. His head feels like it's full of white noise. "I was with Visi then…"
"Right." Atash nods, his mouth settling into a hard line. "Good job I was just fucking around then."
He starts to make a break for the balcony door.
"I'm not with Visi now," Robert points out.
Atash stops. He has his back to Robert but his fists are visibly clenched again, his shoulders tight.
"You don't know that," he jests weakly. "She might be here. Sneaky little bi-"
"Atash."
"Okay," he sighs, turning around. "You can't just start first-naming me to get whatever you want-"
Robert steps forward and kisses him, holding his face with both hands, having to stand on tiptoes to reach, which is a complicated feeling he's going to have to figure out later.
Atash's stubble scratches, but his lips are soft and his hair smells like woodsmoke and something sweet and spicy.
It feels good, so when Atash pulls away, eyes searching Robert's in confusion, Robert kisses him again.
This time, a strong arm wraps around his waist, another hand drifting up his spine to cradle the back of his neck and tilt his head, an insistent tongue gently parting his lips.
Robert moans, taking himself by surprise, and he lets his hands slide down Atash's neck to mask his embarrassment, fingers tracing the line of the flame-decorated suit as his eyes did earlier. It kind of feels like Lycra, he notes with some interest. And it doesn't seem to be stuck down…
He pushes his fingertips under the hem of the material, sliding it down over muscular shoulders-
"Fuck," Atash gasps against his lips. "Stop."
Robert stops, moving back so he can get a look at his face. "Sorry-"
"No. It's just- I didn't think you-" Atash's expression is completely dazed. Robert has never seen him look so vulnerable. "I really didn't think you-"
Robert shrugs. "Neither did I, to be fair."
Atash exhales, slumping back against the balcony.
"I'm not a one-night-stand kind of gay, you know," he says defensively.
Robert can't help the doubt that creeps into his response. "...Really?"
"Okay," Atash shrugs. "Yeah. Obviously, I am. I mean, look at me. But, I don't-" His eyes dart around, as though searching for the words in the cold lamplight of Robert's street. "I don't normally give a shit, you know? I haven't ever-" He gestures between them in frustration. "I don't know what this is!"
Robert bites back a smile. "Prism called it a crush."
Atash tuts. "It's not a fucking crush because I'm not a fourteen-year-old girl. But I- I think about you all the time. Not always in a good way; sometimes it's just 'oh Robert's a bitch' or 'Robert sucks' or 'Robert is bad at his job' but it's always Robert, Robert, Robert — fuck! I can't stop looking at those fucking pictures of you, which I did save to my phone, by the way-"
"Yeah, I- I got that."
"And I can't stop thinking about fucking you! Like, every day. At work. You're being a bitch over the radio and I'm literally picturing fucking you while I'm fighting a bad guy or getting a cat out of a tree or whatever. Like, I can see you bent over a-"
"Okay!" Robert raises his hands, swallowing hard. "Well. That is a lot of information to take in in one go."
"Yeah," Atash nods, running a stressed hand through his hair.
"So…" Robert reaches out to grab the hand, pulling it down and holding it between them, letting his fingers curl over scarred knuckles. "How about we just take things slow for now, okay?"
"Okay," Atash nods, though it seems mildly reluctant. He lifts his other hand to Robert's chest, running a finger over the bruised skin exposed by his busted buttons, tracing the line that runs down between his pecs. Then he throws his head back and groans. "Yeah, okay, okay. Slow."
"Slow." Robert nods back, closing his eyes with a smile when he's kissed again. "I mean, it's probably for the best. I don't have a proper bed anyway."
"Seriously?" Atash asks between kisses. "Your place fucking sucks."
"Yeah, I know."
"Let's go to mine next time."
"Yeah, okay."