Chapter Text
In the corner
On my birthday
You watched me
Dancing right there in the grass
“She called herself Invisibitch when she was a villain.”
Robert wasn’t sure that he had ever encountered a villain with that name before—not that curse words weren’t common in villain names or that he could count off everyone that he’s ever fought off the top of his head. Just that it was good to only have one person he put in jail on the team rather than two.
Then again, looking back on his fights. Robert felt like he would remember fighting her before. Invisibility? That was a rather uncommon power to come by naturally. Most people relied more on modifications to allow themselves that kind of cloak of stealth.
Maybe it was better if he couldn’t remember fighting her. Who knows what she could do invisible?
Scratch that, Robert got a bit of an idea of what she could do. She’d already spied on him changing before he had even started his first shift with SDN—and she’d made more sex jokes in one shift than he could ever think of in his entire life. Not to mention the fact that she was already rather egotistical and decided that invisibly punching him was the best idea after a verbal fight.
Get up.
Robert didn’t want to judge. He could already guess what the other dispatchers before him were like from the horror stories alone, and he wasn’t going to act the way that they seemed to have. He knew that the people on the Z-Team have grown up incredibly differently than he had—that was an obviously given fact. Which meant that, also rather obviously, they would react differently to the situations he would react more professionally in. Sure, a punch might not have been the best reaction on the board altogether, and if someone else had been punched in this situation he probably wouldn’t have turned a blind eye. But really, when he thought about it, what was a bloody nose anyway? He’d had way worse done to him before this moment. And, to be fair—in a full, objective view—he had also been yelling at her too. Maybe it was some weird defensive mechanism she hadn’t gotten through yet in therapy. Or some trauma she hadn’t yet figured out how to healthily react to. Robert certainly wasn’t someone able to judge people on that.
And yet—
And yet there was still something off. He wasn’t sure what it was or where it came from. But there was just something off about the way that they interacted. Like the slightest hint of freezer burn on a piece of meat you left in the fridge for too long. Not quite there when you cook it off, certainly not visible, but you can tell that the taste isn’t right. Robert wasn’t even sure where this feeling of off was coming from, the other members of the Z-Team didn’t have that off-ness to them that she did. If he was expecting an off feeling from anyone, it would probably be Flambae. He was still having to turn his eyes around and make sure that the man wasn’t behind him with a fireball in hand, and it was definitely something that Chase had noticed—sure, sue him—but that was more Robert’s issue than Flambae’s issue.
Get up.
He wasn’t sure why his mind was telling him that until he turned his head over to the side. Right, he was still on the ground. His back was still screaming out in pain from the impact of the cold tile, and there was still blood dripping from his nose. That was definitely going to bruise later.
Robert’s body moved before he could exactly order it too. This was a routine he was rather familiar with. A hard punch or a harsh kick thrown that he had to get up from, even when he couldn’t. His father screaming in his ears to move faster when the world felt so heavy on his chest that he feared his lungs would spontaneously collapse altogether. If Robert closed his eyes, he was sure he could transport himself back to his childhood home with his father behind him and his spit hitting the back of his head. Perhaps that was what it was then? Just a bad day for his brain to decide to have a functioning memory. Maybe the off-ness didn’t have anything to do with Invisigal and had just been a projection all along—that would at least explain why his voice seemed to be louder than it usually was in his head.
Whatever it was, it couldn’t stay. It wouldn’t stay. Robert had work to do with his team—a concept he still can’t exactly wrap his mind around yet—and he had other things to do too. Paperwork to fill out and demands to try and push. He really needed to stop wasting time.
He needed to get up.
Chase had noticed that there was something wrong.
He wasn’t sure what it was. Robert was always a really hard fucker to psychoanalyze—like those stupid math books that he had to read for stupid fucking college math classes. Who even thought of something like complex algebra-combined statistics anyways? Whoever did can go fuck themselves into the goddamn sun. Chase was getting off topic.
Robert was acting wrong.
Not entirely wrong. He wasn’t acting wrong in the way that he would if he had done something bad (or at least, what he thought was bad but was actually a perfectly fine and normal thing for a human being to do), but wrong as if he was hiding something. Keeping something a fucking secret. And Chase, after 15 years of not talking to his stupid, punk ass brother, was tired of secrets.
“What is it?” Chase asked him sternly.
“What is what?” Robert had to take his headphones off before he answered. His eyebrows were furrowed in the way that they always did whenever he was a kid. Like when Chase tried to talk to him about music when they first met and Robert didn’t even know what music was.
A sad life that the kid had lived, truly.
But what is what? What is what? “Don’t make me repeat myself fucker, you know what I’m fucking talking about.” Chase pointed, grabbing his bag and following Robert out of the building. Robert walked slower whenever he was walking with Chase, which was something that Chase quite appreciated. He liked spending time with Robert, even when the little shit was being all sad and whatever.
“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, unc.” Robert shrugged his shoulders, a laugh at the end of his sentence. He thought that he was so funny.
“Oh, so we’re joking now.” Chase said. “Listen, I know you know I ain’t good at the whole feelings and shit. But I also know that something’s wrong. So you better get to spilling.”
Robert sighed. “There’s really nothing, Chase—”
“Don’t you bullshit me about nothing now, Robert. You ain’t the only one who goes and represses shit.” he pointed at Robert again. This time, however, he made sure that Robert saw his finger. “Just because your childhood trauma’s as deep as the Pacific Ocean don’t mean that I can’t see through those murky waters. Or whatever other fucking metaphor people come up with.”
Robert laughed. Chase noted, however, that this laugh was rather quiet compared to most laughs. Like he was happy but was trying to hide said happiness. This depressed ass motherfucker needed some medications. And stat. “It’s really nothing, Chase. I guess that it’s just weird to adjust to everything.”
“You better be telling the truth now.” Chase said. He felt as though his finger would lock up soon with how much pointing he’d been doing. “I know where you sleep, and don’t you forget it.”
Robert smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Chase.”
“How’d you get that bloody nose anyway?” Chase asked. His eyes went to the tissue that was still there, the blood having oxidized and changed to a splotchy brown. “And don’t you dare say that the air’s dry in here because I know for a fact you ain’t got no fucking sensitivy to that shit.”
Robert shrugged. “Invisigal.”
“Fucker. She punch you or something?”
“Just an argument,” he said, making his way down the last step. “Nothing more than that.”
Chase felt his eyebrows furrowing. “If you need me to, I’ll kill her for you.”
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near that territory yet.” Robert laughed as they made their way outside. Most of everyone had gone home already. Of course the two lonely fuckers that would be there at work the fucking longest would be him and Robert.
Chase tilted his head to the side. “What, you heading there then? Do I need to plan an obituary?"
“Like you’d do that.” Robert rolled his eyes. “I promise, it’s fine. Just trust me.”
“Trust you like I trusted you to keep in contact with me when you started out as Mecha Man?” Chase asked him seriously. It was a low blow, he knew it was a low blow, but there wasn’t anything that seemed right about this situation. Maybe the low blow was something that was needed. “Your father did a real fucking good job at convincing you you don’t deserve fucking shit. I can’t even trust you to eat a full fucking burrito on a good day. How the fuck am I meant to trust you on something big like this?”
Robert only smiled back. “Just trust me.”