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Being a hero hurts other people. Robert knows this better than most.
He remembers the first time it happens, the rest blur together after that, but the first time, it’s his father. Dad’s stressed, Dad’s hurt, and he knows instinctively he’s done nothing “wrong”, but that doesn’t stop Dad from seeing it that way. He’s not old enough to grasp that it’s not something he’s done but the set of circumstances Dad comes home to, that make him act like that. He doesn’t know much else.
He doesn’t know why Dad acts like that, at the end of the day. Why his voice raises over minor things, why he treats not getting the laundry done and folded and put away like the end of the world, why Dad getting angry scares him so much. He doesn’t know why Dad yells at him, tells him he's disappointed because he knows Robert will never be the man he wants him to be.
He knows Robert will never be prepared in the way he needs to be and Dad would know, he went through it. He doesn’t know why Dad thinks like this, and it hurts, but it’s life. Dad would tell him to get up and keep moving because that’s what heroes do.
So that’s what he does.
It’s the way he sees Dad talk to graves, to flags, to the sky, more often than him. He asks Chase about it once and gets told to not bring it up to Dad. It’d embarrass him. It’s those few times that he sees Dad let his anger fizzle away to something solemn, something cold and gut wrenching; it’s the way he sees crystals glimmer in the light as they fall smoothly down his father’s face. It’s the few times his hands wrap themselves around each other and his father begs for mercy.
Dad’s never been religious.
It’s not until after Dad dies, does he understand why Dad always acted that way.
It’s not until after the first time he takes a life, does he understand why Dad had a right to act that way.
It’s miniscule, a bad man is dead. A man who’s done nothing but lie, cheat, and steal his way through the rankings is dead. A man who’s the ringleader of a quarter of the crime in the city, is dead.
He should feel happy, he can’t hurt anyone else anymore, he can’t use his powers for evil. He can’t corrupt another kid and bring them into his fold. It’s objectively a good thing. He doesn’t feel good.
He knows that a bad man will never have the chance to become a good man now, to undo the hurt he’s caused. That hurts more than he wants to give it credit for. To never atone.
It’s now, in the depths of a basement with gore splattered around the mech — it’s not on his hands, it won’t ever be, this is as impersonal as it gets — does he understand why Dad talked to the sky, to flags, and to stones in desolate fields.
He’s investigated and ultimately let go. No one wants to see Mecha Man in jail, no one wants to see a hero go down for a murder. It’s open and closed, there’s never even a full investigation team set in place.
It feels wrong.
No one wants to see Mecha Man in jail, and no one wants to approach the fact that Mecha Man is a kid playing his father’s part. No one wants to approach the fact that if Astral was here instead, this would’ve never happened.
Robert knows all of this, he knows that if Dad was here, he would’ve been able to talk the man down, he would’ve been able to keep people alive, and a man wouldn’t be dead right now — his blood dribbling on the ground and oozing from the crevices of the mech.
He goes home that day, back to the house and decides it’s time to sell it. Damn the housing market, he’s not going to wait for it to go up. He wants this house out of his name, he wants to never see it again. He wants to not walk into the garage and smell the thick encompassing iron tinge of blood. He can’t do this.
It’s only a brief thought that’s quickly overshadowed by Dad’s mantra. Dad only went down because he was forced down. He didn’t give up. Robert doesn’t have the choice to give up.
He scrubs the mech for hours. He scrubs concrete in the garage for hours. He scrubs his hands and the grime stuck under his finger nails for longer.
Not for the first time in his life does he envy Flambae.
The man has damn near everything he lacks, but more so the fact that aside from a case or two of assault, and several counts of arson (naturally), his criminal career lacks one of the few things that tarnishes Robert’s soul.
He’s never killed a man, that’s a good thing. He also has a power that would enable him to do that the easiest of nearly any member on the team, sans Coupe.
He doesn’t know how they take lives with ease, how it’s something they can move past, something they don’t spend hours deliberating over singeing their hands off. He’s a hero, sure, but he’s not a good one. He’s never been good.
He feels righteous jealousy seep into his skin, it funnels through his veins as he tries to reconcile the man he knows – this flawed, haughty, and self-centered man – into one that works with his ideas of who Flambae is and what a hero is.
It doesn’t work, it never does – but he can push it to the back of his mind for long enough to ignore it. For now.
When his hands wrap Shroud’s neck it’s everything he’s wanted since he was 16. It’s nothing he wants at the same time. Shroud is not Elliot in the way that the ship is no longer Theseus’. He’s something else now, he hasn’t been Elliot for a long time. It’s alright that the air is being taken from his lungs, that he struggles under Robert’s hands, it is righteous.
Is it what Dad would’ve wanted?
His hands are coated with blood. Again, not his own, it rarely is these days. They smell of iron, gore, grime, and everything he never wants to smell. They’re rotted and they’re attached to him.
Shroud struggles. Of course he would, it’s only natural for a dying man to try and escape his fate. Robert has the blood of far better men on his hands already, adding Shroud to the lot is only a hard decision because it isn’t made in the heat of the moment. He’s dreamed of the day that Shroud is no longer his issue, of the day that he’s avenged his father, of the day that Dad might possibly be proud of him.
He doesn’t think Dad would be proud of this. He doesn’t think he’s proud of this.
It’s the aftermath that does him in. It’s the sweat that coats his back when he wakes up, a yelp ripping itself from his lips. He understands why Dad talked to the sky, he does it some days, when he feels alone. He asks Elliot for help on days he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t help but feel he’s ridded the world of evil and brought it all into himself instead.
He hopes everyone around him can’t smell it on him the same way they did Elliot.
Plenty of heroes have killed their nemesis. Plenty of heroes have left them to rot in jail cells too. He tried that – it didn’t work. What other alternative was there?
He understands, in that moment, why Dad turned to religion when there was nothing else to keep him from grief. It’s not something that can be explained, at least, not well. When Dad made mistakes he knew how to deal with them. Robert doesn’t know how to do a thing. He turns to religion in only the way unpracticed hands can plead for recompense. It’s a shout into nothing and he knows it.
He’s been sent out several times since Shroud as Mecha Man. Not as Robert the dispatcher for Z-Team, but as Mecha Man, on Blazer’s request. He works with the Z-Team – tentatively – when he’s out. He’s never been a team player. He stays on comms with them, quipping back every so often, but more often than not, he’s sent on calls alone.
This is one of those times.
There’s been a break in at a bank, a hostage situation. The cops, and Blazer for that matter, are convinced this can, and should be handled by one man on the ground. They’re also quite convinced that the man with the most armour, is likely the best one for the job. This is stellar, he decides amid a sea of reporters and the grating buzz clamour as he works his way to the front. It’s quite easy, considering the size of the mech. Most people tend to move when they hear the equivalent of a freight train at their backs.
Getting into the building isn’t the hard part. It’s the coordination between himself, the hostage negotiators, and the hostage takers. That and the entire getting out alive portion. It seems to be worth something to the authorities.
The door pushes open and closes nearly silently. It blocks most of the sound coming from the outside of the building. It feels too quiet, there’s not a sob, or a gasp. There’s some distant shuffling and nothing more. It rivals church mice.
“I just want to talk, it’d be nice of you to help me out here.”
A man, clad in what looks to be the worst right-wing extremist cosplay he’s seen in years (and that’s saying something), yanks a woman around the right corner, a pistol buried to the side of her temple and a semi-auto on the man's back. He looks like he’s holding her full weight with the way she sags around the corner. It makes his stomach twist.
“Listen, you don’t need to hurt anyone. We both want the same things, yeah?”
“Yeah right, dickwad.” A voice from the left emerges.
This man is similarly dressed but he’s opted for skeleton gloves and a plain balaclava as opposed to the man who is donning nearly a full kit decorated in skeletons. He wonders, distantly, if they stopped at Spirit Halloween for that last year, or if they caught a reseller right before this.
It doesn’t matter. He shifts his conversation to what looks like the leader. He’s pretentious but only in mannerisms. Everything else about him looks like a run-of-the-mill villain.
“I don’t want those people dead. I doubt you want to kill them, or you’d have done it already.”
“You don’t know what I want. I’ll tell you what I want and this is how it’s gonna happen.”
“You’re gonna let us outta here. We’re gonna take what we want, we’re gonna get away scot-free, and you can have your pretty little lady back. How’s that?”
He takes a step forward and the pistol is jammed further into her temple. Anxious. Jumpy. Dangerous.
“Alright, I get it. Let me tell my team, okay? We’ll see what we can do.”
He sits in his mech for a moment before opening his comms to the full force of whatever is happening outside. He’s turned the external mic off, so they can’t hear the questions he’s asking the cops and negotiators.
His exchange with the cops drags. They want to take them down because these jackasses got some of their guys. The negotiators believe a civil understanding can be worked out. The two go at each other's throats while Robert waits for his time to give the information he has and for them to come up with a plan that surpasses subpar.
The ruckus of comms in front pounds away in his head and he’s sure he’ll wind up with an incredible headache when this is all said and done. Distantly, he hears frazzled whisperings blabbering about in his ear and every so often a guy who has no idea how a microphone gets on and blasts everyone out. There’s a conversation going on in front of him, physically. He’s too occupied with trying to figure out what everyone outside wants him to do to fully tune in.
When the shot rings out – he should’ve known he should’ve done something he’s – he feels the blood drain from his face, and hands, and feet. All of a sudden he’s not focused on the chucklefucks getting away. He’s focused on the woman laying still on the ground, blood pooling around her, getting in her platinum hair as it cascades around her head.
It’s the way she reminds him of the people he’s mutilated. Who he’s torn apart and left to rot.
In a moment, he’s by the woman. The mech’s too big to be gentle with her so he steps out, he saw the guys run off already. He’s not worried about himself at any rate. He’s standing over her body, his eyes glazed over, trying to figure out if he’s let another down. Her blood coats the bottom of his boots when he distantly recognizes the faint rise and fall of her chest.
Thank Christ.
He’s knelt down to inspect further, give her any of the help he can. The criminals, apparently, have superbly shit aim, and she’s the luckiest woman he knows. The bullet’s managed to graze her shoulder as opposed to anything particularly vital. He’s never felt more relieved.
Around the corner, there’s a gaggle of people, some bound and unmoving, some slumped over. He hopes they’re all alive as the paramedics rush in and take over. He guesses there was some sort of chemical agent no one had bothered to tell him about.
The goons get a quarter of the way down the next block before they’re met with the rest of Z-Team.
It’s only when he finds himself scrubbing relentlessly at his hands in the SDN bathroom, does it click that maybe he has a problem. It’s months after Shroud’s death and he can’t help but feel that any bit of grit under his fingers might be Shroud. He washes them when there’s grim under his nails, he washes them when they smell a little too much like blood.
Every reminder of a man he used to grace with an honorific makes the blood leave his hands and his head go numb. He needs to get over himself, he needs to push on, like Dad taught him to. These days he finds he circles back to Dad’s doctrine more often than he ought.
He’s started snapping at the Z-Team during their shifts, mistakes are dangerous. He doesn’t want them to deal with the penalties of an innocent man’s blood on their hands. They’re heroes, they’ve turned a new leaf. That is not the way to begin a career as a super hero. They’ve already been tarnished by the way he acted about Shroud, they don’t need another bad example.
This time it’s not like the usual missions he’s sent on.
They’ll need finesse and a plan to pull this one off. He’s enlisted the help of Sonar, Malevola and Coupé, much to her chagrin. Sonar can hear into the warehouse they’re supposed to be infiltrating, Coupé can find her way in through some entry none of them are going to be able to fit through.
The building itself is deeply reminiscent of the Llewyen Steelworks. He hates it. The others have no idea what's going through his head with his face hidden beneath a mask. His mech is running on low power a few blocks away, ready to be called when he needs it.
They linger outside while Coupé and Sonar try to collect as much information as they can. Mecha Man isn’t fantastic at stealth operations and Malevola’s entire schtick is about as loud as he is. They linger on the side, waiting, albeit with only a modicum of patience, for the call to move in.
“So,” Malevola starts, leaning in a little, “Robert… Mecha Man… what am I even supposed to call you when you’re dressed like this?”
“I don’t care.” She’s trying to bring the mood up, he knows she is.
He can’t find it in himself to entertain it today.
“Alright well, you’d care if I called you Rob-”
They get a glare from Sonar and Malevola decides they don’t need to talk that badly anyway.
It’s a tense game, this entire waiting thing. When the call comes from Coupé, something about shifts changing, they know it’s time to move in. The sooner they get in, the sooner they can get out and the less Robert has to think about this entire thing.
The trek through the facility is less arduous than Shroud’s was. This guy hasn’t accumulated an army of goons to do his bidding, just a few key players he keeps at arms length that do his dirty work.
The factory is much colder than it has any right to be. He doubts the place has an HVAC system, so either the weather in Torrance has finally decided to get cold this year, or the crook they’re dealing with has powers that are vying toward making Torrance a new city in Antarctica.
The mission goes south, as all things do.
His first inklings of something being wrong is when the gears in his mech start to grate against each other. The next is when the mech struggles to take another step forward. His last warning is standing in front of a man with a little boy’s neck buried in his palm.
The kid is frozen blue. His eyes are glazed over, staring somewhere into the ceiling. His neck is purple, swollen, and turning black in a handprint shape wrung around it. There’s ice crusted into his eyelashes and brows.
This is a hideous place to die.
The man drops the kid and his limbs fall at all the wrong angles.
“Aw, come on? Aren’t ya gonna get up?”
There’s this wicked look that crosses the man’s face, one of pity to the child he’s murdered, one of mockery toward the sanctity of life. The kid’s eyes are glazed over and he feels like they’re staring at him, into him, like they know the hell he brings with his fists.
He doesn’t remember much after that, but he does recall coming back to himself fighting off hands pulling him back and being pinned down. There’s a chill that seeps into his core and lingers.
“Bob– Robert! Uhhh… Bobby-Boy? Hey!”
“What the hell?” It’s a croak at the back of his throat through bleary eyes and a racing heart.
“Oh you’re back.” Sonar flips back to the nonchalant tone he’s used to.
It’s in this moment he recognizes the faces staring down at him. Malevola’s holding his hands down – they feel numb at best and absolutely scalding at worst – Sonar’s sitting on his legs, and Coupé is staring down at him.
“I’d like to get this done with so I can figure out who Princess Vivienne chooses to marry.” She flips a knife between her fingers with the same practiced ease she always does.
It’s the same brand of insanity that greets him every day at work. It’s so far distant from everything he used to be as Mecha Man. It nearly makes him forget the bits of brain matter that cake his fingers, stilled and silent in Malevola’s hands. The blood on them is frozen.
“Y’cooled out yet?” Malevola’s tone is incriminating.
It oozes with compassion – concern, even – that’s unbecoming, it’s unfit for him.
“Uh. Sure.” It’s something distant from himself, like it’s coming out of the mouth of another person entirely.
He’s not sure why he’s here, and the lump building in his gut continues to churn, he couldn’t stop the guy and it–
It doesn’t matter anyway.
“‘Kay ‘cause I’m gonna let go of y’now.”
He nods, as much as he can with his chest to the floor and in a rather compromised position. He’s really got to narrow down how he ended up here and if he needs to write a report about this. Distantly he sees a man face with his face caved in, gore splattered around. He really hopes that wasn’t him.
The journey back to base is tense and filled mostly with Sonar and Malevola ribbing each other the entire time. Coupé is silent, but observes in the same way she always does. There’s always this look about her, he’s sure she’s judging his every move.
It’s fine.
He hasn’t spared another glance at his hands, slathered in blood he’s well aware isn’t his own. He’ll handle it later, when it’s safe, like he always does.
He does have to write a report about it, and explain himself, and the mess along his suit. That’s going to be a bitch to get stains out of. He’s at his desk, several days post when the dispatcher reports finally start hitting his desk about the shit show that mission was. He’s yet to write his report, to submit it and confess whatever he ought to confess to Blazer – and whoever her boss is.
He can’t tell if he hesitates to write it because he doesn’t want to remember what happened, or if he can’t remember what happened. He starts the report in overly technical jargon, things they want to hear and things they should be seeing. He can stretch the truth a bit and assume on most of it.
It’s only when his report, and Malevola’s (and Coupé’s, and Sonar’s) hit Blazer’s desk does she realise something’s gone awfully wrong in this process.
He gets pulled into her office at the end of the day – alone – and it reminds him distantly of being pulled aside at Dad’s big events and scolded, or the silent drive home filled with the stench of disapproval. He’s got that familiar sinking feeling and knot in his throat that makes it hard to speak.
“So, Robert. I assume you know what we’re here to discuss?”
“Not a clue.”
“Alright, well. Uh,” Blazer’s steepled her hands in front of her – it’s horribly formal – unfitting to their typical interactions, “You had some difficulties on the last mission we sent you on.”
“Okay.”
“And the one before that – but mostly the last one.” Blazer’s talking with her hands now, the way she does when she’s dancing around what she really wants to say.
“See, we can’t continue to have accidents like this. Subscribers call us for help and they aren’t super fond of leaving the interaction partly scarred, regardless of the stakes.”
“The Downtown Branch is… considering rolling back the initiatives to keep Mecha Man running.”
His face must pull into some odd shape because Blazer goes from looking relieved she no longer is facing the beast that is telling him that, and pans to this pinched, concerned look.
“Now, nothing is set in stone yet, but I feel you should know what they’re doing. We need to get your performance up, Robert.”
“You can still keep your job as a dispatcher, but they think other heroes need the time and money you’re getting right now...”
She’s pointedly not making eye contact with him anymore, something straight over his head is decidedly much more interesting than he is.
“I see.” He nods, though he’s feeling more like he’s haunting his body and he doesn’t know how he keeps pushing words out of his mouth.
“We have services that can help you, Robert.” Blazer’s tone, her eyes, swap to pity, to consoling him at the drop of a dime. She’s back to looking at him. He’s never hated anything more.
“Things that’ll help you get better, mentally and physically.”
He’s silent.
“If you’re interested, of course.”
She starts to organize (or reorganize, redirect, something) the papers on her desk and pulls out a couple of pamphlets. They droop in her hand as she reaches them out toward him.
“Think about it, yeah?”
He nods, curtly.
The pamphlets drop on her desk when he walks out.
Chase meets him outside of Blazer’s office. Beef is cradled in his arms like the good dog he is.
“So, a meeting with Blazer, huh?”
Chase bumps against his shoulder. It’s friendly, it’s playful. He feels none of it.
“You know it.” The lump is still there, it’s persistent – it’s something he fears is never going to go away.
They start a gentle meander down the hallways.
“Y’got any beans to spill, kid?” Chase is trying to make eye contact with him.
Robert’s decided the floor is more interesting, but he’s not above goading Chase. It’s part of their back and forth, it’s the only thing that feels normal nowadays.
“Jesus, you talk like you came straight out of the 50’s. You sure you’re not?”
He’s looking back up at Chase, a tentative sort of look drawn across his face.
“Alright jackass, I was tryin’ to check up on you.”
Now that’s not normal. Maybe when he was a kid it was, but it’s far from what he’s done recently.
“So you knew?”
“Not all of it, but Blazer told me to look out for you.”
“So what do you know?”
They’ve paused their walk back to the bullpen. Sunlight in thick orange waves is cascading through the shitty blinds at Chase’s back. It makes him hard to see, but all Robert is worried about is the warmth it brings to his clammy skin.
“She told me you were getting some bad news, I don’t know what that news was, or why it might be important.”
“Could be.”
“Alright fucker, quit beating around the fuckin’ bush.”
The air in the hallway’s gone deathly still. It sends chills up his spine and reminds him all at once how much he hates this conversation.
“What’s going on?” Chase’s tone is pleading, it’s a different brand of pity from Blazer’s.
It’s familial. It’s less condescending than he wants to label it as.
The words drag themselves up to his chagrin, it’s impossible to say anything he wants to say and everything he does say comes out more jumbled than he wants it to be. Chase deserves an answer for all the shit he’s put up with.
“I, well –” He’s grasping for words here, “Let me start that again.” There’s something pulsing in his chest, it races through his ears and - “Downtown is thinking about cutting Mecha Man.”
His chest doesn’t feel any lighter now that someone else knows about the weight pushing down on it. In fact, it feels worse. It’s worse now that Chase knows, now that he can worry and poke and prod about it.
“Shit kid.” It’s a kneejerk reaction, it’s written all over his face.
“Guess being a corporate hero has its drawbacks?”
He’s trying to make light of the situation, for Chase’s sake, not his own. He doesn’t need to be shielded from his own shitty actions, but Chase doesn’t need to be hurt by them.
“Just… shut up for a second.” Chase looks more taken aback by the statement then he feels.
He knows that’ll change the second he steps foot into his apartment, but the less he thinks about that the better.
“They’re really thinkin’ about taking Mecha Man out of the picture?”
“Sounded like it.”
“So what are you gonna do about it?”
“What’s there to do?”
Beef’s sitting under Robert’s desk as shoves things into his bag, hastily. He’s not thrilled to go home but he knows being out anywhere right now is a liability. He’s a liability.
He’s not willing to take that risk. So he’ll pack up calmly, turn the radio off in his shitty beater when the only thing the stations are playing is ads, park in the spot he paid for at his apartment, and do nothing until he can figure out how to root out what’s wrong with him. Why he’s not like Dad. Why he can’t figure it out in the same way that the rest of the Z-Team has. Why he continuously seems to make things worse.
That’s the plan right now, at least.
He finds Waterboy in the parking lot, struggling with his car keys. Apparently his suit doesn’t do wonders for holding keys, or phones, or anything slightly adjacent to things typically reserved for pockets.
“Hey kid.”
“Rob- Mech… Sir!”
“Just Robert is fine, Waterboy.”
“Al-alright, Si - …Robert.”
“See you’re doing it already.” He lets a brief smile tug at his cheeks.
“So, you’re not busy putting in the midnight oil tonight?”
“Oh! Yes… No. I - my uh, my grandma see, she.. I’ve gotta... I’m her caretaker.”
It’s a struggle talking to the kid, but he needs it.
“How noble.”
“I’ve gotta help her trim… Her uh- the, um.”
“Hair?”
“Nails. I have to help her with.. To do it, uh - That. Tonight. I could uh. Her hair. Do her hair too.”
“Sounds… um, interesting.”
The drive home is uneventful. He ends up switching off the radio after one song and about 5 minutes of ad break. The silence is deafening and not for the first time today does he wish he wasn’t in his body. That it was someone else dealing with the thoughts he chokes on every time his brain decides to send another signal somewhere.
They wouldn’t deserve it, so he quickly banishes the thought. It’s something that comes innately to Waterboy, and something he only pretends to have. Chase claims to have always seen it in him – the good. It’s something Dad always said he could tell if someone had or not. Chase had made the cut, Elliot was somewhere off in the weeds.
He feels more akin to Elliot most days. Dad would hate him for it.
It’s in the comfort of his apartment that he feeds Beef and sees the grime under his nails, the sour smell on the back of them.
It’s here, where he recalls beating a man to death.
He remembers his fists dripping, the sick crunch under his hands, the pull of skin tearing apart under his hands. He’s drawing breaths in as if they’re the last thing he has. It’s like a wild animal – it’s something crawling out of his chest. The man, sick and pleading under his hands. The vindictive streak in him that tells him to keep going when he’s down, when he’ll stay down.
Death is a finale. Death makes sure he can’t do this to another kid, that he can’t hurt anyone anymore.
He flips the tap on.
The soap is cheap and caustic, it burns his hands from the number of times he’s done this recently. He scrubs and washes it off, and then pumps the dispenser twice before scrubbing again. It’s a habit, it goes until he feels clean, until it’s right again. The skin over his knuckles is cracked and bruised still, and his hands reek of that sickly iron scent he’s run from for years.
He loses track of time, digging into his palms and at the tips of his fingers and dragging down. He’s peeling into his cuticles and letting the dirt wash off. He’s letting blood run down the drain, what he can and can’t see. He feels sick, he doesn’t know why they keep him around. There’s a tightness in his chest and his head swims. It’s numb, he’s numb. He’s fighting to keep his hands busy, to keep them under the water. He feels like he’s falling, but he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs and –
At some point he ends up on the floor, uniform sullied with water and tinges of red. He’s supposed to save lives not take them; he’s supposed to help people, not ruin them. The reminder brings acid to the corners of his mouth before it’s willed away, swallowed and forgotten. He feels exhausted and the only thing keeping his upper half upright is the fact that the ground would hurt his back more. He’s not entirely sure he deserves the luxury of keeping himself upright.
He’s pressed his back against the cabinet door underneath his sink, it clanks against the inside, in all of its flimsy, particle board, glory. He wants to bury himself six feet under. He wants to have nothing touch him again. He doesn’t know what he wants so he resigns himself to not pushing his back into the cabinet so hard that it breaks and opts for the corner of the kitchen instead.
It’s hardly more comfortable.
It’s the familiar rip and red glow of one of Malevola’s portal’s that pulls him from zoning off, from glaring at Beef who lounges peacefully around the edge of the counter. The blinding orange of the sunset that was there when he got home has steadily been replaced by a thin, blue moon staring down and streaming through his blind-less balcony door. The moon and the street lights that popped on some time ago.
“Hello?”
He hears an array of footsteps and tries to mentally brace himself for whatever the hell Z-Team is planning on. Beef’s dragged from the depths of sleep at the prospect of attention.
“Even if I didn’t mind you being here, you know this is still a B&E?” He blinks bearily up at the figures standing around the entrance to his apartment.
“Buzzkill.” Visi ribs, giving him a singular look over before deciding it’s not worth it and hopping onto the couch.
“Shhhit man. You look awful.” Golem’s managed to make his way into his apartment and lumbered into a corner.
He’s tall enough to see Robert buried into the side of the counter, at any rate.
“So this is why you weren’t answering your phone?”
“No, it's probably just dead.”
“Oh. Shit. Well, either way, we got food. You want some orrr…?” Prism is holding at least four bags of Chinese takeout from the good place he never wants to pay the delivery fee for.
“I, uh, yeah sure. Just let me…” He shimmies his way up the counter, using his elbows and back of his wrists as opposed to his hands. It’s not something missed on them.
“Sure thing, Bobster.” Oh joy. Sonar’s found his way in too.
He hopes that’s it from them as he pads into the bedroom to grab a shirt that doesn’t make him feel gross.
There’s faint conversations outside of the room, a vast difference from how they acted at his housewarming party.
He reenters his apartment, dressed in his hoodie and his shoes are finally discarded somewhere among the mess in the room. He’s patched his hands up as well as he can, they still ooze in the creases of his knuckles and down his palm. The hard things to bandage well. He opts to shove them in his pockets and ignore it.
They’ve all welcomed themselves to drinks from his fridge (fantastic), and are standing around with a mix of boxes and plates in hand. Prism’s holding Beef, he’s basking in the attention she’s giving him.
It feels domestic. It feels wrong.
“So, is breaking in a new or old hobby?”
Visi’s the first one to pipe up, “Old, but who knows? It could make it come back.” She’s mid twirl of what he assumes is lo mein.
“Great. I have a front door, you all know that. Right?” He deadpans at the sight.
It’s not entirely unwanted, but he’d been more apt to wallow in his sorrows and ignore everyone until his next shift. That, it seems, would not be happening tonight.
“Yeah, but it’s more fun this way.”
“God dammit. What the hell is going on?”
“What, we can’t visit a friend?”
“Uninvited?”
“Listen Bobert, we were uh –” Sonar starts, but Coupé cuts him off, “We were concerned.”
“Concerned?”
“Yeah. Concerned, Robert. The only thing you’ve got in your fridge is a half decimated pack of beers.” Sonar picks up.
“I’ve got ranch.”
“You need a salad to eat ranch, man. I don’t see anything for a salad.” Golem, who’s spared a glance at the fridge from his spot across the room, contributes.
“Ranch can go on more things…” It’s a plea to get off of this topic, to change the subject and they –
“Listen, we’re worried.” Malevola cuts in now, it’s got that grating, pitying undertone to it.
“Oh God, you’re concerned and worried now. It just gets better!”
“Is no one going to say it?” Visi’s paused, her fork is waving in the air as she desperately looks around for some kind of support.
“Fine. Dude, dammit. Chase told us to keep an eye on you, and then you didn’t answer your phone and –” Sonar fills in for her.
“Well I’m fine.” He cuts in, it’s a brick wall of an answer.
“Pfft, yeah fuckin’ right,” Sonar jeers.
There’s a few scoffs that echo around the room, it’s an intense stare, and a losing battle.
“No amount of shoving your hands in your pockets is gonna keep us from the way they look chewed down to the bone. Your fuckin’ uniform had blood on it man. What the hell’s up with you?”
He lets a beat pass between himself and the team. It’s tense and cold. It reminds him of standing in a garage, watching over his father’s shoulder. It reminds him of the sick metallic twinge that’s been a companion for as long as he can remember. It reminds him of being yelled at for being too loud, and the sick sinking feeling that accompanies.
He lets a sign tumble through his lips, it’s more involuntary than he wants to give it credit for, “Okay, fuck it.”
He’s plopped on his couch, the same one they brought him. It’s got that gaudy flower pattern on it, the same type you find in the foyers of church buildings. It’s clearly been through a thing or two, but it’s more comfortable than the floor – or his chair – so he’ll give it that. Someone’s shoved a plate of food in his hands and they’re all looking at him now.
“I’m sure you guys are well aware of what happened on last week’s mission. What I…” His sentence fizzles out, it dies on his tongue before he can force them up.
“Point is, Downtown is thinking about pulling the Mecha Man initiative.”
He takes a second to pause, to look around, and is met with tense stares and glances around the room. They’re saying nothing. It’s worse than before he spoke, which is saying something.
“Says they’re ‘diverting resources’, but I’m pretty sure it’s because of my… actions.”
“To be honest, I think it’s the right call. I… lost it. Snapped. I don’t think I’m safe. And that coming from my mouth is probably…” he lets out a chuckle, but it’s more forced air from his lungs than anything else.
There’s no humor in what he’s saying.
“Well, if I’m saying that…” He lets it trail off at the end.
“Mecha Man is supposed to be a bastion of defense. He’s not supposed to hurt – to kill.”
“This isn’t what heroes do and I…”
He lets the sentence trail off, to fall flat, to let the team come to the conclusions they need about him. It’s hard to breathe in and it’s impossible to force any more words out and every glance at his hands reminds him of how twisted and perverted his actions are. How he gets away with them. How they stain everything he touches and he’s horrified he’ll do it to the Z-Team too.
The plate in his hands feels too heavy. His hand falters and someone snags the plate before it can drop. It’s placed on the ground, and Beef, once he escapes Prism’s grasp, will undoubtedly get into it.
“That’s uh. That’s heavier than I wanted to get into.”
“Shite yeah, but –” Punch-Up probes, but Robert is quick to shut it down.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” He’s clamming back up, it’s icy as he tries to find a way to curl himself into the back of the couch.
“But we should.” Coupé counters.
“It’s not – please.”
“Do you think we haven’t hurt people at SDN, Robert?” Visi challenges, flatly.
“Well yeah, but it’s –”
“By your logic all of us are incapable of being heroes, right? Incapable of doing good?”
“Now that’s not what I’m saying I –”
“Shut up.” There’s force behind it, it lingers through the room before Visi starts up again.
“You’ve got a legacy, sure, you have expectations, the media, notoriety, even. Have you ever stopped to consider what it might’ve been like to get into this without any of that?”
It’s tense, he seldom has time to process what she’s said before she starts adds.
“You can speak.”
He settles for a stiff nod.
It’s solemn, it carries the mantle he’s hoisted for years. The type riddled with shortcomings and the presumptions of a martyr. A man who’ll never be his father, a man who can still make mistakes.
“Fine. Whatever.” It’s accompanied by a hand flourish, and now she’s speaking with her hands, box of food abandoned on Golem’s head.
“What I’m getting at here is we all pay for the mistakes we make.”
She takes a breath in and lets it sit.
“Some are bigger than others, some are smaller. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we learn from them and find a way to not make those mistakes again.”
“You can find a way to not do this again. To keep this off your mind, or at least sort through it better than you are right now.” She gestures vaguely at him.
“There’s a way out of this, Robert. We’re all walking proof of it.”
It’s a cool rush down his back, the weight that’s been stuck in his throat, across his chest, in his head this entire time. It drops. For the first time in a long while, it’s not drowning. There’s a life preserver in front of him – it’s just a matter of hanging on now.
He lets out an airy chuckle – this time it really is, “I thought I was supposed to be the pep talk guy.”
“You did your job pretty damn well, Bob-Man. I’m a changed dude.”
The night takes a lighter tone after this. It still weighs on his chest, there’s no doubt on that, but there’s something else holding it up this time. It’s not suffocating him right now. It’s not that he feels clean – no, that’ll take time – but it’s lessened, like a mark across his soul is being patched. It’s something akin to a wound being stuffed – it’ll stop the bleeding but it still needs to be worked on.
He’ll get there, in time.
When they pack up and leave for the night he finds the flyers Blazer tried to hand him in her office in a stack on the counter along with a carton of fried rice and wonton soup. There’s a sticky note on top of them, it’s in Coupé’s cursive drawl reminding him to put it in his fridge and that she and Punch-Up have to go grocery shopping with him sometime.
It warms his heart, the cold dead thing anyway.
When he raises his hands to the sink after taking out the trash, he doesn’t feel the need to scrub them to bits this time. He settles with a simple rise and crashes on his couch.