Chapter Text
Robert didn’t want to die, but he wasn’t stupid enough to pretend this situation ended any other way.
His wrists burned where the ropes bit into them, pulled tight against the concrete pillar behind his back. Every time he shifted, even a little, the fibers scraped skin raw. Whoever tied him up knew what they were doing — there was no slack, no leverage, no miracle escape waiting to happen.
He wasn’t getting out of this alone.
And help?
Help could take hours. Days. Weeks, if they didn’t even know where to look.
He didn’t have that kind of time.
The gash on his forehead still hadn’t stopped bleeding.
Three hours. Maybe more. Hard to tell without a clock.
It just… kept coming.
Something had been in that syringe — there had to be. Some kind of anticoagulant, something to stop his blood from clotting. It was the only explanation that made sense. No normal cut bled like this for this long.
Warm rivulets slid down his temple, into his eyes, blurring his vision red. He blinked it away, only for more to follow. It traced down his cheek, over his lips, salty and metallic on his tongue before dripping from his chin to stain his shirt and pants.
Each drop felt heavier than the last.
God.
He was so screwed.
[Two day earlier]
Robert should’ve been focused on the feeds in front of him.
Three live ops blinked across his monitor — one rescue, one pursuit, one surveillance tail — each tagged with flashing alerts that demanded his attention. Any one of them could go sideways in seconds.
They needed him sharp.
Instead, his gaze kept drifting to the glass wall at the far end of the room.
Nothing ever moved there. It just looked out into the darkened hallway beyond dispatch, lights dimmed for the afternoon shift. Empty. Harmless.
Still, the back of his neck prickled like someone was breathing down it.
The only sounds were the steady whir of cooling fans, the faint buzz of fluorescent lights, and the low murmur of other dispatchers talking their teams through routine calls. Familiar noise. Safe noise.
So why did it feel so damn quiet?
“Dispatch, you copy?”
Malevola’s voice cracked through his headset, sudden enough to make him jump.
Robert startled, thumb fumbling against the mic, “Yeah — copy. Go ahead.”
A beat of static, then a faint chuckle, “You sound half-asleep, man. You sure you’re still vertical over there?”
“I’m awake,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. His skin felt clammy, “Just… recalibrating the city feeds. Sector 3 cameras keep cutting out again.”
“Copy that. We’ll manage. Sonar’s running scans on-site — I’ll have him check for interference.”
“Right,” Robert said automatically, “Good idea.”
The channel clicked off.
Silence rushed back in.
He stared at the screen, willing himself to focus. This was normal. Just another long shift. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep, brain playing tricks on him.
Still—
Something felt off.
Every time he glanced toward the glass, he swore he caught movement. A flicker. A shape bending wrong in the reflection. Like someone stepping out of sight the second he looked directly at them.
He turned fully.
Nothing.
Just the empty hall and his own tired reflection staring back.
He leaned into his chair and exhaled through his nose, “Too much caffeine,” he muttered, “or not enough.”
He reached for his mug.
It was cold because of course it was.
Back on the monitors, one of the exterior security feeds jittered.
Just for a frame — a single blink — a figure stood in the alley behind HQ.
Too close to the building.
Watching.
Robert’s spine locked.
He scrubbed the footage back.
Empty pavement. Trash bags. Nothing else.
No figure. No shadow.
Like it had never been there.
“…Great,” he muttered under his breath.
He sat there a moment longer, listening to the hum of the room, the faint chatter from other desks, the normalcy of it all.
For the first time in weeks, he found himself wishing the others would wrap their ops early.
Even Flambae’s loud mouth would’ve been better than this.
Instead, it was just him, the glow of the monitors, and the creeping, persistent feeling that somewhere out there — something was watching him back.
Out in Sector 3, the team’s comms crackled with overlapping chatter — mostly routine.
“Dispatch, confirming: second target contained, no collateral,” Malevola reported, stepping over debris.
Chase’s voice came back first, calm and clipped, “Copy that, Malevola. Proceed to scan the east perimeter before heading back.”
A pause, then Robert’s voice layered faintly under his — just a touch too delayed, just distracted enough for the team to notice.
“—yeah, good work. I’ll, uh, keep the radar up another few minutes.”
“Dude sounds exhausted,” Sonar said, half-smiling as he wiped grime off his hands, “You’d think he was the one running around all day.”
Flambae shrugged, “Maybe the caffeine finally stopped carrying his ass.”
“More like he’s staring holes through the monitors again,” Malevola murmured, double-checking her scanner, “He’s been on edge since last week. You notice?”
Sonar glanced down at his comm, thumb hovering near the talk button like he might say something else — ask if Robert was actually okay — but he stopped himself.
“…Yeah,” he said quietly, “I noticed.”
The line went quiet again, filled only with static and distant city noise.
For some reason, it didn’t feel routine anymore.
By the time Robert left HQ, the sky had faded from dark blue to that dull orange the city wore before twilight.
Rain still clung to the air, reduced to a fine drizzle that turned the pavement slick and glassy. Streetlights stretched long reflections across the ground, warping with every step he took.
His route home was muscle memory at this point.
Phone in one hand. Bag slung over his shoulder. Footsteps tapping a steady rhythm against the concrete.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Every few minutes, he glanced over his shoulder.
Nothing there.
The street was nearly empty — just shuttered storefronts and the occasional flicker of a dying neon sign.
Still, the back of his neck prickled.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to shake it off.
Burnout, he told himself. Stress or lack of sleep.
He’d been staring at radar screens and mission logs for so many nights his brain probably couldn’t tell real motion from phantom ones anymore. Afterimages. Ghost shapes. Nothing serious.
And yet—
There it was again.
Another rhythm.
Faint.
Almost matching his own.
Not quite.
Tap. Tap. … tap.
His steps faltered.
The second rhythm faltered too.
He stopped walking.
Silence.
Just the soft hiss of rain against concrete.
Robert stood there longer than he meant to, listening hard enough that his ears started ringing. Finally, he exhaled through his nose and rubbed his temple.
“You’re losing it,” he muttered to himself.
At the corner, he passed beneath a security camera.
The little red indicator flickered once.
Then went dark.
He didn’t notice.
By the time he reached his apartment building, the unease had dulled into a low, persistent ache behind his eyes — the kind you get from staring at screens too long.
He let himself inside, double-locked the door out of habit, checked each window latch one by one.
Click. Click. Click.
The apartment was quiet.
He stood in the middle of the room for a moment, bag still hanging from his shoulder, listening to nothing but the faint drip from the sink in the next room.
A soft thump broke the silence.
Beef lifted his head from his pillow, tail wagging lazily against the floor.
Robert’s shoulders loosened a fraction.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion.
He crouched and ran a hand through the mutt’s fur, fingers sinking into the familiar warmth, “Long night, huh? You and me both.”
Beef yawned, licked his fingers, then flopped back down like the world held absolutely zero threats.
Lucky dog.
Robert stayed there longer than he meant to, just breathing.
Eventually he dragged himself to the plastic chair by the window and sank into it, staring out at the city lights blinking in the distance.
Time passed. He didn’t track how much.
Every time his eyes started to close, that crawling feeling crept back up his spine, sharp enough to snap them open again.
So he just watched.
And waited.
He didn’t sleep that night.