Chapter Text
It's January 1st.
Somehow. Some fucking way, he's made it to the new year. Somehow, he'd survived prison- and Shroud- and fuck knows what else.
He's survived losing his fingers, losing his pride [the tattered remains of it anyway, when he'd lit up in the ruins of that mall hoping to crash and burn] and losing his tooth, and finding out that he'd been lied to for..
..ugh.
Flambae had survived to New Years. Chad had survived.. to New Years. And now he's a hero who got to see his niece on the near regular, instead of a villain who got to rot in shitty six by eight cell.
He's alive.
The Z-Team's rally against Shroud had earned them all, sans- well, the knife bitch- an official pardon. He didn't need to prove himself anymore, to anyone, to keep his place. Even the simmering rage he'd felt towards.. a certain hero… had been somewhat snuffed out and replaced with- with.. fucking something he didn't know how to deal with.
Because that same fucking hero had fought tooth and nail to keep them all- because that fucking hero had every reason to cut him and still.. still kept him on.
Still let Coupé back on the team, even after she'd sliced him open.
So what the fuck was he supposed to do?
It was hard not to feel.. a little lost, he's realizing.
Whatever… he doesn't really want to think about it right now anyway. In the fucking SDN bathroom, eugh.
Chad side-eyes the man that had started this whole.. bout of impromptu reminiscing, while he washes his hands. Then quickly looks away.
Robert had a fucking- uncanny sixth sense for being stared at. So, if the now active hero wanted to get his monthly punch in without raising his alarm bells, he'd need to be stealthy. Not easy, for someone as amazing as he was but- you know. It was manageable.
The too skinny latte bitch is doing something in the mirror, he thinks- from his brief little glance- and he keeps the tap running its lukewarm water for some unfathomable fucking reason. Minutes keep ticking by, closer and closer to the start time of their shift- and yet… Robert doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
He knew his dispatcher was always weirdly thorough in cleaning his hands, for whatever reason, but.. this… this seemed excessive...
Flambae had already dried his hands- first with a flimsy paper towel to stall and then with the shitty air dryers, and then- finally- with his flames. And still.. no sign of the man leaving.
What the fuck.
Five more minutes go by.
Fuck it.
Chad is officially fed up, and completely ditches the idea of catching him by surprise. It's a lame tactic anyway. Why bother surprising the bitch when Flambae can just- just deck him.
So-!
Yeah.
It was getting weird just standing by the door anyway.
He turns on his heel, the perfect plan already forming- that is, marching up to the smaller man and..
…and..
Something indescribably, incandescently, bright flares below his collar.
Cuts. There are fucking cuts on the side of Robert's face- the one nearest to Chad, that is. The mirror he's facing exposes a nearly black bruise splotched against the other.
And it's fucking huge.
Chad is storming over before he's even realized he's moved- before he's even processed that it's his own hand grabbing that bony shoulder and spinning him around.
Robert's hands fly up to protect his face on instinct- which- would've just left his softer middle open [barely softer, even with all the meals he's shoved into the skinny bitch] for an attack, but… begrudgingly.. the active hero can admit to himself it's warranted.
It still rankles him.
"Pick anywhere else this month, Flambae-"
"Fuck off," Chad yanks his skinny arm up and out of the way, bullying his larger form into Robert's space for a better look, "Who the fuck got one up on your sad-ass?"
Motherfucker fought like a cornered animal, there's no way this just- happened. The other guy better look worse.
His palm, the one that hadn't grabbed his shoulder, hovers carefully over the bruise, barely staving off the need to touch it and make it go away, but.. he- can't. Not yet, not when it still looks so fresh. And it spans the skinny prick's cheek in its entirety, reaching just barely lighter fingers down to his chin and up above his big stupid doe eyes.
Those patchy lashes framing them blink wildly.
Robert swallows thickly, tensing as Chad slides the hand on his shoulder up his neck and jaw.
"Uh.. you do." he points out, clearing his throat, "Literally every month."
Not every month. He skipped the one where his dispatcher was fucking hospitalized after getting tortured. So- there.
He pretends he doesn't notice when Mecha Bitch struggles to let go of his instinctual brace for damage that won't be coming. This- time. Won't be coming this time. But.. only because he was already fucked up.
Not because he cared or anything.
Then again, if he didn't care… then this wouldn't make him so fucking angry, now would it?
… he'll think about that later.
"I don't hit you this hard, bitch. Fuckin' ever."
At least.. he hopes he doesn't. Chad knows he's stronger than a normie, much stronger, and he prides himself on it. He was so strong. Strong enough to dent metal, strong enough to force locked car doors open. Strong enough to break little fingers if he wasn't so so careful.
He's been barely tapping Robert's normie ass, hasn't he? With- with his knuckles, that is. Not… not the other thing.
No.
Chad shifts his hand to hold the too-skinny man's chin, thumb on his chapped and split lower lip, and tries to ignore how Robert so obediently follows the back and forth motion he sets.
The bruise just keeps looking worse.
He hasn't felt rage like this since that first night out at The Sardine.
More time passes in cloying, sticky, awful silence. Before:
"Why are you being so nice to me?"
"If this is nice, you need to raise your standards."
Bony, crooked fingers catch his wrist- just for a second. Just to trail up his arm and pull away in the next moment. Robert's big, stupid stupid stupidly big cow eyes meet his own all- imploringly and shit in the seconds after.
"Flambae."
Call me my name, if you're going to be such a tease…
He drags his thumb over that ruined lip, meanly pushing against the split- but his dispatcher doesn't even flinch. Why is that so much worse?
Their foreheads meet soundlessly, noses slotted together like they were made for it.
"I have a reason to hit you sometimes," because he can be careful, because he make it so it only stings a little- so it doesn't bruise, "Mecha Bitch. You took my fingers."
The stumps of which are hovering over the one good ear this bitch has, and they twitch for emphasis- barely brushing the shell, "You threw me in prison. You humiliated me."
Those jeers still ring in his head at night, those goddamned taunts.
"I should hate you," Chad huffs, staunchly ignoring the stab of something small saying that… maybe.. he never actually did, "I have every reason to hate you."
It's almost funny.
He had to relearn how to do a lot of easy shit, when he was downed two fingers. Had to learn how to cook again, to write. All these… these things he's known his entire life. Things he would've never known again if Robert hadn't been the one to stop him that day.
So he breathes out.
"And yet…"
It's so fucking funny.
"…and yet.. Robert. Your weak, bitchass self has…" he swallows, ".. has become important to me. Or something. I don't know. Whatever."
Coward.
He doesn't know when he closed his eyes, only that- when he opens them- it's… both easier and harder than he thought possible. The skinny prick has been quiet.
And violence was always easier than- this.
"So tell me who hit you, so I can go and- what the fuck?"
Chad blinks.
Then blinks again, just to make sure he's not hallucinating or some shit.
Robert is flushed red under his fingers- the kind of red that nearly obscures his freckles and the kind that paints his ears from tip to lobe. The kind that makes the active hero realize Robert's not just warm Flambae's own heat.
"Are you blushing?"
"No-"
"You are-!"
"I am not-!"
He totally is.
And he's avoiding eye contact nearly entirely- aside from the brief glances he throws. Chad can't fucking believe it- this is what gets to him?
Weeks, months, of flirting and taking any excuse to touch him and leaning close enough for the smaller man to get a perfect view of his amazing pecs, and he got nothing. A twitch, maybe, some flirting back that normally would've been- fine- if it wasn't so obviously a joke.
And this!?
This is all he had to fucking do!?
Oh my god, he thinks venomously, he really is a sad ass bitch!
Whatever. Whatever.
… it was good to know.. in any case.
Flambae nudges that narrow face back to look at him, shelving this new discovery for.. later purposes. There was something just a little bit more important…
"Who hit you?"
"Does it matter?"
This-!
"Does it matter, he says." the active hero mocks, hissed out through gritted teeth, "Fuckin' obviously, Bob-Bob. Are you fucking blind?"
Robert huffs at him, and that pretty red from before recedes. A shame.
"At least tell me the other guy looks worse, or something. Feral bitch."
Please. Please say you didn't just-
"He… does not." the skinny bitch sighs, looking just as annoyed by that as Flambae feels, "Some rich douche was harassing a lady on my way to work and.."
And… Robert was- good. Genuinely fucking good to down to his core, despite being a smarmy sarcastic little bitch most of the time. No shit he stepped in, instead of calling someone less delicate.
Not that he was delicate, in that sense. Not when he was patched together with willpower and pure fucking spite.
"He had some bullshit super strength or something, I don't know. Backhanded me into the wall and then stomped off when she got away."
"Was he wearing rings or something?" Chad asks, finally allowing himself to carefully brush those shallow gouges on his cheek bone.
"Oh yeah, and they were tacky as fuck. Totally fake."
"Fuckin' poser."
"Total fuckin' poser."
The active hero finally pulls back, and something proud murrs in his chest as Robert takes a steadying inhale. It's shuddery on the edges, and that beautiful fucking pink colors his ears again.
"Get some ice on that shit, bitch."
"What am I, five? I'm fine."
"Sure, you are. Like how you were fine after Shroud attacked us all."
It's a low blow, he knows, only further cemented by the way Robert's expression shutters.
"That's not fair. There were important-"
"Bullshit, bull fucking shit, Robert," Flambae takes his face with much less gentleness than before, feeling the temperature rise around them, "You almost fucking died, man, do you get that?"
They thought he'd been joking. Or- not joking, but exaggerating. Sure, they'd dropped his battered flat ass on hard concrete, but.. but he'd tanked so much worse before. They thought.. they thought he'd.. get- ..up.
They thought he'd get up.
And then he didn't.
And then his breathing had gone from raspy to wheezing to choked gasps and pained whines and choking on his own blood and- and-
"Your heart stopped." Flambae does not like how small his voice sounds then, at all, but how else is he supposed to get this man to understand?
"We almost-"
He ducks his head, feeling a burn start behind his eyes- a burn that's never felt comfortable to him before. It doesn't matter, he knows his tears will evaporate before his dispatcher even knows they were there.
At least- if he was so fucking attuned to them all.
"We almost lost you, bitch.. and you don't even care."
"…I'm sorry.." Robert doesn't force him to look up, even as his willowy fingers carefully creep up to brush against his lashes and cheek, "I.. didn't know you felt that way."
He doesn't respond to that, because- frankly, he doesn't how the team can make it any more fucking obvious.
"I… do care. About all of you."
Just not yourself.
"I've never been.. apart of a team before. That would care."
Chad does not sniff, thank you very much. But.. he does tip his head into Robert's palm. Briefly.
Just for a second.
Then he pulls away, back to his towering height, and he breathes.
In… and out.
"You do now."
His dispatcher nods, slowly, in understanding. Or at least something close to it.
"..I guess… I'll go get an icepack then."
"You fuckin' better."