Chapter Text
Time since being cured: One year.
The year passed quietly. Peacefully and gently, from an outsider’s perspective.
On the inside, however, it was anything but quiet and peaceful. And, if he was to be honest, Robert wouldn’t trade that for the world.
Naturally, the fracture hadn’t been immediately fixed after his and Zahir’s tenderness on the beach. Something like this needed time to heal, a lot of time. The trust didn’t come back immediately, rather returning one fragmented piece at a time.
It was safe to say that Robert told Zahir practically everything after that, from general bitching after work to the origin of his scars. Over time, Zahir had become a lot more comfortable in Robert’s presence as the broken trust was slowly rebuilt. And now, a year later, things were better than they could have ever been.
Flowers never made their way back into either of their lives.
Robert felt ashamed to admit it, but he flinched when the blossoms were too close to him, as if the lilies that were desperate to take his life would suddenly bloom again merely from being in the presence of other flowers. One day he assumed he’d get over it, but not anytime soon. Not when it all still felt so fresh.
It was an irrational fear, he knew that very well. The random flowers in his day to day couldn’t hurt him, not like they once had. The flowers themselves weren’t even necessarily the issue, rather the reason for their presence was. They had been present at some of the hardest times in his life. His mother’s funeral, and then his father’s. Then, the love he felt for Zahir that he thought would kill him.
Zahir almost never left him alone if it could be helped these days. During all his breaks at work, he was at Robert’s cubicle, annoying him to no end. When they were at home, he never let him out of his sight. Well, for the most part, anyway.
He had admitted to Robert it was because of the guilt he felt from never visiting him in the hospital, despite it being a year ago. Zahir wanted to go see him, but with the wound being as fresh as it was, he didn’t know how he’d handle himself. Robert knew Zahir well enough to know how his emotions worked. They were, for lack of a better term, like a wildfire. Once they burned hot enough, they didn’t stop, and it would undoubtedly lead to disaster. While it had hurt at the time, and occasionally still did when something would drag the memory up, Robert understood where he was coming from. Zahir was human, after all.
Though that didn’t mean Robert didn’t occasionally give him a hard time for it.
The television in their living room played some kind of drama movie Zahir had been dying to watch as the couple sat on the couch, Zahir’s head in Robert's lap and Beef nestled on Zahir’s legs. Robert ran his fingers through his partner’s long, silky hair, only half paying attention to the movie. How could he, when the most beautiful person in the world had their head on their lap and was smiling so contentedly Robert thought his heart might burst?
Robert wished every day could be filled with this much sweetness, but alas the world did not work in such a way. While they had quite a bit in common, they also clashed horribly on many different things. Their highs were in heaven, and their lows were in the depths of hell. Robert knew it wouldn’t be easy. He wasn’t a perfect person and neither was Zahir. That’s what made it special.
It was the difficulty of it all that made waking up next to the most infuriating man on the planet one of the greatest gifts he had ever been given.
“Hey Bob? Can I ask you a stupid question?” Zahir turned his head to look Rober in the eyes, a gleam in his eye that screamed trouble.
“Don’t you always?” Robert deadpanned, his fingers never stilling in Zahir’s hair.
“Fuck off.” Zahir rolled his eyes. “When did you know you loved me?”
Robert wouldn’t have called that question stupid, but he would have accused Zahir of sounding like a teenage girl in her first relationship had he not been able to recall the exact moment in time where he knew he felt something beyond just rocky friendship. And friendship was an ambitious word, given how they treated each other before Robert’s diagnosis.
“When you took a bullet for me and then let me help you with the wound,” he said wistfully. “At least, that’s when I knew there was a change in how I viewed you. I knew it was love when I was given my diagnosis.”
“Damn, bitch, that’s not romantic at all,” Zahir scoffed, though he was unable to repress his smile.
Robert laughed lightly, “Come on, taking a bullet for someone is pretty romantic.”
“Learning you’re going to die because someone doesn’t love you isn’t,” he countered as he sat up, much to Beef’s displeasure.
“But you do love me, so it worked out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Say it.”
“Go fuck yourself, Bob.”
“Tell me you love me, Zahir.” Robert moved into his personal space, sitting comfortably in his empty lap, facing him with a smug grin. Beef huffed in annoyance as he hopped off the couch, waddling to his little doggy bed beside the coffee table.
“You’re such a bitch,” Zahir muttered as he pressed kisses to Robert’s cheeks, jaw, and forehead. “A bitch that I love, unfortunately.”
“Don’t say ‘unfortunately’ like you aren’t always clinging to me like a fucking koala or leaving me a million messages when you’re supposed to be working.”
“I only do that when you give me boring assignments like an asshole.” Zahir buried his face in the crook of Robert’s neck. “Besides, you act like you don’t do any of that shit. Damn hypocrite.”
Robert didn’t have a comeback, because what was said was 100% true. He was weak for the man he loved, a fact he wasn’t ashamed to admit.
The longer he sat there, just being held by Zahir, the longer he thought about what could, or rather couldn’t, have been. Hanahaki was terminal as far as statistics went. Robert wasn’t technically supposed to survive, not with the odds stacked high against him. Yet, he had. Unlike the others before him to have caught it, he was the sole survivor. Even now, a year later, his doctor still regularly saw him (part of that was because of the endless threats from Zahir and Chase to take care of himself, though) to ask about how his body was managing after the fact. He had experienced any additional symptoms, not a single body pain out of place, nor a single petal in his lungs. The only thing he did feel as a result of it was this unshakeable guilt, both from being the sole survivor and for the way it negatively impacted the people around him.
He had changed quite a bit in the last year, no longer feeling the need to run when things began wandering out of his comfort zone. That wasn’t the only thing that had changed, though.
Robert never did go back to being Mecha Man.
He still didn’t know with certainty if he wanted to. There was so much that went into it, the complexity becoming more apparent the longer he sat with it. He was still helping people through dispatching and, while he did occasionally get a craving to return to the front lines, that could be enough for him, if he allowed it for himself. There was a layer of unease to it as well, because what would that exactly entail for him? For the Z-Team? The idea of not working with the people who he had grown so attached to made him anxious.
“You’re doing it again,” Zahir whispered softly, pressing a kiss to Robert’s neck with aching gentleness.
“Doing what?” Robert asked absently.
There was a soft laugh before he said, “Thinking too hard. You get so tense when it happens. Tell me what’s going on before you burst a damn blood vessel.”
Robert sighed, annoyed he couldn’t get anything past his partner, and moved his whole body off of his lap to lay his head on it instead, completely swapping their positions from earlier. Zahir’s hands immediately combed through Robert’s auburn hair in an attempt to soothe him.
“I was thinking about Mecha Man.” Rather than stiffen up uncomfortably as he would’ve in the past, he just hummed in acknowledgement as Robert continued, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“It’s a pretty simple thing to figure out, azizam,” Zahir said, scratching Robert’s scalp with the pads of his fingers. He let out the softest of moans, shivering a bit with how nice the sensation felt. “It’s whatever the hell you want.”
“But it isn’t just me anymore, naekkeo.” He mentally thanked Ha-eun for teaching him basically every Korean term of endearment ever. “You’re one of the most important parts of my life. My decisions are gonna affect you eventually, so I want your input.”
Zahir’s smile was fond as he thought about it for a minute, “Will you do it for you?”
“What?”
“If you became Mecha Bitch again. Would it be because you want to, or out of obligation that your shitty dad beat into you? I know your bitchass likes to get what other people expect and what you want mixed the fuck up, so you need to figure that out before anything else.”
That was the part that was gnawing at him the most, in all honesty. Would he do it for him, or for everyone else? Did being Mecha Man make him happy? Had it ever?
The short answer was yes, of course it had. There was some light in the dark when it came to his hero work. He didn’t think he would have lived long enough to catch hanahaki if it was all gloom, doom, and dread. Sure, serious crimes were being committed, but he was helping people. He loved doing that.
The thing was, though, could it make him happy now? The fact that he had no answer had him mumbling, “I’ll think about it.”
Zahir’s warm hands and bright laughter had him relaxing completely, wholly content with his life in that moment. He quietly hoped things would always end up this way, no matter how loudly they fought or how quietly they fumed. Robert wanted to always end up right back here, smiling and sharing fondness with this beautifully infuriating man.
“You should’ve taken a bullet for me ages ago,” he heard himself mumble as the continuous massaging of his scalp allowed him to relax further, coaxing him closer and closer into sleep.
“Maybe you should’ve started growing flowers in your stupid normie body ages ago,” Zahir grumbled, clearly not wanting to be reminded of the fact despite them both sitting with the knowledge that Zahir would take a hundred bullets for Robert and vice versa.
Bullets and flowers were a bit of an odd combination, but one that undoubtedly had to be thanked for getting them where they were right now, regardless of how heartbreaking and frightening the journey was.
“I love you, Zahir.”
“I love you too, Taejoon.”
They shared a sweet, loving smile as the soft petals of their new love continued to bloom.
They would harbor wilting hearts no longer.