Chapter Text
Robert's key scraped the lock twice before it urned - a reminder that the building was older than most of the villains they fought and twice as temperamental. He pushed the apartment door open with his shoulder, stepping into the dim, cluttered studio that he called home. A day's worth of debriefs clung to him like smoke, sinking into the creases of his shirt and the ache behind his eyes.
The place wasn't much. It never had been. But now it carried tiny signs of a life he was pretending felt normal: the area rug Mandy had forced on him, the futon couch she'd dragged up the stairs herself, the cluster of mismatched lamps the team had brought over because someone - some ghost - had once told the team to "bring him a fucking lamp or something." He still hadn't worked up the heart to throw any of them out. Even the one she gave him - especially the one she gave him - was still here, hidden behind a stack of ramen cups in the kitchen cabinet. The apartment looked like a garage sale pitched a coup.
Beef burst inside first, nails scrabbling against the floor as Robert bent to unclip the leash. The dog did a few celebratory laps before stopping dead center of the room. His ears shot up. His tail went full helicopter.
A low woof. Then a louder one. Then the frantic little circle he did when something really had his attention.
"Probably a cockroach," Robert muttered, kicking his boots off. "Or your own reflection."
Beef ignored him. Instead he locked onto the far corner by the balcony - the gap of concrete where the rug didn't reach the wall. His tail wagged harder. His body leaned forward like he was seeing someone standing there.
Before Robert could check for mice, roaches, or demonic entities that would still rank lower on his stress list than the last six months, Beef spun in two tight circles, barked at the corner, and shot forward like he'd spotted Santa Claus.
"Beef - relax, it's probably just-!"
Too late.
The dog skidded to a stop... and lifted himself onto his hind legs.
Against nothing.
His paws weren't against the wall or the door. They hovered mid-air, angled like they always were when he was begging for affection... fom someone who should've been there - someone invisible.
A hole opened in Robert's chest, sharp and blinding. Then he heard it - a single breath - shuddered and thin.
The air flickered and she appeared.
Invisigal.
Just... standing there.
A black leather jacket he'd never seen her wear. Her purple hair was messy like she'd run through a storm while her eyes were caught between exhaustion and the instinct to bolt. Beef's paws were perched on her thighs, and she automatically ruffled his ears, the muscle memory so natural it punched the air out of Robert's lungs.
"Jesus, Beef," she muttered, scratching the dog with a snort. "Real subtle, you little fucking narc. You sold me out in under ten seconds."
Robert couldn't respond - he couldn't so much as blink.
It had been four months without a word from her... four months of pretending it didn't hurt that she was gone... four months of trying not to miss her, not to care, not to think about everything she was and everything she'd walked away from. Now she stood in his shitty studio apartment petting his dog.
She finally looked up at him with her mouth tightened, trying for bravado as always. "Your apartment is still just as fucking depressing as it was months ago."
It took him a second to find his voice.
"Yeah," he muttered. "There she is."
The woman who used jokes like armour. The woman he lost. The woman he hadn't been able to stop missing even when he tried to hate her.
He tossed the keys onto the counter. The clatter sounded too loud in the tense space.
"You break in, you spook my dog, you lurk in a corner like a cryptid, and the first thing out of your mouth is interior design critique."
Beef barked once as if to confirm: correct assessment.
She shrugged, glancing around again. "I walked into a cry for help. This place is one inspirational poster away from being a serial killer's starter studio."
Her gaze flicked toward the rug. "Like, the hell is this? Did your girlfriend pick it out?"
"Or was this your sad idea of trying to impress her and you just decided yeah, that's enough effort."
That last jab hung in the air like she'd thrown a grenade and waited for the shrapnel.
He didn't flinch. "You mean Mandy? We're not together."
He left it at that wihtout elaborating. She didn't need to know the details. He was still on good terms with Mandy… A relationship just wasn't in the cards for him right now.
"And she didn't need to fix me. That wasn't her job."
That landed. She didn't joke and she didn't smirk, she just shifted her weight and reached down to pet Beef again.
"Why are you here?" he asked, voice quiet, but not gentle. It still felt too honest. He was so relieved, but so angry at the same time and yet, he was still just making a request for truth.
"Relax," she scoffed, hoisting Beef into her arms like a shield, still scratching his ears. "I wasn't here with a bomb or anything."
"Not really what I asked."
"Was just in the neighborhood."
"Sure," he didn't believe it for a second.
"Came to borrow a cup of sugar," she tried another cliché excuse.
He stared.
"Took the wrong exit off the I-5?"
Silence.
She sighed, irritated at his immune-system-level resistance to her bullshit. She carefully set Beef down and motioned to the glass door. "Your lock is a rusty piece of shit. I got in fine, but the damn thing sticks. Couldn't get it open to leave. You can build a mech, but you can't WD-40 a fucking lock?"
That should've earned at least a smirk from him, but tonight, it didn't. To him, this showed that she wasn't angry, she was flustered. She was embarrassed she'd gotten caught and maybe a little rattled that she was here at all.
"I figured I'd just slip out the front door, but then you showed up, so I waited for you to get busy so I could sneak out. But someone- "she jabbed a finger at Beef, "decided to rat me out like a fucking traitor."
Beef wagged harder, thrilled to be implicated and proud of his achievement.
Robert let her finish without a word. He watched the excuses tumble out, watched her throw humour in there like smoke bombs to keep him from seeing whatever she didn't want him looking at. When she was done, he exhaled steadily and murmured, "Okay."
He stepped past her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him but not close enough to corner her, and crouched by the balcony door, watching the lock. One twist of the lock and it stuck exactly the way she'd said. He tried again and was met with the same resistance.
"I'll fix it," he said quietly.
When he straightened, his gaze met hers. "But that's not an answer."
His tone wasn't sharp, but it cut clean anyway.
"You got stuck leaving," he said. "You didn't get stuck coming here."
She looked away, arms folding defensively. He didn't move toward her, only glanced at Beef - still pressed against her leg like he could block her from leaving - before looking back at her.
"I'm not looking for a confession. Just the truth. Why come here at all?" He asked without anger.
Visi kept her arms crossed like she could barricade herself behind them. She was clearly debating whether to hide behind more sarcasm, bolt, or tell the truth.
"I pissed someone off and wanted to make sure the fucking jerk didn't take it out on you, okay?" She kept her eyes on the floor instead of him. "But you're fine, and you've got the best guard dog in the county, so it's fine."
She turned toward the front door before she could talk herself out of running.
Robert didn't grab her or try to block the exit. "Courtney."
The name left him quietly, barely above the room's hum. Her real name - the one he rarely used, and never threw out carelessly.
She froze.
He moved toward her, not close enough to trap her, just enough that she could feel he wasn't letting the moment vanish as easily as she wanted to.
"You don't show up after four months of nothing because you ‘pissed someone off.' You disappear. You stay offline. Off the grid. Nobody hears from you," he was steady as he spoke, trying not to give her any room to deflect or joke. "And then something happens and suddenly you're worried I'm a target?"
He let that sink in.
"You wouldn't do that unless you thought it was real."
He kept his voice level, careful, like he was dealing with something that could bolt if he breathed wrong. "So what happened?"
Visi tensed so hard he could see it. She stayed facing the door, but he could see her hands flex at her sides.
When she finally turned, her expression had cracked open just enough to show the hurt hiding under her sarcasm. "...I was taking odd jobs. Low-level ones. In and out stuff."
"Got hired to fuck with a guy's cars. Just petty sabotage - coolant line, sugar in the gas tank, that kind of thing. I didn't care why. They paid, I did it."
His eyebrows ticked up at the word cars, but she kept talking.
She rubbed the back of her neck. "Turns out it was Road Rage's collection. Didn't know that when I took the job. Apparently messing with his luxury cars is the equivalent of a war crime."
Robert's expression tightened - many people in hero and villain community knew Road Rage: obsessed with luxury vehicles, irrational temper, the kind of man who threw a tantrum if you breathed on his paint job. He was a loud idiot with expensive toys.
"Last week he caught me," she continued. "Knocked me around a bit. I kicked his ass, obviously. But not before he launched into one of those dramatic supervillain monologues. Something something ‘you'll regret this,' something something ‘you don't know who you're messing with, Invisibitch' something something ‘watch your back' - you know the drill."
"And then he said... ‘You can disappear, but I'll come for everything and everyone you've ever loved-'"
She cut herself off with a wince like the word burned her tongue. Her teeth clacked together with how hard she shut her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that part, especially not in front of him.
Robert heard the echo of the word she'd left hanging. Loved.
"So I told him to go suck off his exhaust pipe and fucked off," she said quickly, looking at the door again. "Didn't think much of it. But this morning someone did a spin-out right in front of my building. Real obvious, real dramatic. Didn't know if it was a message or if some idiot just doesn't know how to handle a Mustang."
She shrugged and glanced back at him. It was meant to be casual. It wasn't. "Just... wanted to make sure. It's probably nothing. It's almost a week after the fight. And he's busy dealing with sugar in his oil tank. We've both fought worse than him."
She crouched again, starting to pet the needy chihuahua again like he could bury the truth for her.. The bravado slipped back on. "Had to come make sure this little guy was okay, didn't I? Even if he is a slobbery fucking narc."
Beef wagged so hard he almost tipped over.
Robert slowly lowered himself down on the other side of Beef, hands loose on his knees. He didn't look away from her.
She stopped petting for just a moment as Robert sat down, making Beef aggressively nudge her hand to continue. "Alright, alright, chill the fuck out."
"Beef, huh," he said quietly, but it wasn't disbelief - it was recognition. He could see straight through the joke. She wasn't talking about the dog; she was using him because it hurt too much to admit she cared about his owner.
He reached down and idly scratched the dog's back as he asked, "How many stops did you make before Beef?"
Visi shot him a glare that softened before it landed.
"None, obviously," she muttered. "Really important to make sure nothing happened to the dog. You and Chase would have a full villain arc over it. So, he was first."
Robert huffed - not a laugh - something closer to an exhale of understanding. She could lie to herself all she wanted. He knew the truth. "And you didn't knock because...?"
The answer scraped out between her teeth like it hurt. "Didn't feel like having a door slammed in my face today."
There it was, the truth she didn't want to say, the one that punched him in the ribs harder than any villain ever could.
She pushed herself to her feet, dusting her palms off even though they were clean. "I should go. Still got, like... twenty more pets to check on."
He knew what she meant: I'm leaving before this gets painful.
"Twenty more," he repeated quietly. No sarcasm, no bite. Just a nudge at the truth they both knew she was dodging.
Beef moved to sit like a pudgy little sentry between her and the door, staring at Visi with the intensity of a creature determined to physically prevent heartbreak by sheer stubborn force and too many treats. Robert glanced down at him, then back to her.
"Visi," he said, watching her stop mid-step as he did, "how many of those twenty pets are actually real?"
Her shoulders tensed again, confirming the truth he already knew.
He waited one beat, then added, quieter still, "...Or is this just you running again?"
She exhaled, long and defeated. "Eight or nine," she muttered without turning. "Depends on if one of them logs onto her stream or not."
He caught the implication immediately. Prism streaming meant Prism breathing, Prism complaining, Prism being her usual neon chaos self... and Visi could check her off the list without showing up in person. Another name on her list of wellness checks. Another life she'd quietly been keeping track of.
Eight or nine left: Golem. Coupé. Punch Up. Flambae. Malevola. Sonar. Chase. Mandy.
People she'd still protect even if she wouldn't speak to them. People she once risked everything to protect, even when they'd voted to cut her.
People she loved, even if she refused to say it out loud.
Beef hadn't moved from in front of the door, his stubby legs stood firm like he was offended by her attempt to leave without giving him more attention. Really, he probably was.
Her back was still toward Robert, her face angled down at the dog. She'd made herself choose between looking at the person she didn't want to disappoint... and the animal she could hide behind.
It was like watching someone standing on the edge of a high drop, ready to jump just to avoid feeling anything. She was ready to leave and make it harder to ever find her again. She would convince herself this was a mistake and beat herself up about it.
And he knew exactly how to break that spiral.
He inhaled once, slow and steady, grounding himself before he slipped into the ridiculous voice he had used the first day he'd introduced Beef to Mandy and Chase.
"I have very important feelings right now," he announced behind her, full of canine melodrama. "And my stubby legs will NOT allow this abandonment."
Beef barked, pleased with this portrayal.
Robert continued, committing fully to the stupid dog voice, "I peed a little earlier when I realized it was you. I regret nothing."
Beef spun in a celebratory half-circle and plopped back down, tail smacking the door.
"I require twelve minutes of chin scritches," Robert insisted gravely. "Or I will sue. I will sue."
A beat.
"...I have a lawyer."
Visi broke instantly.
Her shoulders shook once - then twice - and then a laugh ripped out of her, raw and surprised and embarrassingly fond.
She looked over her shoulder at him, smile fond and genuine. "You're such a fucking idiot."
She was talking to him - not the floor, not the dog, him.
And for the first time in months, something in Robert's chest unclenched.