Chapter Text
Robert wasn’t really joking when he told Blonde Blazer he was dead broke. His father’s life insurance policy was big, but it wasn’t close to the almost five million he’d invested in the suit. And that didn’t include the thousands of dollars he had in hospital bills. Turns out being in a coma for four months is incredibly expensive, especially for someone who opted not to get health insurance so he could blow more money on the mecha suit equivalent of a shitty Honda Accord. The city paid for some of his stay out of goodwill, but he was still left with a hefty bill at the end of it. By the time Mandy recruited him for SDN, his credit cards had been maxed out for months.
But now he was gainfully employed. Sure, it was only just above minimum wage, but it was enough to live off of somewhat comfortably. Or, his fucked-up version of comfort at least. And with no Shroud to agonize over, Robert started to want a bit more for himself. Like being able to afford fresh vegetables instead of the mushy canned ones. Or buying nicer toilet paper than the 1-ply trash he got from the Dollar Store. Maybe even getting a real bed so that if he found someone (preferably someone outside of the company he worked for) who wanted to sleep with him, he’d have a place to do it.
Unfortunately, his debt was already fucking him.
He blamed Sonar, honestly. Robert asked him for help because he was the only person he knew who knew literally anything about budgeting and investing, even if most of his advice was deeply illegal. Plus, he was free. The free part was honestly the main selling point.
“Bobert, you can’t be serious with these numbers, man,” Sonar said as he looked up from his laptop. The two had gathered in the conference room in between shifts so Sonar could go over all of Robert’s account statements and make a plan. Except Sonar had sat there typing and quietly murmuring to himself while Robert sat there squirming. He wasn’t used to the hybrid being so quiet. His finances couldn’t be that bad. For fuck’s sake, Sonar probably spent most of his money on coke and bad crypto investments. Robert was doing better than that. He had to be.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Aren’t you like… rich? Because I know homeless dudes with more money than you.”
“One, I never said I was rich.” And he wasn’t. His father, however, had been. His grandfather, too. Between being Mecha Man and just being really fucking smart, both of them had more than enough money to blow on their expensive suits and sustain a family.
But Robert wasn’t Mecha Man anymore and had just enough intelligence to know he wasn’t that smart. Royd had been kind when he looked the suit over, but he could tell the man was just impressed that he got the suit to work at all. It was like giving a five-year-old a 1,000-piece puzzle to solve. It was technically together, but there were definitely pieces in the wrong places and many more missing.
So yeah, Robert unfortunately was a fucked up trust fund kid who blew most of his money. The moral high ground he got from being an actual superhero was the only thing stopping him from regretting not blowing it on drugs and strippers like other fucked up trust fund kids. They were definitely having more fun than he was.
“Two,” Robert continued, “I find that hard to believe. I have a whole three hundred dollars in my account right now.”
“That’s… not the flex you think it is.” Sonar looked at him like he was a Make-A-Wish kid who just learned he was sick. Robert snatched the laptop from in front of Sonar, ready to prove that he was just being a melodramatic bitch about this.
Except.
“I’m making negative five thousand dollars each month?” Robert’s mouth fell open and he wasn’t sure he could afford to close it.
Sonar just nodded. “Sure are. Your credit card debt has credit card debt. I’m honestly shocked your credit score isn’t six.”
“Okay well, how do I budget better? What am I spending too much on?” Robert’s mind began to swim with options. Beef’s kibble had gotten kind of expensive; he was sure he could find a cheaper brand. He could sell his car, walking was better for him anyway. Maybe even-
Sonar laughed so hard and loud that it almost sounded like one of his screeches. “Budget? My guy, there’s no budgeting here. You literally just don’t make enough money.” Sonar grabbed the computer back. “You’d need to be making triple what the company is paying you right now to maybe break even.”
“So I’m just poor? That’s it?”
“Sucks to suck dude.” Sonar stood up, stretching as he yawned. “Bet you wish you’d sealed the deal with Blonde Blazer now, huh?”
“I’m not hot enough to fuck my way into triple my salary and a new suit.” He knew he sounded pathetic but, as he just found out, he was too poor to care.
“That’s true. If only your voice could do OnlyFans, you’d make a killing off that.”
“...my voice?”
“Yeah, dude.” Sonar gathered his things to leave. “You’ve got an objectively hot voice. I thought you were doing a bit when you first started to get us to want to respect you or whatever. But then you kept it up and I realized that’s just you. You sound like you’ve just finished having sex but like, constantly.”
“Thanks. I think.” Robert mechanically followed Sonar out of the conference room, mind still reeling. Being dirt poor sucked. Being dirt poor and knowing about it sucked even more. So yeah, Sonar’s fault.
He spent his night going over the Excel spreadsheet Sonar made for him listing out all his current debts. If he kept making the minimum payments on his cards, his grandkids would be in college by the time he paid them off.
It would have been cheaper for him if he had just died in the suit like he was supposed to. He didn’t like admitting it, but that was his retirement plan. Save lives, die young. That was his family’s legacy. He had never even considered what a 401K was a year ago. Who cared?
No one told him how expensive it was to care about yourself. That light he had been building in his chest that told him that he was worth something was quickly being extinguished by the reality of his situation.
He wasn’t Mecha Man anymore.
He was Robert.
Poor, underpaid Robert with enough debt to bury himself in.
He barely thought he was worth the suit being paid for, no way could he face Blonde Blazer and ask for a raise. He needed other options.
Option A: Blow his brains out and hope that his new life insurance policy knocks out the debt.
Option B: Make more money somehow.
He looked at Beef, panting sweetly on top of his pillow as he stared back at him. He would be heartbroken. Chase would bring him back from the dead just to apologize to Beef for leaving and then kill him again as punishment.
Robert sighed, eyeing the spreadsheet again. Option B, then.
For the next month, Robert practically lived at SDN. He snatched up any overtime possible and covered for more shifts than he could count. Just a month straight of working and sleeping and for his troubles, he had two hundred more dollars in his bank account than normal.
It was a dark night when he looked at his budget and realized that it wasn’t enough to cover the interest on even just one of his cards.
Besides being deeply demoralizing, working that much was unsustainable. Robert was losing his mind from the constant shifts; it was a worse schedule than when he was Mecha Man full-time. Worse than that, his coworkers were starting to pity him.
“Sonar told me how broke you are so I got you these,” Malevola said, throwing a box of Twinkies into his lap in between calls one day.
“I can afford my own Twinkies, but thanks,” Robert said, examining the box. Truthfully, he should really only be buying the knock-off ‘cream-filled mini cakes’ from the Dollar Store but she didn’t need to know that.
“You sure? He said it was like, depressingly bad.” Robert had no doubt that Sonar had regaled the whole team by now about how penniless he was. He was starting to really regret not just ponying up for a real financial advisor in the first place.
“We can start you a GoFundMe,” Invisigal said as she appeared suddenly next to Malevola. Robert forced himself not to flinch even though he still really hated when she did that. “Headline can read ‘Pathetic dispatcher needs help funding his pathetic life’.”
“Or I could do my job which pays me, just like you should be doing yours.” Robert pointedly looked at the screen to show that both their allocated rest breaks were over.
Invisigal snorted. “Yeah, pays you like shit. How are you making less money than we are?”
Robert froze at that. He was making less than his rag-tag team of ex-cons?
“Are you serious? How much are you making?” He eyed Invisigal warily. She would lie to him just to get a rise out of him.
“Forty an hour plus time and a half for working outside a shift. We made a fucking killing for the Shroud fight.” Malevola chimed in. Invisigal nodded from beside her. “Not to mention leaderboard bonuses. Apparently, you get an extra if you crack the top ten.”
His brain fully short-circuited at that. His technical subordinates made more than double what he made. It must have shown on his face because Invisigal gave him a pitying look. She dug out a ten-dollar bill from her pocket and slapped it on his desk. “Here, buy yourself something nice for lunch.”
The two women giggled to themselves as they left, no doubt endlessly amused by this one thing they had over him. Robert gritted his teeth but still shoved the money into his wallet. He couldn’t really afford to have pride.
This also meant he was going to have to muster up what little self-worth was still crawling around inside of him and face Blonde Blazer.
“I want to get back out in the field,” Robert said as he burst into Blonde Blazer’s- no, Mandy’s office.
It was still surreal to see the smaller brunette woman sitting behind the desk instead of her hero persona, but that didn’t stop her from still being damned good at her job. Their branch had been running on overtime in the weeks since the fight with Shroud, working both on repairing the building and on rebuilding the town after the havoc Red Ring caused. Mandy led the charge with grace, even without her powers. She was the only person who spent more time in the office than Robert did.
She raised an eyebrow at him, clearly a little annoyed at the interruption from what seemed to be a mountain of paperwork in front of her. “I see the Z-Team has rubbed off on you in the manners department.”
“Sorry, hello. Is now a good time to talk?” Robert said, shame gearing him into bolting at any sign of resistance.
Mandy just sighed and nodded. “There’s not really going to be a good time to talk today so, sure, come on in.”
Robert slid into the chair in front of her desk, bewildered by the mess in front of him. There were endless amounts of folders and binders scattered across the top and Mandy’s fingertips were stained with black ink at the tips.
She noticed him looking and shut the folder she had been working in. “I’m going through the paperwork from the attack. You wouldn’t believe the amount of insurance claims I have to go through still.” Mandy leaned back, face softening as she looked at him. “So you want to get back in the field. Is this a… money thing?”
Robert groaned. “Not you too. Does everyone know I’m a broke piece of shit at this point?”
“You’re not a piece of shit for having money issues, everyone goes through hard times.” Mandy looked away, biting her lip. “But yes, Sonar wasn’t exactly quiet while discussing it in the break room.”
Robert was going to kill him. Maybe he could even get some money out of his crypto accounts after disposing of his body. He mulled that over in his mind for a second, and for the first time in his life, he could somewhat understand why people turned to crime.
“Great. I love that. Maybe everyone can take turns reading pages of my diary next.” Robert knew he was pouting but he couldn’t make himself care. He was a grown man, damn it, not a fucking charity case. No one but him should be worried about this.
“I didn’t take you for a diary kind of guy.”
“I’m not. Just like I’m not the kind of guy that likes people getting into my business without my knowledge. I’d like to be a fuck up in private if at all possible.”
“Again, not a fuck up.” Mandy sighed again. “Listen, I’d love to have you back in the field again. But HQ thinks it would be better if you stayed at the Z-Team’s dispatcher for the moment. They respond so well to you, we don’t want to risk undoing their progress by assigning them another dispatcher.”
“Why can’t I join them? I can dispatch and fight, I’d probably do even better at it in the field.” Robert was used to making snap judgments in a fight, it’s how he got as far he did. Now that his team trusted him to lead, he didn’t need to be tied down to a desk to get things done. “There’s so many screens in the suit, I can have Royd patch one into the dispatch network.”
“That’s the other thing. As you know, the suit isn’t exactly cheap to maintain. The repairs it needed after the fight with Shroud set our branch’s budget back by quite a few thousand.” Mandy ran her fingers through her hair, clearly stressed about that little detail. “We’d been paying Royd overtime to get it set up the first time, it’s not sustainable for him to do his other work in the Engineering Department and fix up your suit after fights.”
“So what, I’m permanently grounded?” Robert felt the panic clutch at his chest at the thought. The only reason he’d signed up to work at SDN in the first place was the idea he'd get back into the suit at some point. Being a dispatcher was great and he loved his team but there was always going to be that pull for him to be out there, back in the action again.
“No! Not permanently.” Mandy said quickly. “Just on an as-needed basis. For right now, at least.” She nervously began to twirl the pen in her hand and Robert noticed finally she was a lefty. It was strange, he was so sure she was a righty as Blonde Blazer. “Between you and me, most of our R&D team is focused on getting some sort of cure for Chase underway so he can give me back my amulet. He’s been doing great taking on my cases but HQ wants Blonde Blazer back sooner rather than later.”
It made sense. Chase still dispatched occasionally but he was gone from the office more than not lately. Robert couldn’t blame him, he knew how much the older man wanted to get back out there again. This was his second chance at being a hero, Robert wanted him to enjoy it even if it meant watching from the sidelines again.
“Right. Great. I’m glad they’re working on that, it’s more important.” Robert pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. The panic was still there, clawing at his chest. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his father screamed at him to fight back, push harder to get back out there. But what good would that do, other than to upset him and Mandy?
Mandy made a sympathetic noise in response which definitely didn’t help. “Listen, let me see what I can do about your pay. You’ve more than earned a raise at this point. I just can’t promise how much it’ll be or when I get it approved.”
It was something. Not enough to quell the feeling in his chest or the screaming in his head but enough to get him out of the office without having a total mental breakdown. “Thanks, I really appreciate that.”
Robert shot out of his seat and bolted for the door. “And Robert?” Mandy said from behind him as he left. He hummed in response, not bothering to turn around. If he looked back and saw another pitying look, he was going to lose it. “As your friend, if there’s anything at all-”
He was right not to turn around.
“I’ll let you know. Gotta get home to feed Beef, I’ll see you tomorrow.” It was a piss poor excuse to leave the room but he felt like a piss poor excuse for a man, so.
The walk home with Beef was enough to calm him down, just slightly. The cooler October air helped bring him back to his senses as he walked. He couldn’t afford to wallow. He needed a real, tangible game plan.
He already sold his car for an embarrassingly low amount, so ride share and delivery services were out.
He had no experience in the service industry except for a very short-lived summer gig at an ice cream shop when he was a teenager that ended when his dad was murdered and he got handed a giant robotic suit as a severance package. They hadn’t gotten to the ‘be good with people’ part of training, so Robert was just really good at fighting crime and making sundaes.
Plus, he needed a job where he could still bring Beef with him. As much as he joked that Beef was the codependent one, Robert was the one who needed the dog near him at all times, especially these days. Out of all of his ever-rotating roster of nightmares, the ones where Shroud hurts Beef wake him up the fastest.
That left work-from-home jobs.
He spent his night curled up with Beef on his shitty couch-made-shitty bed researching any and every work-from-home job there was. With no college degree, no real work experience, and a moral compass that made him deeply uncomfortable with most call center jobs, he realized that working from home wasn’t going to be much of an option either.
Groaning, he flopped back onto the lumpy, definitely-should-not-be-his-bed couch. He couldn’t even be bothered to shoo Beef away once the dog began incessantly licking his face.
He thought back to his conversation with Victor. ‘If only your voice could do OnlyFans’. Was that even a thing? Did he want that to be a thing?
Despite his depressingly non-existent sex life, Robert knew he was good in bed and dirty talk had always his thing. His inability to shut up carried over into the bedroom, some incessant need to command a space in any way possible that bubbled up into a damn near fetish for talking his partners through it. And if his voice was as ‘sexy’ as Victor said it was, maybe he could use it to his advantage.
But he needed something that would provide cash in the much more immediate than the time it would take for him to build the kind of following that would pay to hear him.
One very incognito Google search of ‘hot voice need money now’ later, Robert stumbled on a Reddit thread that presented him an option he’d never even considered: phone sex operator.
Robert had assumed those died off with dial-up internet and easy access to porn, but apparently it was still a thriving community. Some people reported making thousands per month just off these calls, and while Robert wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d get that too, if he could make even a quarter of that a month, he’d still be pulling in more than what hours of overtime at SDN were getting him. It would just be a continuation of his day, with a different use of his talents.
It took a few moments for him to really mull over if he could do this, but one thought about the crippling amount of debt was all it took to push him over the edge.
Option B was officially underway.
It wasn’t as bad as Robert thought. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t the cesspool he imagined it would be.
There weren't a lot of male operators apparently, so most of his callers were gay men. At first, that threw him off his game. Not because he was grossed out by it, but simply because he’d never had any experience with men. Hell, his experiences with women were tragically small as well. He fumbled around for his first few calls but luckily for him, most of the guys seemed happy to have him do the most basic dirty talk he could think of as long as he just listened to them jerking off. The calls were quick enough that he never really needed to worry.
But Robert wanted to be better. Needed to, really, to make sure he got repeat clients. You got a bigger cut of the measly dollar per minute price if a caller requested you personally, so he needed to get guys who actually enjoyed talking to him.
Studying to be a better phone sex operator mostly involved listening to a lot of dirty talk audios and dirty talk-heavy gay porn, which was really giving his incognito browser a run for its money.
That was another thing that wasn’t as bad as Robert thought. He wasn’t interested per se, but it was definitely more enjoyable than he thought it would be. Even he could admit some of the men looked and sounded objectively hot.
The part that actually sucked was the hours. His schedule now consisted of going to SDN, coming home, feeding Beef, and logging on for a few hours. When he finally did get a chance to fall asleep, his brain liked to retrace Shroud’s final moments (the feeling of knuckles on teeth, thumbs on wind pipes, blood splattered pleas) on repeat.
He was getting a max three hours of sleep each night and it definitely showed.
“Earth to Bob Bob, what the fuck are you doing?” Flambae yelled through his headset, startling Robert back from what was definitely not a micro-sleep. He just closed his eyes a little longer than he intended to. “Shit for brains, you sent me to a potential gas leak situation. Are you trying to blow up the entire block?”
Robert winced. He meant to send Golem but very clearly got his wires crossed. “Sorry, sorry. Get out of there. Golem, can you take over?”
Golem sighed through the line. “Yeah, sure. Not like I just got comfortable or anything.”
“You okay?” Invisigal chimed in. “You’ve been even more of a freak than usual today.”
“I appreciate the concern. I can feel the warm and fuzzies from here.” Robert rolled his eyes. “But you’re right. I’m a little tired today and haven’t been on my A-game. But if you guys are giving one hundred percent, so should I.”
Flambae scoffed. “You’re such a fucking Boy Scout. You could have just said you were tired, no one cares.”
“What’s been keeping you up, lad? Hopefully something more interesting than what you normally do.”
“And what exactly do I normally do?”
“We just kinda assumed you spent your nights getting drunk and jacking off,” Sonar said. Robert couldn’t even be that insulted by that; half of it was true. “We’ve got a bet going to see how long it takes for you to go to fucking therapy.”
“Again, feeling the love. Not that it’s any of your guy’s business, but I got a second job and the hours are a little hectic. But I shouldn’t be bringing that here, I’ll get it together.”
Flambae barked out a laugh. “What are you, a stripper? Can’t imagine anyone paying to see your flat ass.”
“He would never. He’s got the people skills of a wet paper towel, he’d never make any money,” Invisigal said. “My bet’s on fast food. He probably runs a Taco Bell drive through like the fucking Marines.”
“I’m guessing a warehouse worker. It’s almost Christmas, it would explain the hours,” Malevola said. Prism and Invisigal hummed down the line in agreement.
“I can’t stress enough how little this is any of your business.” Robert sighed. He already knew there would be a bet now and these assholes wouldn’t stop until they figured out what his job was. Thankfully, there wasn’t a shot in hell that any of them would ever be one of his clients. “Flambae, there’s a potential burglary at a restaurant downtown, go check it out.”
“Oh hell yeah, this is that new dim sum place. These bitches better be grateful enough to give me a to-go meal.”
Robert immediately felt too tired to deal with this shit. He, not for the first time that week, was counting down the minutes until he could leave. “Guys, we don’t take bribes from our customers.”
“Bitch, you don’t take bribes. I’m going with,” Prism’s icon made a beeline for Flambae’s location. Robert didn’t even bother to protest. It was a slow enough day that it they wanted to assign themselves tasks, he wasn’t at the mental capacity to stop them.
Time seemed to seep through molasses, an almost never-ending cycle of chatter from his team and low-level calls before mercifully, the end of his shift. Robert couldn’t even jump up right away to get home; it was like his body was glued to the chair until he recharged enough to move it again. Beef was more than content to wait for him too, he just nuzzled himself in Robert’s lap and went to sleep. A combination of Beef’s warmth and the unfortunate familiarity he had with falling asleep in a chair meant that he dozed off again without meaning to.
He was falling, suit errors blaring. But there was nothing to catch his fall, just an endless, inky black void-
Something slammed against his chair, immediately startling him awake.
“Jesus fu- what the hell?” He blearily got a handle on his surroundings, only to find Flambae standing before him with a smirk.
“Damn, you look like shit,” Flambae said as he leaned on Robert’s desk. “I brought you some dim sum because I’m fucking awesome and feed the needy when I can.” He pointed to the white bag full of styrofoam containers sitting on Robert’s desk like a shitty Christmas gift.
“I’m not the fucking needy,” Robert snapped. He was a grown man who could maybe sometimes afford his own dim sum when he wanted it. It just so happened that right now he really wanted some for free, especially as the smell of the food hit him. “But thank you.”
Flambae eyed him up and down and for a second, Robert almost thought he was concerned. But then the moment passed and Flambae’s near-permanent scowl returned. “Yeah, you should be thanking me, I’m nice as fuck. Eat more, you look like a malnourished dog. I feel like Sarah McLoughlin should be playing every time I look at you. Because, like, you look so pathetic. Like a stray, mangy dog.”
“No, I got it the first time,” Robert said as he grabbed the bag of food. The dumplings inside tasted even better than they smelled. It was embarrassing, but he couldn’t help practically scarfing down the food. When had he eaten something hot last, yesterday maybe? Although comparing the still-mostly-cold-in-the-center Hot Pocket he had to this felt like comparing a Picasso to a child's scribble drawing.
It took him a moment to get through the incredible food haze and realize Flambae was still standing there, watching him eat. “If you ask me to share this, I want you to know now that I’d take off another few fingers of yours before I gave up even one of these dumplings.”
Flambae glared at him and pushed off the desk. “I hope you choke on one, bitch.”
That probably wasn’t the nicest thing to say to someone who had just brought him delicious food but watching the other man storm away like a petulant child was more than worth it. In a weird way, it was almost… cute. Robert snorted at the thought of ever finding the other man anything other than mildly annoying.
‘Damned if he wasn’t great at picking out restaurants though.’ He thought as he continued to scarf down his meal.
A belly full of food and brisk walk home later, Robert was finally feeling more or less like a normal human. He was still tired as fuck but he was more up to the task of getting a few calls in before bed. This routine had become almost as automatic as his one at SDN. Crack a beer, drink it while he got his set-up ready to go in the living room (Laptop, check. Shitty headset that he ‘borrowed’ from work, check.), and give Beef one last walk and put him to bed in his room before logging on.
Most of his calls early in the night were pretty standard with a few repeat clients calling in. It was stupid, but Robert did feel like he was actually good at this. That’ll show Invisigal, his people skills were at least like a dry paper towel.
“Hey there, this is Matt speaking. Who am I talking to tonight?” Matt, well Matthew, was Robert’s middle name. He wasn’t stupid enough to use his real name for this so Matt felt like an easy option. Plain enough that he wouldn’t get startled if someone yelled that name out in public but familiar enough that it wasn’t really weird when his clients used it.
Robert checked the time and decided if he were going to get some semblance of good sleep, this had to be his last call for the night.
“Wait, uh- who is this?” The voice on the other line felt… familiar. And not familiar in the repeat caller way, familiar in the way that being punched in the mouth felt familiar. Painful and a little acidic.
“Matt. Were you expecting someone else?” He tried to remain playful but his heart rate sped up a little. There was no fucking way-
“Oh my god, is this Robert?” If his very distinct accent didn’t give it away, the condescending way he said Robert’s name sure as hell did. Out of all the people who could have possibly called, he managed to get
fucking
Flambae.
“Jesus Christ.” Robert got up to get another drink. There was no way he was getting through the rest of the night sober.
“Oh my fucking God, you’re a fucking phone sex operator?” Flambae practically screeched down the line. “I would have never guessed you’d have the balls to do something like this. And Matt, fucking Matt? You can’t even pick a more interesting name than Matt?”
“You’re one to talk, Chad.” Robert cracked open another beer and started to chug.
Flambae just laughed. “You think my real name is fucking Chad? You think my Afghani mother in the eighties looked at her baby and thought ‘I’m going to give him the whitest, most basic fucking name ever’? Jesus, you’re so fucking slow.”
Robert was very tempted to slam his head through a wall. Maybe several walls. “Right, whatever. Chad, not Chad, whatever the fuck your real name is, I need you to keep this between us. Please.”
“If you think I’m not telling people, you really are slow.” Flambae snorted.
This was hell, Robert was fully convinced. He was going to ask Malevola tomorrow to verify, but there was no way he couldn’t be being tortured for eternity. Anyone on his team calling would have been bad, but his torturer was a sick fuck to make it Flambae. Especially because it didn’t even make sense for him to be calling, he was too hot (literally and figuratively) to need Robert’s services.
Actually.
“Wait a second. Why are you calling? You had no way of knowing I worked here.”
The line went silent for a second.
“I- well-” Flambae stuttered out.
A Cheshire cat-like grin spread across Robert’s face. “You fucking pervert, you use sex hotlines.”
“I’m not a fucking pervert, you’re the pervert!”
“I don’t know man, I’m getting paid for this. What’s your excuse?” Maybe there was a shining light to this after all. “Look, how about this? You don’t tell people I’m working here and I won’t tell them you’re a freak who wanted to listen to me fart while you jacked off.”
Yes, that was a real request he’d gotten. Yes, he did it. Money is money.
“That-s-” Flambae huffed angrily. “Fine, you asshole. I just want you to know I fucking hate you.”
“Oh, I knew that.” Robert decided he could actually sip his second beer instead of doing the alcoholic equivalent of slamming his head through a brick wall. “Just as an FYI, I can’t hang up so unless you want to pay me for the privilege of talking to you, you’ve got to do it.”
“Wait, you can’t hang up? What if some asshole is saying a bunch of weird, freaky shit to you?”
“Like right now?”
“Fuck you.”
Robert laughed. “If someone were to get verbally abusive, I’m allowed to transfer them to the main operator and block them. I’ve only ever had to do that twice though.” Both times still made Robert’s blood boil enough that he considered trying to find the guys and see if they were just as big and bad in person.
“So you’re saying if I wanted to, I could just spend thirty dollars to call you a little bitch for a half hour?” Flambae seemed more than amused at the prospect.
“You could. Although you do that for free at work every day so I don’t know why you’d waste the money.”
Robert knew he should just block him. In fact, it was kind of stupid not to. But the idea of making Flambae pay him just to say the same weak shit he already hurled his way every day seemed kind of… appealing. Better than a lot of the other calls he got and a hell of lot less work.
“Yeah but here, I have the power. No sending me off to go plunge some old lady’s shitty toilet just because you’re mad at me now.” Which, fair. Robert still giggled at the memory of Flambae’s shrieks as he unclogged what seemed to be one of the most ungodly toilets of all time.
There was rusting on the other end of the phone, like Flambae was getting settled more into a bed. Suddenly, the image of the other man sprawled out in just his underwear popped into Robert’s head. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant image, just deeply inappropriate and definitely not helpful at the moment. The beer must have gotten to him quicker than he thought.
“You still have to see me in person tomorrow. And I’ve been known to hold a grudge,” Robert said.
“Why this? You could be packing boxes in a warehouse like Malevola said.” The question threw Robert off guard. He didn't expect Flambae to give a shit about, well, any of this.
“I didn’t want to leave Beef alone for that long. Plus, this is better for my back. I already fuck up my body enough at SDN, I’d like to be able to still walk when I’m fifty.”
“You and that fucking dog.” Flambae seemed to shift again, the sheets underneath him rusting down the line. “So what’s it like being a phone slut?”
Robert rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, what’s it like being a real-life slut?”
“I’m not a slut, I can’t help it if people see my superior body and amazing face and want a piece,” Flambae said indignantly. “Not all of us can be reclusive virgins like you.”
“Right. Is that why you called a sex hotline? You’ve ran through all of Los Angeles and now you’ve got to look elsewhere?”
“Some of us have real, tiring jobs that keep us from going out sometimes.” Flambae snapped. “And maybe sometimes I’d prefer a real person than watching the same fake as hell porn.” That admittance sounded a bit more sheepish.
“So now that you’ve just got me, is the plan just to go to bed with blue balls?” Robert snorted at the thought. Just Flambae, spread across his bed sadly jerking off to nothing. He was probably still a little hard right now, there’s no way he wasn’t stroking himself a little before he called. And his underwear was probably so tight that his erection would be straining against the fabric just begging to be touched again-
Where the fuck did that image come from?
He was drunk, clearly. Only reasonable explanation for the disturbing places his mind was taking him.
“I don’t know. You could do your job. Come on Bob Bob, try to seduce me.” Flambae’s cruel chuckle irritated Robert more than it should have. It was stupid to want Flambae to think he was good at this job, especially since he shouldn’t even know Robert had it.
But there was some small, stupid part of him that wanted it anyway. It was the same small, stupid part of him that convinced him to keep throwing his body around until he won a fight, no matter how bloody and beaten he already was. He was used to people underestimating him which meant he was used to proving them wrong.
“Do you really think you deserve that?”
“Deserve? What the fuck do you mean deserve? Like you’re some sort of prize. You should be lucky I’m speaking to you.” Getting under Flambae’s skin only urged Robert on.
Some mixture of the alcohol and general frustration at both Flambae and life were bubbling up into something dangerous. If he were smarter, he would shut this down immediately and refuse to speak until Flambae hung up. Or better yet, transfer him to a new operator entirely. But if he were smarter, he wouldn’t be in this predicament to begin with, so.
“I’m not the one who called in, you did. See, I don’t need anyone in my ear to get myself there. I could do it right now, even.” A devious, deeply stupid idea popped into Robert’s head. So stupid that he could already hear his future self bitching out his present one. But he’d proven time and time again that if he had a choice to pick the stupid option, he’d choose it every time.
Part of being a hero meant knowing how to perform. People wanted to be saved, of course, but they also wanted it to feel cool. For their hero to be something larger than life, almost godlike. There was a reason Mecha Man was famous and Robert was not. This job wasn’t all that different. So like how the Mecha Suit could shoot happy little fireworks after a job well done, Matt could make his callers believe he was just as riled up as they were instead of playing Candy Crush on his phone. All it took was a little extra flair.
He grabbed his bin of props that he'd meticulously collected and pulled out a few of his supplies. First thing: a jacket with an obnoxiously loud zipper. He pulled it down slowly, like he was unzipping his jeans.
“Wha- what the fuck are you doing? Are you crazy?” Flambae sputtered out.
“You can hang up whenever you want to. Me, I’m going to actually enjoy my night.” Robert couldn’t help the devious grin creeping onto his face as he continued his plan. Next, a bottle of lotion that he pumped out into his hand next to the mic on his headset.
“You fucking freak, you’re not seriously about to jack off right now.”
Finally, the bright pink dildo he awkwardly brought at a sex shop down the street. It was big and soft enough that he could make some pretty convincing wet slapping noises for his clients. There was no way in hell he was ever going to actually jack off for any of them but a lot of them liked thinking he was so turned on that he would. He ran his lotion-ed hand up and down the shaft of the dildo one time, the squelching noise unmistakable. He could hear Flambae’s breath hitch which meant he heard it too.
“What do you normally talk about when you call?” Robert lowered his voice down to the tone he’d use if he were actually talking with a client. It was almost disturbing how easily he was falling into character. “Do you just like them hearing you moan, knowing they’ll never get to touch you? Or maybe you like it when they give you detailed instructions on how to stroke yourself? I mean I’ve seen your bulge, seems like a lot to handle.”
“What is happening right now?” Flambae said, seemingly to himself. “I mean- I don’t know. I talk about whatever. It’s not- I don’t do it often, okay? I don’t need to.” Whatever bravado Flambae was trying to muster up was not coming out. Robert slightly increased the pace of his hand, the squelching noises getting louder. He wanted Flambae to squirm.
“Me, I like it when people listen. When they trust me enough to guide them through it, getting them to the point where all they can do is think about me and what I’m doing for them. It’s the hottest thing in the world.” There was a little too much truth slipping out, more than Robert usually shared about his kinks with clients, especially when that client also happened to be a coworker. “See, right now if I were talking to someone who was into that sort of thing, I’d have them match my speed, see how long they can last. I don’t know if you can hear, but I’m taking my time. It’s been a long day and I want to enjoy myself.”
The line went quiet and for a moment, Robert was worried he’d actually gone too far. This was still his subordinate, no matter how annoying he may be. But then, shuffling. It sounded like Flambae was adjusting himself in more ways than one. “Yeah, I can hear you.” He mumbled out.
“Good, that’s good.” Robert moaned a little. “It’s-ah, it’s usually hard for guys to keep going as long as me though. My stamina is kinda insane.”
“Bullshit,” Flambae said weakly. “You probably can barely keep it up.”
“Prove me wrong then. If you match my pace and I come before you, I’ll pay you back for this call.” Robert looked at the time, they’d been talking for well over thirty minutes at this point.
“You could cheat. Very easily, actually. I’m not stupid.”
“I could. But there’s a chance I won’t.”
Add lying to the list of shitty decisions he’d made tonight. Besides, he didn’t think Flambae would really go for it. All he wanted was for the other man to be uncomfortable, to hang up thinking Robert was too much of a huge freak to mess with. It was a multitude of HR violations, but so were most of his shifts at work. This was maybe a step above most of the harassment the team threw his way every day.
But then-
“Fine. You’re on Mecha-Dick.” The unmistakable sounds of Flambae moving his hand on his own shaft began.
Robert froze. This was decidedly not his original plan. This was definitely wrong on many fronts but there was no way to back out now. Flambae would hold him to his end of the deal one way or another and there was no way Robert was just handing over money right now.
So if Robert couldn’t see his way out of this, he would have to see his way through. “Now that just sounds like a compliment.”
“Shut up.” Flambae snipped back.
“You don’t really want me to do that. I thought I was supposed to be seducing you?”
“I don’t need your annoying voice ruining my boner. You’re killing the vibe.”
“Got it. Fine, I’ll shut up. But I’m going to go a little faster since I don’t have anything to focus on.” Robert began stroking the dildo at what would be an almost punishing pace if he was doing it to himself.
Flambae, to his credit, did keep up. Robert had never thought about what his coworkers sounded like when they had sex but actually getting to hear it… it was doing more for him than it probably (see: definitely) should. He waited until Flambae’s noises got a little louder and a little more desperate and then-
“I’ve stopped.” Robert panted a little to make it seem like he was getting close as well.
“What the fuck, why?” Flambae whined. Something about how desperate the other man sounded made his insides jolt. He suddenly realized he was rock hard, something that had never happened during one of his calls since he started. The fact that this, of all things, managed to cut through the layers of depression and other general bullshit that kept his libido at bay and get a reaction out of him was bewildering.
Like with most things, he decided immediately to shove that feeling down. People got random boners all the time; it didn’t mean anything.
“I got bored. You said you’d match my pace, so stop.” Robert could sense Flambae hesitating through the phone. “Or you can just give up now and hang up. I won’t be offended, I didn’t think you could do it in the first place.”
“Fuck you. Start again.”
“Ask me to start talking again,” Robert said. Flambae just laughed.
“Fine, you win. I’ll restart.” Robert went back to the same punishing pace he was out before. He imagined really touching himself like this, really getting Flambae of all people desperate and needy-
A moan slipped out. A real one, not the ones for show he’d been making so Flambae wouldn’t get suspicious.
What the fuck.
“I’m stopping.”
“Fuck, stop stopping!” Flambae practically shouted. Robert could almost feel Flambae’s frustration through the phone, could practically see him gripping his dick pitifully in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.
Jesus, that was really doing it for Robert. His own dick was weeping, begging to be touched for real. But that was a personal boundary he wasn’t breaking, especially for Flambae.
“Ask me to talk to you again.”
Silence. Robert waited a few moments and started again wordlessly. A little slower this time, but fast enough that the friction had to be killing the other man by now. Flambae moaned much louder than the last time, proving Robert’s sick little hypothesis right.
He grinned wickedly. “I stopped.”
“Jesus fuck, please start talking again! Pleasepleaseplease, fuck-” Flambae begged. For the first time since he was a teenager, Robert was afraid he might come in his pants. He wanted to record the way Flambae said ‘please’ and play it over and over again until he could recall it perfectly for the rest of his life.
“Good boy. Thank you for asking so nicely.” Robert started stroking the dildo again before Flambae moaned loudly and let out a litany of curses. “Are you getting close? God, you sound so fucking needy. Just go ahead and come for me already, I know you want to.”
Flambae moaned so loud it was practically a scream. Then, just heavy panting.
Robert was a little stunned. He couldn’t tell if he was more turned on or shocked that Flambae actually came. Although he couldn’t be that shocked, he had done everything in his power to get Flambae to that point. In fact, he’d wanted to make him come.
Which meant he had to sit with the fact that he wanted to make Flambae come.
“Did you-” Robert began, suddenly feeling very shy. His hotline persona very quickly gave the mental reins back over to Robert, just in time for him to be leveled by the ramifications of what he just did.
Instead of a response, the call ended. Flambae had finally hung up.
Robert groaned and put his head in his hands. That was too far. He knew it was too far the moment he started and yet he kept going. And why the fuck did he enjoy himself so much?
He checked the time once he finished cleaning up all his props. Almost three a.m. Which was just- great. Not only did he make things very complicated for himself, but he was also going to be exhausted again tomorrow.
It didn’t help that he was still rock hard and too riled up to sleep right away. He laid on his couch and started to stroke himself at the same pace as he did with the dildo. All it took was remembering how Flambae pleaded like something right out of one one Robert’s wet dreams to drive him over the edge almost immediately. It would be embarrassing if the shame of it all didn’t blanket everything first. Robert laid there in the afterglow, hating himself just a smidge more.