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Sometimes Robert missed the time when he was still a child.
Not the endless nights he spent alone wondering when his father would finally be done with being Mecha Man and come home again. Or the times when his father was home and still didn’t spend any time with his son because he was busy with the Suit.
Or all the other times he wanted his father to look at him and be proud and love him but his father didn’t.
When Robert looked back at this time he couldn’t help himself to think that maybe Prism was right about him having daddy issues.
But he missed the times when his body was still unaffected from the endless fight his life turned out to be.
When his body wasn’t littered with scars and constant pain reminded him of his life choices.
Yeah. He missed the good old times.
Even when they weren’t long because he gained his first big scar when he was eight and he lost a piece of his ear because of the Mecha Man suit which also left traumatic scars on his soul.
But hey, after years he became really good at ignoring his physical and emotional scars. As long as he doesn’t open the box of oppressed emotions everything will be fine. At least Robert thinks it will be fine.
One thing that’s a little harder to ignore are his ears.
After so many fights and several explosions Robert was way too close to, his hearing was permanently damaged. It’s actually a miracle that it took so long till he got a hearing defect. After all, he could still hear perfectly fine after he lost a part of his ear.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t hear anything anymore. He could still hear bits but it was hard and it gave Robert a headache when he tried to understand what people said for too long.
Fortunately hearing aids exist.
While wearing his hearing aids he could hear normally and luckily they were so small that no one could really see them when Robert wears them. With his hearing aids it was like he didn’t have a hearing defect at all.
So it was fine.
Everything was fine.
And even when it’s not fine, Robert would just ignore the problem like he did with mostly every problem which concerned his health.
~.~.~.~.~
It was a normal work day at the SDN.
Robert just got a cup of fresh coffee to survive the day. Sonar, Prism and Malevola discussed a new bet and Punch up was thrown through the window by Golem. So it was a normal day for the Z-Team. Robert was already way too used to them and didn’t even bother to ask why they did what they did.
“Oh bitch please! There is no way he will stay longer than a week!” Prism said to the half-demon.
“I don’t know. He looks fierce. I’m sure he will manage to last at least for a week.” Malevola answered. Sonar groaned.
“Can’t I just get rid of him? One person less to nag me when I powder my nose.” He said.
“Babe you wanted to quit. Remember?”
Robert finally decided to join them in their conversation. Mostly to make sre it wasn’t about anything that could ruin the future of the Z-Team or any other person. “What are you betting on? I hope it’s not illegal.”
“Oh come on bitch! You know we wouldn’t do anything illegal. We are heroes after all!” Robert just looked at Alice silently, knowing what the Z-Team is capable of.
“Sure…” He finally said.
“We’re betting how long the new HR guy will manage to endure it here.” The half demon explained.
“There… There actually is a HR?” That was surprising. After everything the Z-Team did on a daily basis he just assumed that there was no HR department.
“Yeah but they never do anything. They are like little puppies. All bark, no bite, babes.”
“But still, they are sooooo annoying. And I’m sure the last one stole my stapler.” That was a story Robert heard before.Sonarfinds at least once a week a new person to accuse of stealing his stapler. At this point Robert wasn’t even sure if Sonar had a stapler to begin with and did all of that just to fuck with people.
“What the fuck do you even need a stapler for? You don’t have a fucking desk job!”
“But I like my stapler!”
“Bitch, who the fuck cares for a stupid stapler?”
“Well, of course someone who didn’t go to Harvard wouldn’t understand the beauty of-”
“Oh shut your fucking mouth or I will shut it for you bitch!”
“Yeah? I would like to see you try!” This stupid discussion turned into a fight
“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty. Now can you stop fighting?” Robert stepped in before the bat-human and the pop star started to get physical. The Dispatcher wondered if there will ever be a day his Team wouldn’t start a fight after some stupid argument. Probably not. Luckily Sonar and Prism listened to him and stopped their bickering.
“Anyways, your shift starts soon so you guys better get ready. Don’t kill anyone, no kidnapping and no blackmailing.” he said to them and was met with some groans and “Yes, yes mom, we know.”
Robert wanted to go to his desk where Beef was already waiting and was probably spoiled with Threats by Chase. Just when he was about to leave the break room the big frame of a person blocked his way.
It was no one else than the most arrogant fire user Robert ever met.
Flambae.
And he looked pissed. Not that it was hard to piss the guy off.
“And who pissed in your coffee?” He asked the arrogant hero. It seemed to be the wrong question because Flambae looked even more pissed. Robert really had a talent for getting under Flambae's skin even when he didn’t want to.
“Fucking Bitch! It’s the time of the month anyway.”
Before Robert could say anything else or realize what Flambae meant by his words a fist already collided with his face.
The impact of the punch made Robert fall back and he collided with the ground. Hard.
It took him a moment to understand what just happened. Flamebae probably meant the time of the month, where he punches Robert in the face to somehow get over his hate of Mecha Man. Honestly Robert didn’t know if it actually helped Flambae with getting over his hatred. Talking with a therapist would probably be a better way to deal with his rage. Not that Robert ever talked to a therapist himself. But as long as Flambae was doing his job, Robert was fine with being punched in the face.
The only person who was hurt by this was Robert and it was only physical. Also it was not nearly the worst physical attack Robert had to endure.
So it was fine.
At least for Robert.
But something was not fine.
Something was wrong.
It took Robert a moment to notice what it was.
It was quiet. Really quiet. It’s never quiet with the Z-Team around.
Flambae would brag about himself, Alice would encourage him, Sonar would say some annoying stuff about crypto or Harvard and Malevola would loudly laugh. But it was silent.
Or not silent. When Robert concentrated he could make out some noises but they were hard to understand. The Dispatcher looked at his Team and saw how their mouth moved but he just couldn’t really understand anything.
He just couldn’t hear them.
You didn’t need to be a genius to understand what happened.
“Fuck.” Robert mumbles. He stood up from the ground and hurried to leave the break room. Outside the break room he stopped for a second. His hearing aids weren’t working and in this state he couldn’t dispatch his team. Great.
Maybe he should have invested in a second pair of hearing aids at some point in his life. Just to have a replacement when they broke. Well, what’s done is done.
Now his hope lies on Royd to quickly fix his hearing aids so Robert could at least do the second shift. Before he went to search for Royd he quickly sent a text to Blazer that he couldn’t do his first shift. And a message to Chase to look after Beef for a while. It’s not like Chase was already looking after the dog and liked the dog way more than any other living being in this building.
.~.~.~.~.~
Blazer was confused and concerned. Just a few minutes ago Robert sent her a text.
“I can’t work like this.” said the message.
Was this his way to tell her that he quit his job? Did the Z-Team finally drive him so far that he gave up? She thought they were all doing better after the whole thing with Shroud. But it seemed like she was wrong.
The first shift was just about to start and she had to talk with the Z-Team about their behavior toward their dispatcher. When Robert quit she honestly saw a dark future for the Z-Team. After all Robert was the only dispatcher they ever really listened to. And also the only dispatcher who didn’t run after two days with the team of former villains.
So she decided to take Robert's shift over herself. It was better to do the work herself, than to traumatize another dispatcher.
When she arrived at Roberts desk Chase looked at her with a questioning look.
“Robert said he can’t work.” She quickly informed him.
“Hope that little fucker didn’t get into trouble again.” The man cursed and typed something on his phone before he went back to his own dispatching work. Blazer also focused on the computer in front of her and put on the headset.
“Hello Z-Team. I will take over dispatching-” she started but was already cutted of by the Team.
“The fuck?”
“What the fuck is Blondie doing here?”
“Bitch, where is Boberto?”
“Nope, not in the mood to work with some other dispatcher.”
“Did Rob die? Please tell me, there is a bet running.”
“I would like to find his murderers and avenge him.”
“Get the little bitch on the mic!”
“Did he get blown up again?”
Of course they didn’t shut up and let Blond Blazer speak. She really wondered how Robert dealt with them everyday. If the team only wanted to work with Robert maybe they should have threatened him like that and not made him quit in the first place!
“Can you all be quiet for a moment? I’m actually here to ask you about Robert and what happened.” The former villains stopped talking and let Blazer finally say her piece.
“Thank you. So, I just received a message from Robert, saying that he can’t work like this. What did you guys do? I know that in the past you made so many Dispatchers quit but I thought you guys like Robert and not torment him till he leaves! I really thought you guys improved!” She said.
For a moment there was absolute silence.
“WHAT?!”
“No fucking way!”
“No, no, no, he can’t just quit. He belongs to us!”
“That fucking little bitch can’t just quit!”
“I licked him, he belongs to me. He can’t leave!”
“BITCH! If this is a joke your amulet will not be much help to save you!”
“Robert wants to leave? That’s really sad…”
“Nah, he will not find a better group than us.”
“Maybe he already found a better group and that’s why he left.”
“That’s nothing a little murder can’t fix.”
“GUYS! Stop. I want to know what happened. And no murder.” Blazer said firmly.
“I mean, we promised Bobert no murder but I see no point in that promise when he just left us!” Sonar said.
“Yeah, why should we play nice when Robert is not here?”, Punch up asked.
“He's been gone for five minutes and you're already thinking about going fully out of control?" The blond woman asked.
“To be fair, Robert is like 80% of our selfcontrol.” Malevola said.
“You have like five minutes to bring him back before we start a fire.” Visi said.
“Fuck yeah! Let’s do this!” Flambae was already ready to start some fires to bring their point across.
“No! Can’t you stay serious for a moment?” Blazer stopped them.
“We are serious! We’re ready to take hostages when Robert Roberson isn’t returned to us.” Coupe said with a way too serious tone to be joking. Blond Blazer couldn’t understand how Robert managed to work with them so long.
“Maybe this kind of behavior is the reason why Robert doesn't want to work with you anymore.” The blond woman said. That was enough to finally shut the Z-Team up.
“That… that can’t be true, right? He wouldn’t just leave.” Visi asked.
“But he even said that we did a good job last week.” Golem muttered.
“Maybe if SOMEONE wouldn’t have punched Rob in the face, he wouldn’t quit!” The Demon lady growled.
“You funking Bitch Bae! Why the fuck did you had to hit Boberto?”
“I punch him every month! There is no fucking way this is my fault!” The fire user tried to defend himself.
“Maybe he got sick of you always punching him. Why the fuck do you even still do that? Get over yourself." Visi said.
“Because I’m angry?! I lost two fingers and a tooth because of Mecha Bitch!”
“To be fair Lad, the tooth was totally ye own fault. Ye started the fight and slipped on the water.” Punch up threw in.
“Oh fuck you! He didn’t fucking quit because of me!” Flambae screamed and Blazer didn’t need to see him to know that he just set himself on fire.
“How about we throw Flambae out of the team and Robert stays?” Coup suggested.
“Bitch, say that to my face and I will burn it!”
“Yeah, sorry Bae but if I have to choose between you and Bob Bob I will choose Bob Bob.” Prism said.
“You’re all fucking assholes. Why the fuck would you want a boring normie instead of an amazing hero like myself?”
“I would rather have a Dispatcher who knows how to do their job. We can just find another giant lighter.”
“Oh fuck you! For the last time it’s not my fault!”
“Then why isn’t Boberto here?”
“I don’t fucking know, bitch! Maybe he’s just too weak for the fucking job!”
“Nah, the way the lad held himself in a fistfight I doubt he would quit just because he got hurt.”
“Okay, but if Rob Rob didn’t quit because Flambae punched him” Sonar started “then maybe he quit because Flambae hurted his feelings with the punch.”
“Oh my god! Flambae you hurted his feelings!”
“What the fuck do you want to say? I know that Bob Bob is weak but even I don’t think that the little Bitch is so sensitive that he would quit just because someone hurt his feelings!”
Blond Blazer took the headset off. The Z-Team wouldn’t listen to her anyway and it didn’t seem like they would stop arguing for a while. Without Robert this team was impossible to manage.
A deep sigh left the blond woman. “How can this team survive without Robert?”
Suddenly she heard someone laughing beside her and looked to Chase. The old man seemed quite amused about the whole situation.
“Don’t worry the kid didn’t quit.” He finally said. Blazer looked at him confused.
“But… he texted me that he can’t work like that.”
“Yeah, the little fucker really need to get better at communication. He just had a technical problem which he needs to fix. He will soon be back.”
It was like a stone fell from Blazers heart. So the Z-Team was saved for now and she just needed to wait till Robert was back.
“Wait. If you knew that he would be back, why didn’t you speak up when you heard the chaos the Z-Team started?” She asked.
“As if I would help these shitheads. Maybe it’s good for them to fear a little bit that Robert will leave them!” The old man laughed.
.~.~.~.~.~.~.
After the first shift ended the Z-Team met at the SDN with one shared goal in mind: Find Robert.
“Are you guys sure he’s still in the building? If he resigned this morning why should he still be around?” Visi asked.
“Bitch I don’t know. Do I look like I put a tracker on him? Wait, did someone put a tracker on him?” Prism asked while looking in Coupe's direction.
“No but that’s a good plan for the future.” The former Assassin said.
“Babes, we shouldn’t waste anymore time. Come on, let’s search for him!”
The team split up and searched for their Dispatcher. And because it’s the Z-Team they managed to get in the way of everyone they met while searching for Robert. Sonar also stole some stablers from the office desks while searching for Robert. If HR would actually do anything the Team would probably be in trouble for all the chaos they started while searching the whole building.
While they were busing searching for Robert - the wanted man - sat on a bench in front of Royds lab and scrolled on his phone. Without his hearing aids it was hard to have small talk with Royd while he worked so Robert decided to just sit on the bench and kill some time by doomescrolling Instagram.
He didn’t notice how the elevator door opened and Malevola looked into the floor just to be shocked and happy to see Robert and disappeared again to get the rest of the team.
At least Robert had enough self-awareness to notice when the team stepped in front of him. He looked up from his phone and the former villains already started talking.
To his misfortune several of them started talking at once. For Robert it sounded like various noises underwater and he couldn’t make out a single word. Reading their lips was also hard because so many of them talked all at once.
It also seemed like they were all screaming and trying to talk over each other which made it even harder for Robert. He wondered what happened during their first shift that made them act like that. Knowing them it could be everything from “they’re just in a bad mood because they are bored” to “Half the city exploded because of them”.
After a minute Robert gave up trying to understand anything the Z-Team wanted to tell him in this state. With a sight buried his face in his hands. For some reason that made the Z-Team even more furious. But the anger seemed to be directed at Flambae and not at Robert.
The Dispatcher had no clue what happened but he hoped that Flambae didn’t burn anything or anyone important.
The tap of a big hand on his shoulder made Robert look up from his hands. Royd must have left his lab because of all the tumult the Z-Team created. The team didn’t even seem to notice Royd because they were too busy screaming at each other. Maybe it wasn’t too bad that Robert couldn’t hear them right now.
Royd looked at the Team with a raised eyebrow and probably decided that this was not his problem. He handed Robert a small box.
“Thank you Royd. You’re the best.” Robert said. He couldn’t hear what the bigger man answered but when he read his lips right it was probably something like “No problem Brotha.” before he returned to his lab.
Robert took the fixed hearing aids out of the box and put them in his ears. Suddenly the world was filled with noises again. Right now the noise was mostly the Z-Team arguing with each other. Maybe Robert could just turn his hearing aids off again and savor the silence for a little longer before he faced whatever the problem of the day was.
With a loud sigh he made himself ready for a new headache.
“You guys were saying?” He asked his team and finally the attention was back on him and not on insulting each other. Malevola was the first to speak up.
“Flambae is really sorry for hitting you and he wants to apologize. And if that’s not enough we can throw him out of the team!” Flambae seemed to be everything but happy with that but the rest of the team seemed to like what the demon Lady said.
“Okay… why do you force Flambae to apologize? Or threaten to throw him off the team, which is not your decision to begin with?” The Dispatcher just hoped the older man didn’t start another fire.
“Bitch, weren’t you listening for the last ten minutes when we were talking to you?”
“No. I wasn't."
“What? We search for you in the whole building and try to make amends and you just ignore us?”
“I wasn’t ignoring anyone. I just couldn’t hear you.”
“Yeah sure, because we were so quiet.” Visis said sarcastically while rolling her eyes.
“I literally couldn’t hear you guys.” He let out another sigh and missed the time where he couldn’t hear them. “My hearing aids were broken and I can’t really hear much without them.”
Suddenly the mood of the group switched and they were silent. For a moment Robert questioned if his hearing aids stopped working again.
“You wear hearing aids?” Sonar finally said.
“Yes? I just put them in. And I did it right in front of you.” Silence. “You guys are really horrible at noticing stuff.”
“Wait! You’re deaf? That’s weak even for you Mecha Bitch.” Flambae said.
“Wow Flambae, make fun of a man with a disability. That’s really low.”
“Didn’t we just talk about boundaries when hurting other people's feelings?”
“Well I guess when you get in as many fights, explosions and near death experiences as I did, one of your body parts is bound to stop working.” Robert said.
“So your hearing aids broke at some point?” Bruno asked.
“Yeah, they broke when Flambae hit me in the face. So I had to get them fixed before I could return to work.”
“Bitch, you just broke the assistive product of a disabled person. Shame on you.” Prism said to Flambae.
“I didn’t know he wears fucking hearing aids! None of you Bitches knew that!”
“So you quit because Flambae broke your hearing aids?” Robert needed a moment to realize what was just said.
“I didn’t quit. Who gave you that idea?” He said confused.
“You did.” Visi quickly answered.
“What?” Now Robert was even more confused.
“Lad, ye texted Blond Blazer that ye can’t work like that.”
“Yes. I can’t work without my hearing aids or how am I supposed to use my headset and communicate with you guys, when I can’t hear a single thing?” Robert asked. Did the team believe he could do his work without hearing any of the calls or them talking to him?
“You didn’t quit because you don’t want to work with us anymore?” Mal asked. Robert seriously questioned what happened in the first shift that it was so hard for them to believe that he didn’t quit his job.
“No. I just texted Blazer that I can’t work like this. I’m starting to believe you guys are the ones who actually can’t hear me.”
“So… Do you want us to throw Flambae out of the team for destroying your hearing aids?” Coupe asked.
“Oh you fucking bitch!”
“No. Everyone stays on the team. Also Flambae didn’t know that I was wearing hearing aids just like the rest of you. So it would be pretty unfair to be mad at him for breaking something he didn’t know about.” Robert explained.
“But you’re alright with him punishing you?” Prism asked with a raised eyebrow. Robert just shrugged.
“If it makes him feel better and he doesn’t start a rampage at work. The only person who gets hurt by doing that is me so I don’t really mind.” And again he was met by silence from the Z-Team and concerned looks.
“Dude, you seriously need therapy. Like yesterday.” Visi stated and the rest of the Team agreed.
“Bitch, you should also write better texts! I can’t work like this, is such a vague statement. We all believed you quit!”
“Oh come on, I’m sure Blazer understood my message. And it’s not like you all spent your shift worrying that I quit my job.” Robert said. And again he was met with silence from the normally loud group. He didn’t need them to tell him that he just described what they did in their shift.
“I guess I should talk to Blazer before she has a mental breakdown trying to find a new dispatcher for you guys.”