Chapter Text
I get mean when I'm nervous, like a bad dog
I get mean when I'm nervous, like a bad dog
I want to jump into blue water
And I miss riding horses, I miss running fast
I miss riding horses, I miss running fast
“Hello Coupé,” Robert said to himself.
She was in the corner, hidden in the shadows. Most of the Z-Team members didn’t seem to notice her when they came into the breakroom for lunch, which he thought was rather odd—the shadows always warped around her in an abnormal way. If you squinted hard enough you would see her outline.
“Hello there,” she said as she came out. “Robert.”
Robert nodded and took a sip of his coffee.
Coupé was different from most of the members. Most of them were loud and obnoxious. Golem usually wasn’t, and Malevola was more on an average level of volume, but there was always something different about Coupé. Like her silence was more relatable than the silence of someone like Golem or Mal.
“What did you do as a child?”
Robert blinked before looking up at her confusedly. “As a child?”
“I used to do training when I was a child.” Coupé said to him. She was making her own cup of coffee, one sugar and one creamer. “I was sent on my first mission at ten and failed.”
Robert took a sip of his coffee. “What kind of training did you do?”
“Fighting. How to avoid punches, what places are the most lethal to hit.” she said. “Did you do that?”
“Do I give off the vibe?” Robert asked.
Coupé looked at him—there was something in her eyes that he often saw whenever he woke up and looked into the mirror. A begrudging acceptance at the fact that life was what it was. “You do.”
Robert snorted. “I doubt that anything that I went through was half as bad as yours.”
“But you did training like I did?” she asked.
“Whenever my dad had time, yeah.” he said. Robert wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to talk about anything in his childhood without revealing the fact that he was Mecha Man—the suit was absolutely everywhere in his life since the moment he was born, since he was cursed with being the third of his family. “He knew someone with healing powers, so we would just fight until she stepped in.”
“Do you miss your childhood?” Coupé asked him.
Robert shrugged. “I had a nice backyard, but that’s about it really.”
Coupé nodded. “Did your father teach you how to use weapons too?”
“Lots of hand-to-hand mostly. Pocket knives and stuff,” he said to her. “I guess there was some weaponry. I did most of that training myself though.”
Coupé hummed. “I used to do ballet when I was a kid. I still love my old teacher.”
“Oh yeah?” Robert asked. “What was her name?”
“Her last name was Allaire,” Coupé said. “I never learned her first name.”
Robert nodded before he looked down at his cup of coffee. He would have to make another before he left for his shift, especially if he wanted to get by without his pain meds. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’ve been told that opening up to other people is a way that they get close.” Coupé said to him. Her hands were wrapped around her coffee mug when she spoke. “And I wanted to thank you for keeping me on the team. For fighting for both of us to have a second chance.”
Robert blinked before looking at his mug too. His hands were wrapped around it the same way. “You know you don’t have to talk about yourself if you don’t want to, right? I don’t need a thank you.”
“I find enough comfort in your presence to tell you about this.” Coupé said to him. “Like someone moving to a new country and finding someone who spoke their native language.”
“Do we speak the same language?” he asked her with a smile.
Coupé smiled back. “I think we do.”
“Have you ever been kidnapped for training, Robert?”
Robert was rubbing his temples when Coupé asked the question. Most of the team was either silent at it or focused on something else, but Robert had been listening enough to answer.
“Define what you mean by that,” he said.
“Did your father ever pay someone to kidnap you and time how fast you got out?”
“What kinda fucking question is that?” Prism butt in. Robert heard a huff on her comms, likely Flambae.
Invisigal snorted. “This is like some weird form of trauma dumping.”
“Can we clear the comms, please?” Robert sighed. “He did a couple of times.”
“Do you know who he hired?” Coupé asked him.
“I think regular criminals, I guess? Never paid attention to that.” Robert said. His fingers were typing the best that they could over his computer, hacking at some security footage to help Malevola and Golem. “Though he did hire this French group one time. Weird skull symbol.”
“Are we actually talking about you two getting kidnapped as children?” Invisigal asked.
“Yeah dude, that’s like– child abuse.” Sonar said. He was just now returning from a successful business mission. “I would know. I took a psychology class at Harvard.”
“I don’t think that you need to take psychology classes to know that, genius.” Flambae grumbled. “Did you ever consider that kidnapping children in general is bad?”
Golem made the rockslide noise that he usually made, like stepping on gravel. “Gravy.”
Coupé hummed. “I know that gang. They’re amateurs."
“That’s what I thought too. They bragged too much.” Robert said with a small, smiling huff. “And they didn’t tie the ropes that well either, though I guess their warehouse was big enough.”
“Did you go out of the side door they keep unlocked?” Coupé asked him.
“No, they had a basement hatch. Leads to an abandoned garage, I just stole their keys.”
“You two do realize that this isn’t something that normally happens, right?” Punch Up cut into the conversation. He was at some construction site and helping with lifting materials—though he barely sounded like it. “Even at the carnival. My parents never sold me to kidnappers to see how fast I was.”
“Yeah that’s like, really bad.” Mal said. “Are you guys even going to therapy?”
Robert groaned. “Therapy’s too expensive.”
“SDN gives insurance, bitch.” Flambae said. “Get some fucking therapy.”
“You guys do realize that SDN isn’t actually paying me, right? I doubt that I’d get insurance if I don’t have an hourly wage.” he said to them. There was a rather large silence on the comms—at least a minute’s worth of silence. Too much silence for the Z-Team. “You guys did know that, right?”
“Lad you can’t be serious–”
“The fuck do you mean that you’re dealing with us for free?”
“This is the worst financial investment that someone could make.”
Robert groaned. Today was going to be a bad day.