Work Text:
Sometimes, Courtney liked to steal just to see how the person reacted. You could learn a lot about someone from the way they behaved when their things went missing. Or, that's what she told herself, when she was rifling through Robert's backpack and desk. Felt more justified, that way.
It was all work bullshit or useless junk. Except—in the top drawer of the desk, there was one glossy printed photograph. In it, a young boy with copper hair was beaming from ear to ear and pointing at something out of frame. Behind him, hand resting on the boy's chest, was Mecha Man Astral, in full costume except for his mask. Robert and his dad.
They looked so happy.
Must be nice, she thought.
Courtney pocketed the picture and took off.
Later, when she was home, Courtney took the photo out again to study it. The kid was clearly Robert; Courtney could see his adult self in the shape of his face and eyes. But she hadn't seen Robert smile like that before. It was so unlike him—so unlike any expression Mecha Man ever made. But, if she had the best dad in the world and he died when she was just a kid, she would probably smile less, too.
They were in some kind of lab, it looked like. The Brave Brigade headquarters, maybe? And wow, what a fucking crazy thought that was.
Courtney tried to imagine what it would be like to grow up surrounded by heroes. Getting to play around in their top secret clubhouse. Her parents never even took her to fucking Disneyland. But Robert was legacy—superhero royalty, basically. What was that like? You'd have anything you wanted, probably. You'd never go hungry or cold or feel unsafe in your own home.
Of course you'd be a good person, if all of your role models were the most famous superheroes in LA. If your dad was just, and brave—a normie fighting against the worst of the worst—then of course you would have a heart of pure fucking gold. Goodness was basically in Robert's blood. His goddamn destiny, even if he didn't believe in fate.
And Courtney worked for the guy who killed his dad.
She laughed, harsh and hurting. Robert said, no one made you pick a life of crime. Wasn't that so fucking easy for him to say? His dad didn't hit him when he said he didn't want to steal anymore. He didn't have to choose between being a good person and eating dinner. He had the whole fucking Brave Brigade keeping him safe from having to make hard calls like that. And he had the fucking nerve to criticize her choices?
It was just… unfair. So fucking unfair. If she had a dad like that, she would have been a hero, too. She would always make the right call. She wouldn't be such a selfish fucking asshole.
Courtney wanted to tear the photograph up into a million tiny pieces. She put it on her dresser, instead.
Robert didn't even notice the photo was gone until two days later. Courtney was watching when it happened—she'd been watching him a lot, lately. Robert opened the drawer to put a folder inside, and paused halfway to closing it. He lifted up the folder, slid the other documents in there aside, and frowned.
Courtney watched him pull the drawer out until it was fully open, then remove the contents one by one. When the drawer was empty and the photo still wasn't there, he went through the documents he'd taken out, flipping through them in case the picture somehow slipped between the pages. Still no luck.
He opened the next drawer in the cabinet and looked through it in a similarly thorough way.
"Hey." Flambae sidled up to her. "You coming out with us tonight? Going to Blue Lantern. Gonna be lit. Get it?"
Courtney ignored him. Robert was on his hands and knees looking underneath his desk for the picture.
Flambae followed her gaze and they both watched Robert lower his chest to the floor—and lift his ass into the air—to look under the file cabinet. After a moment of staring, Flambae asked, "The fuck's he doing?"
Courtney shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Must have fucking—misplaced his dignity or some shit."
Flambae huffed a laugh through his nose. "Nice one. Hey!" he called out, heading toward Robert's desk. "What's up, Bob? You looking for your goddamn dignity under there?"
Courtney rolled her eyes.
"Lost my last scrap of dignity in the back of a club off Sunset Strip, so. I gave up on getting that back a while ago." Robert sat back and looked up at Flambae, still kneeling. "Looked a lot like this, actually."
Flambae made a choked noise, and Courtney was humiliated by the pathetic twisting of her heart. Was Robert flirting? With Flambae? The guy who would burn him to a crisp if he knew who he really was?
"Tch. Whatever, bitch." Flambae seemed to recover from his flustered state. "What the fuck you actually looking for, then?"
Courtney tried not to wince when Robert made eye contact with her as he stood up.
"Just a… Just some paperwork. Thought it might have slipped under the desk." He was still looking at her. Shit.
Courtney sucked in a breath and disappeared. She didn't stick around to hear how the rest of the conversation with Flambae went.
She avoided Robert for the rest of their lunch break in her usual hiding spot on the roof behind the stairwell. There weren't a lot of private places where someone could be alone in the SDN building, and the roof sometimes had a nice breeze. Plus, she could smoke up here and not get caught breaking their no smoking policy.
Courtney watched cars drive by and other heroes come and go on calls. Waiting for their break to end felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But, Robert sounded just as dryly enthusiastic as he ever did when he greeted them all for their second shift. It was business as usual, apparently. He didn't ask about the picture or say anything to indicate that he was upset.
Which was… frustrating. He'd clearly seen her staring. And she was a thief. That was her whole thing. And, if anyone else found it, the whole team would know his stupid secret identity by now. So, he had to at least suspect her.
But he sent her off on calls like normal, no passive aggression in his tone or anything. And Courtney started to think—well, if he was too much of a pussy to confront her, then she wasn't giving the stupid fucking picture back.
It didn't come up again until the following Monday.
Courtney was taking her lunch break on the roof again, when Robert's voice called out, "Hey, uh, Invisigal? You up here? Can we talk?" The sound startled her into taking a short breath and vanishing.
She thought about making a break for the stairwell, but if Robert had just come up that way he would probably notice the door opening. And if this was about the fucking picture, Courtney was more than ready to finally have this conversation.
"Talk about what?" she asked, reappearing behind him.
He only flinched a little, this time. "Something went missing from my desk. I'm not gonna accuse you of stealing, but if you have it, can I have it back, please?"
Courtney scoffed. "Why would I take shit from your desk? Sounds like you are accusing me."
Robert shook his head like he didn't have the faintest clue. "I dunno, Invisigal. Just to fuck with me?"
"Ooh, am I like, getting in your head? Can't stop thinking about me fucking you?"
He drew in a deep breath and was heavy on the exhale. He didn't sound frustrated, just… disappointed. "Listen, if I have a sex dream about you, you'll be the first to know. Right now I'm just looking for my stuff back."
Courtney groaned, rolling her eyes. "Look, dude, I don't care about whatever boring fucking paperwork you're looking for."
"If I give it a day, will it magically reappear in my desk so we both just move on?"
"Uh, no." Courtney leaned in on the irreverent attitude. "Because I don't have whatever it is."
"I saw you watching while I was looking for it!" There. Finally, he was getting annoyed.
"So? Jesus, dude, I'm not allowed to look at you anymore? What happened to wanting to be friends?"
"Friends don't steal from each other. And you disappeared like I caught you red handed. I thought if I gave you a couple days, you'd get this out of your system and put it back. But it doesn't seem like you're planning to do that. So, what. Are you trying to blackmail me?"
"No!" Courtney stared up at him, genuinely surprised. She hadn't thought of that. Which was stupid, in hindsight. It was really good blackmail material. But it hurt to hear that Robert thought she would do something like that.
"Then what is it? You just wanted a fight? Some attention?"
"I just—" It was so, so fucking frustrating when he did that. Like her motivations were pathetically transparent to him, even when she didn't know why she was doing anything. Like she was no different from any other criminal he'd ever dealt with. "Fuck off. It's just a stupid picture. I'm sure you have—copies, or whatever. And a million more like it in some fancy fucking photo album. So what's this actually about?" There. She was finding her footing in the argument she started. "You change your mind about cutting me from the team? You gonna report me to Blazer for stealing a piece of fucking paper?"
There was a tense set to Robert's jaw and a heated look in his eyes. He seemed pissed. Good.
But before he spoke, he turned away and drew in a deep breath. He gave himself a long moment—like he was counting to ten, or some shit—before responding. "Your job is not in danger," he said, slowly, like he was trying hard not to sound upset. "I just want the picture back. It's the only one I have, so it means a lot to me."
Courtney scoffed. "The only one? Don't fucking bullshit me."
"I'm not." The sincerity in his sad fucking eyes sent a pang of sympathetic hurt ricocheting through her chest. "My dad and I… we weren't close. He wasn't a photo album kind of guy."
He could be lying, she thought. He could be making shit up to get her with some sad guilt trip. "You look pretty close in that picture," she said, accusatory.
"Yeah, well. I was seven, and it was a good day. There weren't a lot of those."
"Wow, yeah, I'm sure it was so hard being Mecha Man's kid. Must have been some really bad days, growing up like that."
"Invisigal…" He sighed. "If this is about what I said after the Granny's thing, I'm sorry. I was out of line. I'm sure you had reasons—"
"No, seriously." She cut him off, rattled by the apology. "I wanna know. What did the bad days with Mecha Dad look like? Did he hit you? Make you steal for him?" Her voice broke and she turned abruptly away as tears sprang to her eyes. "You weren't close with your superhero dad. What a fucking hardship."
"Visi, wait—" Robert's hand grazed her shoulder, but she was already invisible, pulling away from his touch.
Courtney put the picture back in his desk the next day. Clearly Robert was just too good of a guy to react the way she wanted him to—the way that would show he was no better than her.
She hoped that would be the end of it, but that afternoon Robert was sitting in her spot, legs dangling off the side of the roof. He had the photo in his hands.
Courtney stood still, considering turning right back around and heading downstairs, but Robert spoke without looking at her.
"You know, he did hit me, sometimes." His head was bowed. He tapped the corner of the picture with his finger. "Never told anyone that before."
Courtney stayed quiet, surprised into silence.
"I guess I thought, if he hit me he must've had a good reason. Because it was his job to… punish bad people. So I never said anything. Didn't want anyone to know Dad thought I was bad, too."
He was quiet for a moment, letting traffic and birdsong fill the space between them.
"But now I think, that job—it should be about helping people. And maybe he wasn't… great, at that. Maybe I wasn't, either. But I'd like to be." He looked over his shoulder in her direction.
Courtney watched his eyes dart around, looking for her and finding nothing. His shoulders slumped ever so slightly.
He stood and waved the photo in one hand. To the empty air, he said, "Thanks for giving it back." Then he tucked it into his pocket and headed for the door.
When he was gone, Courtney reappeared, breathless. She took a pull from her inhaler. As her muscles relaxed and she was able to draw in another breath, she considered that maybe she could let Robert help her. If that was really what he wanted.