Chapter Text
Meeting Flambae for the first time in that hero bar, without even knowing the man’s name, Robert had never been less into someone. If he had to assign three feelings to the moment it would have been visceral hate, disgust, and ugly resentment. The man was contrary to everything he valued in a person, in fact.
Flambae was an egotistical fuck, who had little care for anyone else in the world. The only thing that mattered to him, it seemed, was whatever passing adrenaline he could catch and how he appeared to others. It reminded him greatly of many men he’d met in the past, the same bad people that the ‘larger than life’ high of being a hero unfortunately attracted.
After his first day as a new dispatcher at SDN after seeing the man at work, he had gone home and drank heavily. The faith he’d had in this job being progress; something new and good for him, had completely disappeared at the sight of his new team.
Blonde Blazer had been so eager to reassure him that he was assigned this mismatched gang of ex-heroes because of how much confidence she had in his dispatching skills, not that he was expendable. But it still felt a bit like a slap in the face.
He’d passed his little ‘test’ on that billboard with flying colors, and he’d been rewarded with what? A team that didn’t trust him, treated him like a complete goody-two-shoes narc piece of shit.
He’d had a long day. He deserved to be able to drink off the stress of Visi, his weird sexual tension with his boss, the foreboding knowledge of his suit possibly being recoverable, and the fucking power dynamics going on at SDN.
“Fuck me,” He muttered to the dark ceiling of his apartment, laying on the floor in his boxers, a hand slung lazily over his head, whiskey bottle in his other hand.
Beef had snuggled up against the outside of his thigh, on his spare couch cushion, deep asleep.
-------
Robert paid for last night’s drinking just as dearly the following morning, when a hangover clung to him like a second skin, following him throughout his daily ritual.
Shower, shave, dress, feed Beef. His body moved nearly automatically.
He hadn’t finished his coffee before he was already helping Royd with the hulking scraps of his mech, loading them into the back of a moving van. The man had showed up pretty unexpectedly, and Robert hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter.
Sweating before 7 AM. Great start to his day.
Walking into his workplace with a cardboard box full of spare parts and his fat dog - sure to give his new team a great impression of him. Homelessness, probably.
The second day at work went worse than his first, the team reacting so incredibly badly to the looming threat of someone being cut over their heads.
In the end, Visi had reverse-swept the board, and he’d been stuck with the hard choice between Coupe and Sonar. As much as he’d been cemented in the abysmal loop of hating the entire team after his first shift with Team-Z, now he had some trouble with the decision.
The whole team had grown on him, at least slightly. Plus, they seemed like a tight-knit group, even if they fought like dogs when the higher-ups weren’t looking. And when they were, actually.
Taking one of them away felt a little like cutting off a finger and expecting someone to have the same dexterity as before.
But he went with his gut, like he usually did, and cut Coupe. She didn’t leave quietly, needing some bothersome dramatic exit, but Robert’s decision felt right.
He was just getting ready to leave, the sky dark as he set Beef in the passenger’s seat. Robert jumped as a hand settled on his car in his peripheral vision. He’d been nearly 100% sure he’d been alone in the dim parking lot.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He spluttered, turning to face Flambae, who was full-body leaning against his beat up Toyota Camry, smoking after lighting up a cigarette with his thumb and forefinger.
He’d thought he’d smelled smoke as he’d stepped out the door earlier, but chalked it up to a lingering scent.
“What? I’m just having a conversation with you.” Flambae wrinkled his nose, tilting back slightly, tapping ash off his cigarette.
“There’s been no conversation,” Robert started incredulously.
“I’m starting the conversation right now. Fuck, get off my back.” Flambae took a long drag, blowing smoke in Robert’s face.
What a fucking power move, Robert couldn’t help himself thinking, that thick and hot feeling of contempt rising in his chest again. He should’ve cut Flambae, just for the hell of it. Maybe it would put a damper on that smug face.
“You bumped Visi up the list because you’ve got a thing for her?” Flambae asked, gesturing vaguely with his chin towards Robert.
If it was even possible, he felt even more disgusted. By the question, by this man’s aura, by everything that surrounded Flambae. The man had such a way of getting in everyone’s personal space.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Robert replied, “She wasn’t cut because she pulled through last minute.”
He closed his car door, wanting to imply an end to the conversation, sitting down in the driver’s seat and shutting it, leaning back with a heavy sigh, resting his hands on the wheel.
Flambae just leaned down, rapping his knuckles on the driver’s side window, asking for his attention back.
Robert rolled the window down slightly, only allowing Flambae half an inch to hear him through.
“I do not trust you.” Flambae continued, taking another drag.
“Do not blow that shit in my car.” Robert warned, inhaling a short, frustrated breath.
Flambae raised both eyebrows, exhaling the smoke to the side instead and mimicking Robert under his breath.
“Look, it doesn’t matter if you trust me or not. Right now, I’m your dispatcher. We’re both just doing our jobs.”
Robert couldn’t have possibly been more done with this conversation, so before he let Flambae continue with some kind of snarky comment, he rolled the window up the rest of the way and pulled out of his parking space.
Once he was far enough down the road from the SDN office building (a good mile or two), he felt safe enough to exhale a breath, relaxing his stiff shoulders.
“What the fuck is his problem?” Robert muttered to Beef, taking his eyes off the road momentarily to glance at the snoozing dog, “What are all of their problems?”
He rubbed his eyes, taking a turn off a main road leading through downtown, “Am I the only mentally stable person left in the world?”
Beef chuffed in his sleep, paw twitching.
-------
By his third day of work at SDN, Robert finally felt a little more prepared for his day. Like maybe he was getting the handle of things around here.
He was startled out of that foolish fantasy by the 16 tabs of porn that popped up on his monitor, the second he booted it up, lewd moans erupting out of the speakers.
A ‘harmless office prank’ from Coupe. He felt a slight ripple of guilt; he’d lost some sleep cutting her from the team yesterday. Not an entirely sleepless night, but he’d definitely spent a good hour contemplating it and revisiting his choice on his own.
And now Visi was acting fucking weird around him. Staring at him, and then looking away whenever his eyes followed too. In fact, everyone was acting weird around him. Blonde Blazer, too, after telling him about her and Phenomaman’s breakup.
He was trying to decompress in the break room, on his lunch break, biting off pieces of his chocolate bar as Waterboy clattered around in the background, on his usual janitor duty.
“S-S-Still working on that?” Waterboy’s voice caught his attention, snapping Robert out of his momentary spacey state.
“Mm?” He muttered, glancing up.
“Aren’t these the best? I love the green ones, the green dew.” Waterboy restated, arms cradled close to himself, leaning over the decorative fruit basket on the table in front of him, dripping onto it.
Robert had been on complete auto pilot; hadn’t even noticed Phenomaman’s pitiful offering that Blazer must have left out in the break room.
Robert let his voice soften out of its usual sharpness, into an easier tone like it always did around Waterboy. The kid was the only person at SDN who seemed actually pure in his intentions - maybe it was that he was young and clearly under-experienced, or something else, but Waterboy instilled some hope back into Robert’s mind for the hero system and its future generations.
“All yours. Take the whole thing if you want.” Robert shrugged, letting a quiet sigh escape him.
“A-Awes- Some. My lucky day.” Waterboy managed with a laugh, picking up the basket and cradling it to himself, like it would slip out of his hands, “I know what’s for lunch- or dinner probably… Now.”
He backed away towards his rolling trash can again, turning a shade or two pinker at even the brief interaction with another person.
“Sorry- Ah, I- for interrupting your meeting with-” Waterboy started, glancing over Robert nervously.
“--Oh god damn it, you threw my noodles away?” Flambae interrupted them, crouched down by the fridge behind Waterboy, standing up, “My initials were literally on the box and everything. Fuck!”
Robert’s whole mood soured almost immediately, the muscles in his back tightening slightly, his posture straightening, just at the sound of Flambae’s voice.
Flambae opened his arms, almost territorially, clearly asking for a fight. Maybe riled up after his own shift? Taking it out on whoever was an easy enough target in the vicinity.
And Waterboy folded to it easily, a perfect target. He immediately stooped down, rummaging through the trash bin, apologizing thoroughly and stammering out an explanation.
“I- I- I’m sorry- S-Sometimes I-I don’t read things,” Waterboy bumbled, pulling the spilt box of takeout out of the trash, “I-It’s probably still good-”
He offered the noodles to Flambae, hunched over himself like he was preparing for a hurricane.
Flambae inhaled, making a face like he was inconvenienced just at the sight of Waterboy, slapping the noodles out of his hands and all over the other man, mocking his stutter.
“I-I-I don’t want your fucking trash noodles- Wet fart boy.” He snarked, rolling his eyes and pulling away.
Robert grimaced, eyebrows furrowing into an unmistakably annoyed look, shifting in his chair, “What are you doing?”
Flambae rolled his shoulder, glaring at Robert now as Waterboy tried to wipe himself off, suddenly looking much smaller.
“Whatever. It was an accident.” Flambae waved it off, turning back towards the fridge.
“That’s not - You- I- I’m gonna go rinse off.” Waterboy mumbled, slouching even further as he slinked towards the exit of the break room.
Robert pushed himself out of his chair, crossing the break room. Waterboy might’ve been intimidated by Flambae, but Robert sure as hell wasn’t.
He came up behind the other man, fists clenched loosely at his sides, chest inches away from Flambae’s broad back. He could practically feel the heat and waves of suffocating cologne emanating off the other man.
“How would you like to have to walk around work all day with shit all over you?” He snapped.
Flambae turned, attention finally caught away from where he was searching around in the fridge.
“I don’t know, I don’t think about it because I’m not a food thrower-awayer.” Flambae replied, turning around completely. He was entirely in Robert’s space now that he was facing him properly.
Robert leaned back, having to recover from the whole in-your-face thing Flambae always did.
“It’s shocking to me,” Robert started, refusing to let it visibly show how much that had affected him, “That they let villains like you out into the field, and the real heroes rot inside like him.”
Flambae’s lip curled slightly, “He’s the janitor, Bob-bob. He’s no hero. And you aren’t anymore, either. Whatever stupid hero you even were.”
As much as it just felt like Robert was falling for Flambae’s weird, intricate trap to enrage him, he continued anyway.
“He’s probably hurt a whole hell of a lot less people than you ever have.” Robert tilted his head, “Yeah? Am I right about that?”
Flambae leaned in further, a hand gripped tightly around Robert’s shoulder, looking like he wanted to bite his nose clean off.
“You don’t know bitch-all about me.” He replied, shoving Robert back.
“I know your type.” Robert interjected, taking a step back to stabilize himself, making room for Flambae to get out of where he was caged against the fridge.
Flambae turned away, shoulders set back, his posture nearly rigid, “This motherfucker-” He mumbled under his breath, heading for the door.
Robert turned away, too, his eyes locking onto the takeout container left on the rim of the trash bin.
“You’re just being a soft bitch about it-” Flambae added, turning his way once more with renewed vigor, clearly intending one more dig to top off their little argument, “In fact-”
Robert tossed the takeout container in his direction, wide open, noodles splattering all over Flambae’s face and down his front, a couple landing in his mouth.
That brightened Robert’s mood, a smile curving onto his lips at the other man’s priceless reaction, gesturing vaguely at Flambae, admiring his own work.
“Ooh,” He winced sarcastically, “I wasn’t expecting it to go straight. That was extra. Sorry.”
Flambae looked like he was still processing the move, clearly not used to such blatant pushback against his bullshit, eyes screwed shut, fists tightening, chest heating up.
“You’re gonna choke on this fucking –” Flambae started, fire welling up in his fists in the small doorway, looking ready to tear Robert limb from limb.
Thank fucking god that Blonde Blazer entered the room before Flambae could tear into Robert, gently pushing past the man, and Flambae quickly extinguished himself.
“Rob-... Ert.” She started, glancing at Flambae, “What are you doing? Go get yourself… Cleaned up- and then get… This cleaned up.”
She glanced over Flambae, and the other man’s shoulders relaxed, trying to steel his expression into something less violent and more neutral.
“Ah, yes.” He managed stiffly, backing up and shooting Robert a killer look.
-------
Robert had decided pretty quickly after that interaction that he needed to get back into shape again; not only had that been a startling wakeup call, but he felt like it was necessary if he wanted to get serious about hero stuff again.
He owed it to himself to put a little bit of effort in, and SDN was open late into the night, which included the gym on the lower floor.
Robert was currently wrapping his knuckles, his designated locker hanging open, when something caught the corner of his eyes.
“Isn’t this Flambae’s?” Robert muttered to himself, finding a familiar orange and black discarded suit on a bench in the locker room.
He’d been changing into his gym clothes when he found it, the hero suit carelessly tossed. This thing probably cost SDN a good chunk of money - suits weren’t cheap by any means, especially not in this economy.
“Classy. Just leave it here.” He commented to the empty room, picking it up.
Something possessed him to sniff it, almost experimentally. He seems to run hot, maybe sweats a lot. He wouldn’t be surprised.
Robert wrinkled his nose, the scent of cologne and smoke hitting him like a brick wall. He dropped the suit, shaking his head, kicking it under the bench and onto the wet floor, as if he could curse the thought of his mind with the action.
He blinked, trying to refocus his brain. Fuck that. Fuck Flambae.
Robert got in nearly a good hour of working out on his own; he always felt so much better after being active. He could clear his head, settle into a simple routine, and let his mind wander. It felt like pulling a particularly stubborn knot out of his tangled brain.
But it was also late, nearly 11 PM, and his body was tired. So he could only do so many reps before his arms gave in on him.
Robert winced, pushing back against the weight with all his strength, but it suddenly felt 10x heavier than before.
If he could just get it back over the clamp-
The man approaching him out of the corner of his eyes made him want to drop the weight on himself.
Flambae leaned over him from behind, studying his face and watching him struggle for a moment before he eased the weight off his chest effortlessly.
“You’re not supposed to lift without a spot. Idiot.” He scoffed, hooking it back over the clamps for him, “So weak.”
At least he didn’t sound angry still from earlier. Robert had half-expected Flambae to push the bar back down into his chest.
Instead, the man simply sounded amused.
Robert? He was annoyed, sitting up, catching his breath, pushing back his sweaty bangs and trying to stifle the anger he felt thrumming through his body.
“Now I’m getting a safety lecture from you.” He scoffed, shooting Flambae a glare.
“You’ve gotta leave the heavy lifting to the real heroes, Bobert.” Flambae replied, eyeing him over.
He was in sweatpants, a black ribbed tank top, and slides; his casual civilian clothes, hair put up in a messy bun, his crumpled up suit in his left hand - he must have come back for it.
Robert had to physically swallow back an insult, instead just glaring at the other man as Flambae casually towered over his bench, studying him like he was some sort of animal in a zoo, doing something interesting for once.
“To save the normies like you.” Flambae added on absently, raising a brow, “You look like you need to get laid. Hm?”
Robert opened his mouth, not even sure how to reply to that.
“Yeah?” He eventually managed, “What do you care about me getting laid?”
Robert had to force himself to snap back, to deflect a comment a little harshly. In truth, it had been a while. He wasn’t sure if it actually showed or not; how tense he was, coiled up tightly.
Flambae just rolled his eyes, taking a step back, easing out of his personal space a little. For once. The guy seemed to love invading that bubble, always up close. Maybe it was just his natural intensity.
He slung his dirty suit over his right shoulder and put his hands up defensively, “Fuck, alright.” He chuckled, “You are like an angry cobra.”
Robert didn’t engage any further, rubbing his face, suddenly aware of his sweaty and grimy state, and how hot the gym was, standing up and swaying on his feet.
Flambae acknowledged the silence, “What?” He followed after Robert, who was trailing towards the locker rooms, “Do you at least want a drive home so you don’t pass out at the wheel?”
Robert relented, halfway to the exit, rubbing his face, “Yes, okay.”
A drive home actually sounded nice, considering his exhaustion levels.
He vaguely remembered texting Chase that he was on his way back to his house, and gathering whatever small amount of stuff he’d had with him that day; phone, wallet, headphones, keys. Everything else was unimportant and he could afford to leave at work overnight.
And then Robert settled himself in Flambae’s passenger seat, entering the address for his apartment building into the other man’s Google Maps. He felt a stab of annoyance at the idea of Flambae (actually, any of his coworkers) having his address.
His car was some old classic Ford model; maybe not a very expensive one, but a definitely used one, with well-worn leather seats, and an interior that had obviously been cleaned vigorously despite the lingering smell of smoke. Flambae seemed just like the kind of guy who cared a lot about his car.
The dirty suit was thrown carelessly in the backseat somewhere, over Flambae’s shoulder as he put his keys in the ignition, starting up the engine.
Really, Robert was shocked he didn’t drive some kind of convertible - it would be a great accessory to his already douchey sunglasses.
He buckled his seatbelt, and then slumped back properly, letting his eyes linger on a pair of orange fuzzy dice dangling from the rearview, suppressing a grimace.
“Why do you own a car?” He half-muttered his sudden realization, glancing at Flambae, “You fly.”
Flambae was in a similarly relaxed position, drumming one hand on the wheel as he pulled out of SDN’s parking lot.
He adjusted the rearview mirror with his free hand, sucking on his front teeth, “I don’t have my flight license.”
Robert wrinkled his nose, stifling a yawn so wide his jaw popped, “Like that’s stopping you.” He chuckled, adjusting the collar of his hoodie.
Despite his usual hate-fueled arguments with the man, this felt easy.
“No comment.” Flambae replied, tapping his thumb against the wheel.
He technically shouldn’t be flying off duty, considering the whole villain-transitioning-into-hero-thing was still a work in progress; he didn’t get the same kind of free roam guys like Phenomaman got.
Obviously he still did fly whenever he wanted, but he wasn’t supposed to be caught doing it.
The ride fell into a simple silence after a while, Robert resting his throbbing forehead against the cool glass of the car window. A headache had crept up on him in the past couple of minutes.
He was well aware he had to look somewhat of a mess right now, disheveled from the long day and his unplanned workout.
Robert himself could practically feel his eye bags deepening, sinking further into darker planes on his face. His limbs felt heavy, able to recognize a dull ache in his left thigh, and his stiff neck was suddenly bothering him.
Although the way home was starting to look familiar again, and he began to recognize some streets. Relief ebbed away at his shoulders at the thought of his apartment. Getting to be alone in a dark room sounded like heaven right about now.
As Flambae pulled up to the complex, Robert muttered a thank you, rubbing his face hard, bracing himself for the walk to his apartment, hand reaching for the car door.
Flambae glanced over at him, gesturing with his chin like that meant something.
“Be more careful with yourself, Bob-bob.” He advised, eyes flickering up and down Robert, like he was assessing his state.
Robert inhaled deeply, nodding numbly. He didn’t have the time or the energy to pick apart the other man’s unusually soft tone, or the obvious signs of concern written all over Flambae’s face and actions.
“Thanks.” He replied dryly, shutting the door behind himself.