Chapter Text
“Is this the part where we kiss?”
“No, no it is not.”
“Fucking pussy.”
———
There is a theory about the nature of smoke. It posits that where there is smoke there is fire and where there is fire there must be trouble. Having been a superhero for some 15 odd years, and a dispatcher for just about two months, Robert could safely say he had reservations.
Sometimes it did mean there was trouble. But other times it meant that someone forgot to take the cookies out of the oven and now those lucky few had skipped right over the issue of a raging fire to a kitchen rapidly filling with smoke.
Other times it was indicative of some natural disaster. A hot day and dry wood combined to make an impromptu bonfire. That caused trouble but wasn’t itself troublesome, it was just physics.
No, Robert had long since given up the belief that where there was smoke there was fire and where there’s a fire there’s trouble. Nowadays he took a more clinical view of these things. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Now go put it out.”
So he took great satisfaction in tearing away the cigarette from Invisigal’s lips and putting it out with his foot.
Invisigal, only ever so slightly concussed, looked down at his foot, back up to his face, and again back to his foot.
“I was using that, dick,” she said in a voice as slow as molasses.
“I know, dick, use this instead,” he said in a prickly voice.
She shifted away as far as she could on the stretcher. “What the fuck is that?”
“It's an oxygen mask, now take it.” Robert threw the plastic mask into her lap.
Invisigal looked down at the mask before looking back up at him. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can, dipshit.”
“No, I can’t.” She coughed as she raised her hands and understanding bloomed.
Cracked and blistered and burnt an ugly brown-black, Invisigal’s hands were a motley collection of third degree burns and blisters. Her fingers had been frozen into grasping claw shapes that made Robert’s stomach roll.
‘Way to go idiot. World class superhero and you didn’t even see the burn victim’s burns.’
With barely even a sigh of discontent, Robert picked up the mask and settled it above her nose and mouth. Relief workers sprinted this way and that around them as Robert and Invisigal stood together in the shadow of an ambulance. Robert took the time to examine the stretch of burning rubble before them.
There were two or three heroes flitting about each carrying a firehose blasting down into the depths of the buildings. Firefighters and EMTs sprinted to and fro, checking on victims and ferrying survivors from the blazing inferno. Robert watched on from the sides, unnoticed by all save Invisigal who had now started to cough.
Robert removed the mask just long enough for her to hawk out a gob of black phlegm that landed quite heavily on the side of the ambulance.
“That’ll show them,” Robert mused and he moved to reattach the mask to his patient's face.
His patient had other ideas and turned her head away.
“Visi,” he said testily. “Come on, you need oxygen.”
“There’s plenty of oxygen already, don’t need a fucking mask to help me breathe.”
Robert sighed. As far as days off went, this one was likely going to be a difficult one.
“Visi,” he started in his best not-quit-condescending-but-definitely-the-authority-here voice. “You’re being stubborn and you’re being stupid now turn over and let me put the mask on.”
Invisigal did not turn over to look at him but she did try to respond. It was cut short by another hacking cough that made Robert wince.
Weighing the pros and cons and finding nothing wrong with the idea, Robert reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small bag of assorted cough drops he’d just bought.
“Favorite fruit?” He asked the bedridden hero next to him.
“Fuck you,” she said hoarsely.
“Lemon it is,” he said, pulling out the little candy.
Invisigal groaned as he turned her over and forced the cough drop through her dried and cracked lips. After a while she began to suck noisily at the cough drop and some semblance of restfulness returned to her face as she focused on the little candy.
Robert took the time to disappear behind the corner of the ambulance where he could still see his mentee and burning building at once. He pulled out his phone and dialed.
Two rings and a child’s sickly sore voice came through what sounded to him like the shittiest receiver known to man. “Hello?”
“Hey, Isabelle, listen: uncle Robby is going to be a little late, could you do me a massive favor and make sure the door is locked.”
There was a large cough from the other side of the line that tied his stomach in knots. “Yeah, I guess. How long are you gonna be gone?”
Robert glanced at Invisigal. “Probably no more than twenty minutes.”
“Can I watch a TV show while I wait?”
Robert smiled. “Only if you make it one of the good ones.”
“Deal!” Isabelle said, managing to summon up a voice full of excitement.
Robert hung up the phone and walked back to Invisigal who was somewhat managing to look less like a miserable corpse and more like a person again.
She fixed him with a glare.
“Feeling better?” He asked, putting his hands back in his pockets.
She neglected to answer the question, instead focusing on some other point of contention. “Who the fuck is ‘uncle Robby?’”
Robert sighed, knowing that this was only to be the beginnings of some new sort of hell when he came back to work tomorrow. “Me, I’m uncle Robby. Now how are you doing?”
“Fucking worse now that I know you’ve got some kid out there who calls you uncle Robby. It is a kid right, or is this some kinda weird fucked up sex thing?”
“Jesus, Visi!”
“Just saying, if there are guys that get kicks from being called daddy, who's to say there aren’t guys who get their kicks from being called uncle.”
“Your fucked in the head.”
“Just a little bit, got clocked by a two by four on my way out of the burning building, you should’ve seen it, real heroic, uncle Robby Rob.’”
Robert sighed and rubbed his eyes. “She’s my neighbor's daughter. I’m supposed to be babysitting her right now while her mother goes to a job interview.”
“She trusts you around kids? You know you legally have to tell them you're a pedophile right?”
“I’m flattered you think I have the energy for any kind of relationship under the age of 30. Now can you stop being an asshole and give me a run down?”
Invisigal gave him a look of pure confusion. “Run down on what?”
“Why the hell were you in the middle of a burning building, and what happened here?” Robert gestured to her hands.
If it was possible, Invisigal might have puffed up with pride. “You know, the usual. Beat the bad guys, saved lives, hero shit, y’know?”
Robert fought down a sigh of exasperation. “No, I don’t know, care to be a little more clear?”
“Why?” Invisigal leaned back into her stretcher. “Not like it matters much to you, it's your day off. Time for you to go back and babysit Bella or whatever.”
“Isabelle-”
“Fuck, so close.”
“-and no, that’s not how this works. I'm on call whenever the need arises and when one of my team gets hurt I’d like to know what exactly happened to them.”
Invisigal scoffed. “Yeah right, next you’ll be telling me you think of us as one great big happy family.”
“No, I think of you more like a bunch of screaming children all crying out for validation. I wish you were my family. Then you’d all be dead and my life would be infinitely easier.”
“Real classy. Got any more of those cough drops.”
“Yes, but you need oxygen more than you need a cough drop.”
Invisigal pointed at the tree overhead. “I got that guy for oxygen, I got you for cough drops. Lay it on me, Candyman.”
“These aren’t candy,” Robert said, pulling the bag back out of his pocket. “And I still have both my hands.”
“Tastes like candy, looks like candy, might as well be candy. I’ll take pomegranate.”
“They don’t have pomegranate.”
“Then I’ll take cherry.”
“They don’t have cherry either.”
She scowled. “What kinda assorted flavors did you get?”
“I have peach, lime and lemon.”
Invisigal wiggled her eyebrows. “Peach, huh? Bottomfeeder much.”
“Oh, you know me,” Robert said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I just love the taste of ass.”
“Fucking knew it. Peach please!”
Robert sighed and handed her the unwrapped sweet. She bit it eagerly with her teeth and smiled.
Robert only waited. Waited and watched and stared at the burn victim before him and the dwindling fire behind. A fifth hero had joined the scene, somebody with freezing breath who was wading into the building dousing flames all the while. Something welled up inside his chest at that. Something tight and hard as diamond though he couldn’t put it into words.
‘What the fuck happened here?’ He thought.
“What the fuck happened here, why wasn’t Flambae sent, or Golem?” He said to Invisigal, who was happily gnawing at her cough sweet.
She stopped gnawing and assumed a thoughtful look as if weighing whether to be difficult with him or straight and to the point.
She settled on straight and to the point. “It wasn’t like a massive thing before. Small grease fire, you know? I was gonna get there faster, and Flambae was just back from another job or whatever so dispatch sent me instead."
Robert nodded.
“Well by the time I got there it had gotten worse. So I started running search and rescue, pulling people out of the flames, yada yada. Last guy I got was trapped underneath a collapsed beam so I helped lift it up,” she held up her hands. “Might’ve been a bad idea, but the dude survived, I think.”
A whirlwind of thoughts ran through Robert’s head in that moment. Would he have done the same? This clusterfuck was initially just a grease fire? Did SDN really fuck up that badly sending Invisigal to secure an active fire? Would he have sent her to stop a grease fire in a restaurant? Could it have waited til someone better equipped was ready?
‘No.’ And Robert was surprised at how vehemently he believed it.
There had to have been a better way than to send one hero to this shit show. And they must have known it was a shitshow, and not a one man shitshow. No amount of poor communication would have ended in the destruction of almost half a city block. He could firmly believe it had started as a grease fire, but SDN got pulled it for the kind of disasters that made the front page.
The proverb about smoke, fire and trouble slipped into his mind. The smoke and fire was evident, but what had been the trouble? Why send one body to prevent a blaze like this.
“Was it this bad when you got here?” He asked.
Invisigal laughed. “Worse, I think. It started in the pizza place down around the corner, but when I got here it was all the way to the boutique store.”
She pointed out the store and Robert nodded, face carefully blank as he squinted at the storefront.
“Where did you come in?”
Invisigal sucked noisily at the cough drop and gave him a wicked side eye. “You judging me right now, Robby? I did my fucking job and saved people’s lives, isn’t that-”
Robert raised his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just wondering.”
Still giving him an evil look, she pointed to the store next to the boutique. Probably a bookstore of some kind, but the fire had ravaged it beyond repair. “Fire was just beginning to spread there so I went in to start getting people out. Piece of shit started collapsing on me while I was helping the last few stragglers out of the back room.”
“Thus the burnt hands from holding a burning beam, got it,” and he did. It had been textbook work, true hero shit like she had said. So why did it stink of incompetence? “Who’s filling in for me today?”
“Some washed up hero, same as you. German fucker I think, used to be called Gesundheit,” venom dripped from every word.
“Friend of yours I’m assuming?”
“We might've run into each other.”
“In your old job?”
Invisigal remained patiently silent, her face a mask of soot and stained makeup.
“I said-”
“Yes fucker!” She snapped. “At my old job.”
“Do you-”
She cut him off again. “No, I don’t want to talk about it! Now give me a fucking cigarette, I’m tired of all these fuckass cough drops.”
Robert sighed and pulled out another cough drop. “Not gonna happen, first because you just got out of a burning building and need to rest and recover , and second, because I don’t have any.”
“You fucking suck you know that?”
“Well aware, now say: ‘Ah.’”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“Ladies first.”
“I bet you were the kid in high school who reminded the teacher they had homework to hand in.”
“Nope, never made it that far. Dropped out at fifteen,” he said, popping the cough drop into his own mouth and savoring the taste of lime.
“Woah, Robby Bob is a dropout? Who would have guessed, why’d you do it? Drugs, sex, you get caught fucking a teacher?”
“I’ll tell you when you're older.”
“Fuck off, you’re barely older than me.”
“Still older, and your boss.”
“Least I graduated high school.”
“And look at you now; redeemed villain stuck in a stretcher without the use of your fingers. Sounds like a boring night.”
“Yes, because my dispatcher has a great big pile of shit where his brain should be!”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Robert, as soon as I can form fists without crying I’m gonna beat your ass til your back in that coma.”
“Maybe Gesundheit will fill in for me again.”
“I’ll send him to join you! Now give me a fucking cigarette!”
“Say please.”
Invisigal sighed, a deep dark breath full of every black impulse humanity had ever considered.
“Please,” she said with forced patience. “May I have a cigarette?”
Robert smiled at her. “I still don’t have any.”
“That’s. Fine. I. Do.” Every word was clear and deliberate and dripping with venom. “I’ve got a pack in my jacket pocket.”
Robert looked back and forth. Nobody was looking at them even now. The heroes were being recruited by EMTs to carry the more severely burned victims back to the hospital, and the firemen were putting out the last few dregs of fiery resistance. He sighed and set the bag of cough sweets on the ground.
“Bout fucking time, jeez,” Ivisigal said, leaning slightly so Robert could reach inside and pull out a smashed pack of Marlboro Lights. Which he subsequently shoveled inside his own jacket pocket.
Invisigal stared at him in abject horror at the sudden betrayal. Robert only patted her on the shoulder and said, “Smoking is bad for you.” He flicked a cough drop into her lap. “Have a cough drop.”
“Robert you-” but Robert was already walking away, cough drop bag retrieved from where he’d left it. He paid no mind to the furious screaming of the heroine behind him. Her death threats went unheard, and the comments about his dick unanswered.
The only mercy he gave her was a tired smile, a wave as he walked away, and a promise that, “You’ll get them back tomorrow, I swear, now be a good girl for the very nice doctors please.”
She screamed several things back at him in response, things that have no business being recounted here.
———
“Didn’t think you had that in you.”
“Why? I was a hero for fifteen years.”
“Don’t know, you give more bitch mittens vibe than backroom brawler.”
———
A decorative banner hung from the walkway in the atrium of SDN headquarters proudly proclaiming that today was Hump Day.
‘And if ever there was a place to celebrate such an unfortunate nickname, it would be here.’ Robert sighed.
He always had a middling hatred for Wednesdays. But after losing said suit on a Wednesday, waking up from his coma on a Wednesday, and now coming into work very, very early on a Wednesday, he found that hatred had grown. Though in all fairness his decision to come into work before the sun was even up had been a consensual choice.
He tapped idly on the box of Invisigal’s cigarettes in his jacket pocket as he slumped his way through the atrium, halfheartedly flashing his lanyard to the security guard at the desk. If the guard cared he made no sign of it as he slowly licked a finger and flipped through another page of his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine.
Robert arched an eyebrow but made no comment as he walked on by.
It was still dark enough to be considered nighttime by those with common sense so Robert walked through the shadowed hallways of SDN Torrance in silence. Not a single sound could be heard. Not a single person was spotted. Robert stood alone, save Beef who wriggled in his arms excitedly.
The elevator was swift in its arrival and swift in its departure and Robert wasted no time in punching the button labeled BA. The elevator music was a soothing smooth jazz that dared to lull him back to sleep, but greater wills prevailed.
The bottom most level of SDN Torrance Branch had been mutated from an old underground garage into a superstructure of filing cabinets that stretched from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. What was once a place to park the old company cars was now the archive room for SDN as a whole and Robert planned to take full advantage of it before he truly had to clock in for his day job.
The elevator dinged cheerily and Robert stepped out into a labyrinth of musty paperwork and old book smell. Chase had taken him here before, though briefly. They hadn’t even stepped off the elevator. Now Robert strolled into the cold superstructure with barely a care in the world.
“What are we looking for here, Beef?” He asked. “How is all this sorted?”
Beef only barked and wriggled in his arms.
“Alphabetical, huh? Only one way to find out.” Robert set down the fat chihuahua and strolled to the racking closest to him.
The drawer rattled open with an aching sound that echoed through the room. The first file Robert pulled was quite depressingly labeled “Prog. #7345.” The second was “Op. #Rail-R.” The third, “Star Incident/Retrieved Op. #Leaping Falc.”
Robert sighed and looked down at Beef. “Who the fuck organized this?”
Beef only tilted his head and barked again.
“Phenomenal.”
And so it continued, Robert strolling down lines of filing cabinets that stretched into infinity checking files at random while Beef waddled in his wake. It was enough to make anyone jealous.
It was after the file labeled “Man-Shrooms” but before “Splatterproof Shell” that they finally made an ounce of progress. That progress came in the form of the only other occupant of the Basement Archives, Cater.
Robert was just beginning to give up all hope when a singsong voice came spilling out of the darkness.
“Hey,” it seemed to say with only the vaguest trace of a smile. “Whatcha looking for, Mr. Man!”
Robert, having now grown used to the ever deepening silence of the archives and not at all prepared for the sound of what was clearly not a human voice, swore, tripped, and slammed his head backwards on the concrete floor in surprise.
Consciousness failed him, the world faded into obscurity, and the only thought he had before the void swallowed him up was, ‘is that a caterpillar?’
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said the voice in a song full of pity. “He’s not dead is he?”
Beef barked and licked at Robert’s face.
“Oh good,” sang the shadows as Cater swept forward. “I have a first aid bag in the back.”
Beef barked again.
“Well, I can't pull him either.”
Beef woofed.
“Oh! That could work.”
Beef whined and butted his head against Robert’s face. There was no further movement. He barked one final time and began waddling in the direction of Cater.
“Ohoho,” sang Cater happily. “You're a smart one! What is your name?”
Beef barked then barked again.
“Oh I’m sorry, don't worry, I’m a vegetarian.”
The two figures vanished into the darkness together in search of the first aid bag. Robert just continued to lie there between the files for “Object: Abject Terror” and "Gastronomy.”
When sense finally did return it was with the faint metallic smell of canned orange juice and the nudging of a dog’s furry head. These things were slightly less noticeable than the floating needle and thread in the air above him and the brilliant burst of pain throbbing in the back of his head.
“What the-”
“Please stay perfectly still,” came the harmonic voice again. “I’ve never tried stitching before and I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“No stitches,” Robert said groggily. His whole body felt thick and slow and his eyes were struggling to see anything in the faint overhead lights. “No stitches needed. Thank you, I’m fine, super fine, no needles necessary.”
“I assure you I am perfectly capable,” the voice said with a bit more insistence. “And it will give me a chance to remedy my mistake. I am most sorry for scaring you.”
“Thats fine,” Robert said, leaning up and taking in the surroundings. “Seriously though, don't need stitches. Just an ice pack or something. Advil! I’ll take some Advil!”
There was a buzzing hum. “Are you sure? You fell quite harshly.”
Robert gingerly touched the back of his head. It was tender and bruised but definitely not bleeding.
‘Thank the lord for divine intervention.’
“See!” He showed his hand. “No blood, all good, just need an ice pack and some Advil and I’ll be fine.”
Another buzzing hum and the floating needles and thread drifted to the side where they neatly folded themselves into a red box.“If you say so, Mr. Man. But rest assured I will make it up to you for this disastrous first impression.”
A sound like the shifting of some great beast of burden echoed out from the darkness. A shadow formed before Robert growing larger and larger til all that filled the space before him was the titanic width of a great green caterpillar.
Robert had no words. A faint worry that he might very well be hallucinating rose to the forefront of his mind, but he dismissed it almost immediately. No amount of brain damage could have summoned the fantasy before him.
“Hello…my name’s Robert,” he said trying not to feel too uncomfortable staring into the monstrous face before him. “What’s your name?”
“I am Cater and I am the head librarian, foremost custodian and chief archivist of the SDN filing room. It is a pleasure to meet you!”
Robert didn’t see its lips move, nor even did its head make even the slightest twitch. Yet he heard the voice loud and perfect all the same.
‘Okay, a possibly psychic caterpillar does our filing. Wish Chase had told me bout that.’ Aloud he said, “Hello Cater, My name’s Robert-”
“Yes, I know you said that already!” Cater said.
“Yes, well, sorry, light concussion and slight confusion tend to make me tongue tied.”
“Do you require further medical assistance?” Cater asked. “I am not qualified to perform extensive medical procedures, but in an emergency I can perform almost adequately.”
Robert waved a hand. “No need, I’m good,Advil will be more than enough.”
Cater seemed to buzz and Robert watched in mixed awe and confusion as a pill bottle flew up from the red first aid kit lying next to him.
Robert caught the bottle with both hands. It was Advil, sure enough.
‘Okay…psychic, telepathic supersized caterpillar. Hope they’re paying her more than they’re paying me.’ He opened the bottle and popped two of the pills.
“Thanks,” he offered, tossing the bottle back into the first aid kit.
“Happy to help!” Hummed the caterpillar. “Is there any other way I may assist you?”
“Yeahhh, probably!” Robert reached down and collected Beef from the ground where he was beginning to sniff the medical supplies. “I’m looking for a file on someone and I can’t seem to find it. I don’t suppose you could help me?”
There was a definite buzz of excitement from the caterpillar before him at that.
“Of course, I love to help!” Cater said with what Robert suspected might have been a smile. “I organize all paperwork for SDN, give me a name and I’ll bring you right to it!”
Robert sighed in relief. “Thank Christ, I was getting lost in here trying to find it on my own.”
“That’s why you have me!” Cater said brilliantly. “Follow closely, don’t want to get lost round here.”
“Heard loud and clear,” Robert said and after zipping up and picking up the first aid kit he began to follow after the monstrous larva.
Cater, despite being about as big as a midsized Subaru, made good time as she (at least Robert thought of it as a she) began to twist and turn and inch through the labyrinthine halls of filing cabinets and stacks of yet unsorted paperwork.
“What file are you looking for, Mr. Man,” Cater asked as the swept through a particularly narrow passage.
“It's a file on an old retired hero who works here at SDN, used to be called something-heit, Farenheit, Gesundheit, something like that. Super specific I know, but maybe-”
“Oh I know him!”
“You do?”
“Of course, my race has what humans would call a photographic memory. I never forget a fact or a file! And Gesundheit’s is one of a kind, as are they all!” Cater wiggled to indicate the cabinets around them.
“Sounds…convenient.”
“Very! When humans first started broadcasting networks and our planet picked them up, we began categorizing your wonderful history. There was just so much and it was all so scattered, truly one of our greatest adventures.”
“Uh, ‘we,’” Robert felt as though he was standing on the precipice of information that he truly would not understand.
“My people! The-” and here Cater made some sort of deafened noise that Robert could not entirely make out but sounded rather like the peeling of an orange.
“They, uh, sound neat,” he tried, now completely unsure of what exactly to do.
“Oh no, they’re all rather boring,” Cater said dismissively. “They all wanted to stay planetside and just listen to your people’s history. I wanted to get here! See it, taste it, smell it!”
“Uh-huh,” Robert glanced at an yellowed envelope on top of a smaller stack of papers. It was addressed to a “Rodney Gastronaut.” Robert wondered if Rodney had been a former SDN employee, or if this was some sort of evidence in a case long since forgotten. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Fantastically! I no longer have to wait for your television waves to travel to my galaxy, now they just arrive! Whoever invented the 24 hour news cycle was a genius!”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Robert said flatly.
They reached the filing cabinet some five minutes later. Robert asking questions all the way, and Cater answering them happily. Robert wondered if he could have kept such a cheery disposition if he’d been locked down here for however many years. He doubted it.
Cater stopped suddenly and raised her head. Above them a filing cabinet opened and a freshly pressed white duotang flew out and down landing easily in Robert’s outstretched hands.
“Thanks Cater,” he said, flipping open to the first page.
“Oh it's no problem, anything I can do to cater to your needs!” She paused as if waiting for a reaction.
Robert chuckled akwardly. “That’s…a good one. Say, do you have a place I could read this? The lighting's kinda shit.”
Cater hummed happily. “Of course, I have a little book nook, as you humans call it. Right this way!” And she sped off back the way they’d come.
Robert glanced down at Beef with mixed amusement and exhaustion. “It takes all sorts, big guy.”
Beef barked in agreement.
The “book nook” as Cater had called it was a cleared patch of pavement that would have formerly led out onto the street. Now it was a wash of mixed strings of Christmas lights, bent but operational street lamps, and a damn big table, that was in fact a bus sandblasted flat on one side. The combined effect was something like that of staring at the sun while on psychedelics.
Cater buzzed happily as she curled up before it. Stacks of paper began to fly to and fro before her as she began the detailed efforts of analysis and organization.
Robert sat down in a space where he would not be staring at the brilliant blaze of lights but would still get their benefits. Without further delay, and a quick glance at his watch, he began to peruse Gesundheit’s file.
It was mostly flashy stuff. Gesundheit, real name Caleb Waters, had been born with a super sneeze. Every time he blew his nose he would create a shockwave. He’d been involved in hero teams, police forces, and paramilitary activity. Anywhere a hero was needed, he’d been.
The file unfolded before Robert like a tapestry and before long the duotang had been left behind as the papers began to spread out and take on a life of their own. Political rallies, supervillains, rivalries between fellow heroes, Gesundheit had done it all for nearly twenty years.
Up until someone broke his nose.
“Unidentified assailant broke Caleb Water’s nose with a sucker punch resulting in deviated septum. Further abuse of powers may cause fatal reaction from build up of kinetic force,” wrote Doctor Robin Selt.
And like that the legend crumbled. The money dried up in attempted surgeries, drugs and alcohol. The house was lost in a messy divorce after an affair. Kids were lost, funds disappeared, relationships shattered. Caleb’s life had reached a metaphorical end; up until SDN had offered a job.
Robert pinched the bridge of his nose. In spite of himself he felt a bit of pity for the fellow ex-hero. Obviously he’d made bad decisions, but Robert understood them. He’d made a fair few of them himself, ruining the Mecha Man suit chief among them.
Though he could fix that problem. It seemed like nobody could fix Caleb’s.
Robert looked back at the police report covering Gesundheit’s final fight. It made no mention of any particulars. A back alley brawl with a supervillain who’d managed a lucky hit. Pretty barebones as far as details went.
Up until he found Caleb Water’s statement.
“‘The bitch was there one minute and gone the next,’” Rober read aloud. “‘She’s fast, too fast, that's a shoot first ask questions never kind of super criminal. And the mouth on her…’”
Beside that a suspect list had been written down, though several names had been blacked out.
Robert held the paper up and approached Cater at her titanic table. “Cater, hey, what’s with these blotted out names, is that normal?”
Robert did not think it was possible for a caterpillar to be sheepish, but Cater manager to do so quite effortlessly. “It’s for security purposes, sometimes SDN hires old villains. To protect identities we blot out their names on crimes they might have been suspects in. Fresh start you know.”
Robert nodded.
He stared down at the list of suspects, the length of the names. Estimates floated through his head as he measured the typeface, the length of the black marks; anything and everything. But he knew it was redundant. Something deep in his gut told him all he needed to know.
‘What the fuck did you do, Visi?’
———
Huff.
Puff.
Blow.
———
It was not often a man was both too early and too late for work, but Robert Robertson the Third exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds, sliding into his desk a half hour past what was professionally acceptable. While his headset echoed with the sounds of arguments, small talk, and death threats, Robert made himself at home.
He emptied his backpack, he hung up his jacket, nestled Beef underneath the desk; everything went to their specified destinations. All save the cigarette box, which remained on top of his desk, its battered label facing away from him exposing a laundry list of chemicals Robert believed to be mostly poisonous.
Aside from a briefdaliance when he had been younger, Robert had never taken to smoking, though it felt a natural progression to his life. Reckless and destructive with just a sliver of intrinsic neo noir cool factor. Maybe he should take up the practice. It would help refine his grizzled heroic image in front of the Z-team.
Robert blinked. Then blinked again. He needed a cup of coffee, of that he was sure. Delusions of grandeur born of exhaustion and mental strain were not indicative of a good day.
“Hey Chase,” he stood up to look over into the next cubicle.
It was empty.
Robert looked around for the old man. There wasn’t a sliver of grey to be seen for miles, at least none that were roughly Chase shaped.
“Hey Galen!” He shouted across the office. “Where’s Chase?!”
There was a ding on his phone.
“Out with a cold,” it read, with a postscript of, “I can hear you fine without shouting.”
“Sorry!” Robert shouted before wincing.
Galen didn’t respond, but Robert did see him shake his head in exasperation. Robert slouched back down into his chair. His back ached from bending over all morning and he took severe satisfaction in the meager support offered by the cheap office chair.
Resolving that no coffee would be forthcoming til he took his ten minute break or lunch, Robert sighed and dove headlong into the hustle and bustle of his official work day.
It started as many days did, with Z-team calling him fifteen flavors of a lily white bitch.
“I missed you too, guys,” he said. “Where’s Sonar?”
Golem’s slow and tremulous voice echoed in his ears. “Out with the flu.”
“Yeah, but fuck that, where were you?”
“Yeah, lad! We’d be exchanging Christmas presents if you’d have taken any longer!”
“You better have my fucking cigarettes, asshole.”
Something about “with friends like these” came to mind, though Robert did not voice it, diving headlong into an already long list of SDN requests that only seemed to be getting longer.
“You can all have a chance at cracking the whip later guys, right now we have work to do. Visi and Malevola, there was a burglary on fifth, perp’s heading South on foot, think you can catch him?”
“Duh,” she said, with patronizing patronage. “Dont think this-”
“Yes, I know, you will get your stupid fucking cigarettes, now move. Prism, Flambae, there’s a bank heist gone hostage situation that needs resolving, sending you coordinates now. Punch-Up, Abbot Elementary lost their gym teacher to an outbreak of what looks like evil clowns.”
“Want me to go beat up the fuckers, eh?”
“No, you’re filling in as a sub at the elementary school, chop-chop. Coupé-”
“I would like to deal with these evil clowns.”
“I would like you to deal with the evil clowns.”
“Coordinates?”
“Sent, and no mass casualties, please? Last thing we need is a PR scandal over a killer ballerina fighting Tim Curry’s in the city center.”
Golem's slow and steady voice crackled over the radio. “What's Tim's Curry?”
Robert sighed. God was he really that old? “He’s an actor that played Pennywise in IT.”
“Nah,” Prism broke in. Robert could swear he could hear the sound of angry horns over the intercom. “It was that Skarsgård twink, what’s his name, Alex or something?”
Invisigal’s voice joined in. “Bill, also definitely would. He’s got just the right amount of fuckability, confidence and poutiness, just like you Robert.”
Robert rubbed his eyes. “As riveting as this all is, we still have a job to do. Let’s move people! We’ve got evil clowns to fight! Golem, you’re with Coupé.”
“Fuckin awesome, hate clowns.”
“Today’s your lucky day, then.”
Flambae spoke and Robert could definitely hear the muffled sound of road rage from far away. “Bob bob, that movie’s from like, the 1800s, why the fuck have you seen it?”
“More importantly,” Prism chimed in. “Why the fuck would you bring up Tim Curry when Bill is right there?”
“First off, I can see your speedometer, stop going fifty over-”
There was a thunderous tirade against infringed rights and government surveillance that Robert ignored with ease.
“And secondly, because it was one of my dad’s favorite movies. We watched it all the time whenever we could manage it.”
Malevola’s silky smooth voice rippled into his ears. “Don’t they like, kill dudes in that movie?”
“Yes and I was eleven and it was a shitty movie, you can all complain about my dad’s parenting when I’m dead and burried, now shut the fuck up and get to work. I’m going to get a cup of coffee.”
More screaming and complaining echoed in the headset, but Robert had already left it behind at his desk. His resolution had crumbled. He needed coffee and he needed it ten minutes ago.
He found the breakroom a blasted out mess. Somebody had brought in four boxes of Granny’s Donuts. Evidently their poor performance at Granny’s had not blacklisted SDN yet, which was a shame. If it had the break room wouldn’t look like someone had detonated an IED made of pastries.
Jelly filling dribbled onto the floor and glazed crumbs stuck to the counters and chairs. Someone had evidently become quite angry because the wall was covered in a yellow cream spray. All of which Robert paid no mind as he shuffled to the coffee pot, which had somehow remained untouched.
Finding a cup that was mostly clean he poured himself a half mug of cold coffee and took in the blast zone. Common sense briefly suspended by lack of sleep and what might have been a concussion Robert did not pick up on the social faux pas that was a full cup of coffee in a well used living space and he took a sip.
A sip he soon spat out.
“What the fuck?!” Robert shouted, staring down at the cup of sweet salvation that had betrayed him.
The coffee was terrible beyond words. It tasted as if someone had taken the coagulated filth at the bottom of a garbage bag, had salted it, and then brewed the world’s worst pot of coffee of all time.
There was the sound of wet squeaking as the break room door opened and the yellow trolley of the janitorial staff entered, followed closely by the ever anxious Waterboy.
Robert surveyed the room, taking in the totality of the damage, and felt a pang of pity for the kid. It was drowned when he looked back at the coffee pot and realized nobody was pitying him.
“Hey kid,” he said. Pouring out the rest of the cup and the pot, beginning the process of brewing another one. “How’s it going?”
Robert could not see Waterboy, but judging by the sound of shoes slipping on linoleum, he would guess he’d surprised him.
“Oh, um, sir-hi, sir, um…Robert, sir,” Waterboy said, picking himself up off the ground. “I don’t-didn’t see you…standing…here.”
“I know, smooth as a fox and twice as deadly, that's me,” he said sarcastically as he put the pot in the microwave to heat.
“Yes you are, smooth as a, uh, fuc-fox,” Waterboy said with a nervous chuckle. “Didn’t know foxes were smooth, sir-mister Robert.”
“Little known fact,” Robert said. Walking over to the only donut box still intact and opening it. “Want one?”
“Uh, oh, no-no please, sir mister Ro-Robert,” Waterboy replied, waving his hands sporadically as if trying to direct air traffic. “I’m, I mean, I-my grandma said I’m gluten fail-free! I-I’ll die if I eat it!”
“No, that’s what happens if you have an allergy, occasionally, being gluten free is a dietary plan,” Robert held out a donut with pink frosting. “Come on, it’s strawberry.”
“I like strawberries,” Waterboy said excitedly, nerves momentarily stunned to silence by the revelation of such groundbreaking information.
“Then you’ll love this,” he dropped the donut into the man’s outstretched hands and grabbed a jelly donut for himself from the midst of the box. “A little advice: don’t eat the last donut. Everyone hates the guy who eats the last donut.”
“Yeah-yes, sir mister Robert!”
“It’s just Robert, kid, want some coffee?”
“Uh, um, uh, no thanks, si-Robert. That big guy out there put salt in there earlier-er.”
Robert swiveled on his heels. “What big guy? Royd?”
“N-no, that guy?” Waterboy pointed out the door. Robert leapt to his side and peered out.
Across the mass crowd that was SDN’s employees was a rather rotund man. He wore the same SDN button up, the same brown slacks, the same brown loafers, though each was big enough to fit about twelve Roberts inside. He made the outfit his own with a set of well worn black suspenders.
That was not what caught Robert’s eye however. It was the crooked nose, the cauliflower ears, the scratchy five o'clock shadow. Facial features Cater’s files had made him intimately familiar with.
“Hello Caleb,” Robert said, narrowing his eyes.
“You-your fam-famil-friends?”
“Nope,” Robert said with a weak smile. “But I’d love to get acquainted.”
“Sounds…fun?”
“Should be,” Robert patted Waterboy on the back before turning once more to his coffee pot. The effort of the slap nearly brought the young superhero to his knees. “You sure you don’t want any coffee, I’m making a fresh pot?”
“I…I’m sure, you don’t need to do that for, uh, for mev,” Waterboy began to pull out his mop and begin dabbing at the floor.
Pity again beat against his chest, so Robert took another thirty seconds to find another cleanish cup and fill it with the shitty instant coffee. He left it sitting in the small cupholder of the janitor’s cart and departed the break room. With freshly brewed shitty coffee in hand, Robert’s life was beginning to seem slightly more bearable.
He returned to the screaming of his team. The evil clowns had joined forces with the bank robbers, but a difference of political belief had led to a schism between the two criminal factions. The police and the Z-team members present were battling over who had jurisdiction to lead the swat team into the bank vault, and Punch-Up was being used as a punching bag by around half of the third graders of Abbot Elementary.
Small blessings were forthcoming when he checked in on Malevola and Visi, who had managed to catch their thief, but were now being arrested under charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Apparently the thief, a devout catholic, had used a crucifix to banish Mal back to her home dimension leading to a family reunion that no one had wanted and had Mal out for blood.
All this Robert drank in with a side of the worst instant coffee northwest of the Mississippi River.
“Alright, fine stop shouting, I’ll take care of things,” he finally said once everyone had said their piece.
He relished in it all. The chaos, the fury, the sense of satisfaction. His team worked together, succeeded and cheered. They complained the whole way through, of course, but they did what was necessary when he asked for it, and with the blessing of coffee it barely mattered to him that they were calling him every unflattering nickname under the sun. All that mattered was that he was working and the world would be a better place by the end of it.
The issues of the present sped them by as he organized, they reorganized jobs for the seven present heroes. Every passing minute brought them closer to lunch and a break lasting longer than ten minutes, and with almost ten minutes til he could practically hear the growling of stomachs and aching of legs.
He glanced at the pack of cigarettes on his desk. They’d been operating at max efficiency for the past five hours and he’d still had no opportunity to return the pack to its owner, who wasted no words in repeatedly telling him how much he was a loser through it all.
He looked up at the clock, back to the cigs, and back to the clock.
“Guys I’m taking my break, when you're back from your current jobs you can start your lunch whenever-no that does not mean you get to laze around for 40 minutes and then take your lunch, Visi.”
“That was one time!”
“And I still have bite marks on my ass from when Chase chewed me out. Just get it done out there guys, see you when you get back.”
And with that he set his headset down on his desk, grabbed his phone, jacket and pack of cigarettes and vanished into the fire exit stairwell to the South of the building.
Weeks of constant surveillance of Z-team had lent him an encyclopedic knowledge of SDN Torrance. He knew where the ventilation shafts could be unscrewed to hide Sonar’s extensive list of various narcotic substances. He knew where the false wall was in the janitor’s closet that led to the secret hero lounge where Malevola and Coupe played ping pong between shifts. And he knew where Invisigal took her smoke breaks, because it's where everyone else took their smoke breaks.
He’d learned it all over the span of his first few weeks. He’d learned everything he needed to know about Caleb Waters in two hours. Things like his continuous struggle with nicotine addiction.
Robert had felt like an asshole for taking advantage of the man’s personal file like he did, but he wanted to have a conversation with the former hero. One on one, man to man. But afterwards any amount of guilt he may have had over supposed abuse of power shriveled away relatively quickly
So it was with an easy grace that Robert slipped his phone into his pocket as he stepped into the fire exit stairwell.
———
“Not just a pretty face then.”
“Yeah, I also have a great ass.”
“Agree to disagree.”
———
Robert opened the pack and found himself staring down at two cigarettes.
‘She gives me all that shit for two cigs’, he thought. Aloud he said, “Hey, can I get a light?”
Caleb Waters was a big man, made bigger in the shadows of the building. Still, he managed to look surprised when Robert appeared at his elbow hand outstretched, fingers loosely holding the first of Invisigal’s last two cigarettes.
“What,” rumbled the giant before him. “Didn’t bring your own matches?”
“I use a lighter, ran out of juice. What, too cheap to help a fellow dispatcher out?”
Waters grumbled beside him but dug around in his big windbreaker and offered him a match. Robert took it and flicked it against the side of the wall. It blazed to life after the third try and he lit the cigarette. He hoped Waters didn’t notice.
“Say,” he said when the cigarette butt was nice and fiery. “I know you! You filled in for me yesterday didn’t you? Colby or Cardy or-”
“Caleb,” corrected Caleb shortly. “But I prefer Gesundheit.”
“That your old hero name?” Robert said, pulling away from taking a drag on the cigarette.
“It’s my name,” Caleb’s voice was surly, stern and solid, offering no little to no wiggle room on the subject.
Robert sighed. “Yeah but like come on dude, that was what? Twenty years ago?”
“Ten.”
“Alright,” Robert tried for a winning smile. “Ten years ago. My dad knew a Gesundheit, once upon a time.”
Caleb took a pull on his own cigarette. It looked like a pebble in the hand of a giant. “What was his name?”
“Oh, Robert, but everyone called him Robbie.”
Caleb’s eyes screwed up in consternation. “What was his actual name?”
Robert leaned against the wall and gave Waters a queer look. “What, like his hero name?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, come on man I couldn’t do that! I’ve got loved ones to protect, you figure out who he was, you might figure out who I was.”
Caleb shrugged. “We’re all heroes here.”
“Yeah, but those Phoenix Program nutjobs? Who’s to say when they’ll turn back again.”
Caleb said nothing.
“I mean come on, you saw my team,” Robert began counting off on his fingers. “I’ve got a fraud, an arsonist, an egomaniac, a demon and a fucking walking pile of dirt to manage.”
A trace of a smile cracked over the burly man’s features.
‘Good, you fucking asshole, take the bait. Give me a good fucking reason.’
“And those are the easy ones,” Robert made like he was about to take a drag before jerking his hands up in the air. “Don’t even get me started on the ballerina and the Irishman. Those two flirt like a house on fire, and just about as successfully. And then there’s that fucking girl, what’s she called, fucking Invisigirl?”
“Invisibitch,” Caleb growled. “Met her once.”
“Yeah! They’re all just a fucking powerkeg waiting to explode and take the damn city with em.”
Caleb nodded along in solidarity and put a hand on Robert’s shoulder. He wanted to rip it off.
“It gets better,” Caleb said after a long drawn out puff of smoke. “It will get better.”
“How do you figure?” Robert asked with as much genuine interest as he could summon up.
Caleb shrugged his shoulders again, the movement like the shifting of titanic plates. “Things happen, mistakes get made,” he puffed on his cigarette again the smoke coming out in a great cloud that washed over them both. “People get sloppy, someone gets sent on the wrong job. Shit happens.”
“Shit happens…” Robert repeated.
“You're new to all this right?”
“Started about a month ago,” Robert answered meekly.
“I’m a veteran, been here for five to six years, give or take,” he smiled. “Build up a good enough rep and people won’t ask too many questions when you fuck up. Sooner or later the problems go away and shit starts moving a whole lot smoother.”
“Really?” Robert asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, tell you what, call in sick tomorrow, and I’ll fill in for you. Help to make your first dispatch team a little easier to work with, sound good?”
Robert tapped the power button on his phone and smiled, his recording now finished.
The reassuring arm on Robert’s shoulder weighed about as much as a smoked ham and the corded muscles on his forearm bulged with what Robert suspected was some form of steroid. Unfortunately weight, stamina, strength and endurance don’t offer much protection to a sucker punch, which is what Robert did to Gesundheit at that very moment.
The cartilage in your nose makes an unfortunate sound when it snaps. It’s like the snapping of wet styrofoam. It's bloody and brutal and hurts like a bitch. And Robert was an expert. Spend enough time fighting crime and you learn a thing or two about how to throw a jab. You learn it’s more or less just a set up for your cross, that the real weight of the blow comes in the other hand, and that if your opponent is close enough and comfortable enough and stupid enough, you don’t need to bother with the jab and you can skip straight to the good shit.
Robert’s cross took Caleb Waters from a six foot mountain of muscle to a roughly human shaped jello mold as bone and cartilage crunched down and in. It might have been the greatest punch he’d ever thrown outside of the Mecha Man suit, doubly more impressive as he hadn’t tried a hit like that since after coming to SDN.
It felt good to know he could still lay someone flat on their ass. He hadn’t even dropped his cigarette.
Robert stood over the stunned superhero with a look of purest fury. His left hand still balled into one rock hard fist.
“If you’re going to get up, I’d advise you do it fast. I’m not afraid of punching down and I’m definitely not afraid of kicking in your ribs.”
Waters’ response was garbled and nasally and disgustingly wet. He responded to the threat quite sensibly, all things considered, by lying still in a semi fetal position.
“Good choice.”
Caleb Waters’ nose resembled something more like a flattened mushroom and was pouring equal amounts blood and snot into his stubble. Whatever else may happen, he would never again breathe through his nose, of that, Robert was damn sure.
Caleb made a sputtering noise and tried to speak. Robert didn’t interrupt him. He felt it was the least he could do.
Eventually words sticky with blood croaked out through a thick bruised upper lip. “I’ll…sue…you…”
“No, you won't," Robert raised his left hand and shook his smart phone. “You might get me on aggravated assault, but SDN and I’ll guess a good number of distraught and angry families are gonna get their pound of flesh when your performance as a dispatcher comes under review.”
If Caleb could look more miserable, he somehow managed to do so. As Robert opened up the video he’d just recorded and listened to the audio aloud.
“I think that’s conspiracy to commit murder, murder, negligence, and probably a half dozen other crimes I don’t know the legal jargon for,” Robert took a step back as Caleb’s hand began reaching out for his leg before placing his foot back atop the outstretched fingers.
“Like I said, I’m not afraid of kicking a man while he’s down, I don’t particularly enjoy it, but I’m making an exception here. First, because you're an asshole. Second, because you’re an asshole. And third, because you got a member of my team hurt,” he practically spat the words out, each one more quiet and collected than the last but not the least bit calm.
Caleb gargled something that sounded like an excuse.
“Didn’t catch that one, asshole; try again.”
“Sh-sh-she did this to me,” Caleb gurgled. “She took away my powers.”
“Yeah, she might have, but she might not have. I read the file. There was no evidence to definitively prove anything and either way, you don’t get to make that call.” Robert stepped over the big man to the fire exit. “I’m going to Blazer now, and I suggest you be gone before security gets here. Goodbye, Gesundheit and stay the fuck away from Invisigal.”
The southside fire exit was unique for several reasons, most important of all was the fact that the door stuck when you tried to close it, requiring a good deal of force to properly seal. It was for this reason those happy few nicotine addicts of SDN, of which there was now one less, enjoyed it. You could slip from inside to outside in a matter of seconds and without having to run around to the front of the building.
Robert enjoyed it too, if only for the satisfaction of slamming the door shut behind him. Satisfaction that waned slightly as the adrenaline drained from him and his hand began to ache.
There was a proper way to throw a punch. You lead it with your front knuckles so as to not put undue strain on your ring and pinky. In his excitement Robert had neglected this caution and now he was paying for it.
He flexed his fingers and winced at the sharp pain that tugged at his hand.
“Fuck,” he said as he pushed at the sensitive skin and more pain shot up his arm.
“Double fuck,” he swore as he let the hand fall. He hoped it was just a sprain, he wasn’t sure SDN’s insurance policy extended to self inflicted injuries incurred in a back alley brawl.
Robert coughed as he walked through a puff of smoke in the stairwell, climbing up three stairs before coming to a halting stop.
He turned. He stared. There was nothing there, save a smashed butt ground down by the old red handrail.
Robert stood stock still, waiting silently.
“You know, I think our lunch break ends in fifteen minutes. You sure you wanna spend that time in this weird standoff?” He asked nobody in particular.
There was no answer forthcoming from the empty stairwell.
Robert didn’t move, but instead leaned against the wall and with lazy ease pulled the cigarette in his hands to his lips.
Huff.
Puff.
Blow.
A cloud of smoke washed down the steps below him. He smiled as he took in the space below him that remained suspiciously clear. Digging into his pocket, Robert took the pack of cigarettes and tossed them.
Invisigal caught them easily, glaring at him all the while.
“Your cigarettes taste like shit.”
“Well who asked you? How’d you know I was even here,” she said, fussing with the box top.
Robert shrugged. “I read a lot of Doyle when I was a kid and something about a cloud of smoke in an empty stairwell raised a few questions.”
“Who the fuck is Doyle,” she scowled into the box and glared at him once more. “Is that mine?”
“Sorry, I thought that was implied when I said your cigarettes taste like shit,” Robert sat down on the steps. “Arthur Conan Doyle, he wrote the Sherlock stories.”
“Isn’t that a talk show guy?”
“You’re thinking about Conan O’Brian, I’m talking about an author.”
“Whatever,” she pulled out the last cigarette and tossed the pack into the corner.
“That’s littering," Robert said teasingly.
“So what? Sue me, why don’t ya,” Visi said, stepping and joining him on his step-bench. She pulled out a disposable lighter and began flicking it.
Robert sighed and took an experimental drag, trying to find some flavor in the acrid fumes.
“You’re buying me more, I hope you know that,” Invisigal said, still struggling with her lighter.
“I expected as much,” Robert said, trying to blow a smoke ring and coughing at the attempt.
His hand still hurt and his stomach was painfully empty, but something gnawed at his mind telling him not to leave. He couldn’t have put a name to it if he tried.
“Easy, big guy,” Invisigal said, thumping him on the back. “It’s an acquired talent, one you definitely lack.”
Robert’s cough subsided. “I definitely have talent, watch.”
He took a deep breath and formed an “O” shape with his mouth, breathing out and pulling his tongue back. A smoky “O” floated out before them before dissipating into nothingness.
“Impressive,” Invisigal said in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Bet you didn’t know I had it in me,” he said with a self satisfied smirk.
“Didn’t. You give off more of a bitch mittens vibe than badass back alley brawler.”
Robert's cough returned and this time Invisigal did nothing to comfort him. Instead her focus drilled into the lighter in hand which stubbornly refused to do the job it was designed for.
“You saw that,” Robert hacked.
“Hard to miss it, you weren’t exactly quiet-fuck!” She threw the lighter into the corner with the empty pack of Marlboro Lights. She put the cigarette to her lips and pouted.
Robert attempted to regain his composure. He’d meant for his chat with Caleb to have been a private affair, a plan that had been summarily sunk by the woman who had sparked the whole affair.
“How long were you there?” He asked tentatively.
Inivisigal chewed at the end of the cigarette. “Somewhere between ‘shit happens’ and ‘Invisigirl.’”
“Well…” Robert took a deep breath. “…fuck.”
“What should you care? It’s not like I’m gonna tell anybody. Asshole had it coming, simple as.”
Robert looked at her in silence. His hand was starting to swell, and his cigarette was almost gone, and his mind was starting to come back to him after time spent far away.
‘What is this?’ He asked himself. ‘What the fuck are we doing right now?’
“Come on,” he said, shuffling over til they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. “That’s unhealthy.”
“Cause I’m so focused on my health,” she sniped. “What are you doing?”
Robert waggled his cigarette. “Giving you a light.”
“Fuck off!”
“Least I can do after wasting one of your shitty cigs.”
Invisigal laughed but didn’t pull away.
“So how do we do it, you just gonna summon fire out of thin air?” She asked with a teasing smile.
“Nah, just simple physics, watch,” he put his own almost burnt out cig to his lips and gestured for her to do the same.
With a massive rolling of her eyes Invisigal did so, leaning so close to Robert that he could feel her breath dancing across his lips. The ends of their cigarettes met but did not light. Invisigal’s eyes flitted up to Robert’s, but Rober’s remained locked on the burning end of his cigarette. With slow and steady breaths he huffed and puffed and blew down into the end which flared to life one last time.
The end of Invisigal’s cigarette blazed to life as Robert’s sputtered out. But neither person moved, from where they sat, heads just a hair short of each other, noses barely touching.
Invisigal took a drag and blew the smoke out, low and slow.
“So,” she said, breathing in another puff of smoke. “Is this the part where we kiss?”
Robert gave her a tired smile. “No, no it is not.”
She breathed out, washing his nose and eyes in a burning sensation. “Fucking Pussy.”
“No, I’m just keeping it professional.”
“Cause there’s nothing unprofessional about beating up your coworkers while on their smoke break?”
“It needed to happen.”
Invisigal leaned away, cigarette primly held in hand. “Yeah, you definitely needed to beat his ass black and blue for your sake, definitely weren’t trying to impress anyone at all.”
Robert’s eye twitched. “I wasn’t. I did it because he hurt the team.”
“Really? ‘Hurt the team?’” Invisigal smirked. “Y’know Sonar’s out with bird flu right now, bet he’s hurting real bad, why don’t you go out and beat up the pigeon population of LA?”
Robert scoffed. “That’s not the same thing and you know it. How the hell did he even get bird flu, aren’t humans immune?”
Invisigal took a breath and blew it out directly into Robert’s face. “He’s half bat, dick, he catches it easier.”
“So because he’s half bat half man he’s in danger of getting diseases from both sides?”
Invisigal’s smile would have made the Cheshire Cat jealous. “Allegedly.”
“And not quite so ‘allegedly?’”
“Vanderstenk is unveiling a new smart car downtown, he probably dipped to see it.”
Robert sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Of course he did.”
Invisigal let him stew in his misery for a second before speaking again. “Think he actually deserved it?”
“Who? Vanderstenk? Nobody deserves to be stalked by that fucking idiot.”
“No, asshole, fucking Gesundheit!”
“Oh,” Robert rubbed his stubble. “He definitely deserves some kind of justice, and not just a sucker punch to the nose.”
Invisigal sighed. “I’d have gone for a kick in the balls-I was going to go for a kick in the balls.”
Robert shook his head, regret and indecision bubbling forward to muddle his mind. “That might have been better.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t have thought about recording a confession.”
Robert gave an exasperated sigh. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“The fuck does that mean!” Invisigal asked angrily. “I still would’ve laid his ass out, a confession is secondary.”
“No, it's not. You don’t go punching up the food chain without some kind of reassurance, you level the playing field and then you get in the ring, that way if there are consequences you have something to show to someone who can handle them.”
Now it was Invisigal’s turn to scoff. “‘Someone who can handle them,’ yeah right.”
Robert sat so he was facing her. “Okay, punk rock, let’s imagine you did it. You went outside and beat up super sneeze out there and came back inside, what do you imagine would happen?”
Invisigal mumbled something under her breath.
“What was that, Hot Topic?” He asked with a little more bite.
Invisgal shot to her feat. “I don’t know, I’d get fucking suspended or some shit!”
Robert remained seated. “You’d be out and the jolly giant out there would have had the last laugh, is that what you want?”
Invisigal aimed the end of her cigarette down on him wagging it like the finger of an angry god. “Fuck. You. Robby. I can handle myself.”
Robert remained undaunted. “You can give me all the shit you want, Visi, but when it comes to your safety and the safety of the team you come to me first.”
“What is that another direct order from Lieutenant Dan?” She spat.
“No, it's a request,” Robert said. ‘Fucking calm, fucking calm, don’t fucking shout at her.’ He forced out a breath. “I have been tasked with ensuring your safety and the safety of your teammates so when someone hurts you that blame lies on me.”
The tension of the room eased almost microscopicly as Invisigal crossed her arms. “Sounds like a fucking Messiah Complex to me.”
“Wow,” he said lightly. “Not just a pretty face, eh?”
“Yeah,” she said, the trace of a smile itching at the corners of her lips. “I’ve also got a great ass.”
Robert frowned. “Let’s agree to disagree.”
“Really?” Invisigal gave him a look that could only be described as “a look.” “You could bounce a dime off this thing.”
Another tired smile slipped across his lips. “Yeah, and how great does it look when a boss compliments his employees ass?”
“It isn’t a compliment, it's called being honest. I have a great ass.”
Robert leaned forward. “Agree to disagree,” He repeated patiently before straightening up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a video to show my boss and you have-” he checked his watch- “one minute remaining before you're back on the clock.”
“Fuck off, uncle Robby,” she said quietly as Robert began to walk away.
Robert smiled and turned slightly, “You first, Invisigirl.”
Invisigal stood still, anxiety beginning to crawl up her leg and make her skin crawl with phantom insects. It was almost against her will that she called out to him, “Wait, Robert!”
Robert froze and turned to face her. “Yeah?”
"Gesundheit. He…he sent me on that job on purpose, yeah?”
Robert frowned. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t say why, do…do you know?”
Robert’s expression was unreadable in the stale white light of the stairwell. “He used to have superpowers until someone broke his nose, he thought that someone was you but the evidence was inconclusive.” There was a breath of silence. “Was it you?”
Invisigal took a long breath and puffed out her own faint smoke ring, her face a perfect mask. “What if I had? What if I’m the reason he couldn’t be a hero anymore? I’ve broken a lot of noses.”
His response was long in coming, and it felt to Invisigal as if time was stretching on to some hidden infinity.
“Who cares,” he said eventually, evenly. “It was ten years ago and he should’ve moved on, like you did. You’re the hero now, Visi, not him.”
“Definitely not anymore at least,” Invisigal said with a smile.
Robert smiled back. “Definitely. Alright, come on, lets go, duty calls,” and with that Robert disappeared up the stairs and into the office at large.
Invisigal stayed for a little while longer, staring at the red light above the fire exit, listening to its fizzing hum and the muffled sounds of passing traffic, lost in the taste of her cigarette and the knowledge that, for however briefly it lasted, she had shared the taste of Robert Robertson’s mouth. It tasted like shitty cigarettes.