Chapter Text
Robert slid the glowing glasses over his eyes. His brow furrowed and his body stilled as he turned his complete focus to the dispatch simulation. Blazer released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and looked across the valley at the two tiny figures perched on top of the Y on the HOLLYWOOD sign. Who were they? How did they get up there? Did they fly, like she and Robert had? Was it a romantic tryst? Maybe they were just friends. Or maybe one of them was about to have their heart broken.
She glanced up and over her shoulder at the billboard, at the artistic rendition of Phenomaman towering over them. Before she could stop it, her mind wandered back to Robert’s lips and the way they’d felt, pressed softly against hers just moments ago. Her heart raced and her cheeks flushed. It had only lasted a second, but that’s all it had taken to send a shockwave all the way down through her toes. She had never felt anything like that when Phenomaman kissed her. She had thought it was maybe because she always wore the amulet when she was with him—that it maybe dulled the sensation, like it did with alcohol. Now she wasn’t so sure. A thought passed by and she tried not to let it linger: what would it be like to kiss Robert for real? And not as Blonde Blazer, but as Mandy?
Obviously, she’d known who Mecha Man was when Chase had brought up the idea of hiring him at SDN. She’d grown up watching Mecha Man bust villains and save the city countless times on the news. She hadn’t known anything about the family tradition, however. Not until Chase had told her. She’d left her conversation with Chase feeling mostly intrigued. By the end of tonight, she feared intrigue would become interest.
She watched the ends of Robert’s hair flutter in the breeze. She scooted a bit closer, and her eyes were drawn to his right ear; a slice of it was missing, fringed with scar tissue, and she wondered what had happened. A mission gone wrong? Probably. A rabid animal attack? Possibly. A botched piercing in a shady alley? Definitely not. He didn’t seem the type.
Chase had told her Robert was a good person. That he always had been. That he was exactly the kind of leader the Z-Team needed. So far, Blazer felt inclined to agree. He’d given up so much—everything, really—to serve the people of Los Angeles again and again. What would it feel like, to lose your purpose? Not to fold it up yourself and put it on a shelf in favor of a new one, but to have it ripped from your hands against your will?
Her attention wandered down his sharp, stubbled jaw and back to his mouth. Robert’s lips stretched into a smirk, and in a brief moment of panic, Blazer thought she’d been caught staring. Robert didn’t say anything, though—he was just reacting to one of the lame jokes baked into the training simulator, right?
Ugh. What are you doing, Mandy? She faced forward and closed her eyes, trying to think of anything besides the smattering of freckles below his eyes. She wobbled a bit; she’d had more to drink at Crypto Night than she’d meant to. The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was the faint smell of beer and the rough texture of Robert’s jacket against her cheek.
Later that night, Mandy tossed and turned in her bed, trying and failing to fall asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about, well, everything. She was angry with herself for misleading Robert. She was also angry with herself for calling it “misleading”—somewhere inside her, she had known exactly what she was doing. She felt guilty about Phenomaman, about feeling pulled toward someone else and almost letting it get the better of her. But she also felt frustrated with Phenomaman, who, through no real fault of his own, wasn't likely to understand what she wanted. What she needed. But how would he know what she needed if she never told him?
You’re being messy, Mandy.
She buried her face in a pillow and groaned. Once again the unbidden image of Robert sitting beside her on the billboard flashed behind her eyelids. The way the light reflected off his honey-brown eyes and brought out the strands of auburn in his hair. The warmth of his face against her gloved fingertips. It really wasn’t fair of her to leave him high and dry like that. She made a commitment to herself to speak to Robert, to uncomplicate the narrative and simply tell him—
Mandy shot upward in her bed with a gasp and covered her red face with her hands.
…to leave him high and dry…
“Crap,” she said aloud, alone in her room.
She had left Robert up on the billboard.