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“If I keep buying you sour patch kids, will it start to become redundant?”
Fluorescent lightning is never friendly to anyone. The bright white haze of the hospital makes everything look pale and gauche, but Robert is a sight for sore, tired, bored eyes. He appears in the doorway with that one sided smile of his. Shaking a fresh bag of sour patch kids and blood stains still left over on his skin from the fight.
Invisigal doesn’t think that he’s seen more than the first aid medic at the scene that was probably overwhelmed with work and different biological dynamics of everyone involved. She raises an eyebrow at his presence, her eyes follow him as he makes his way around the cot.
Robert pulls the visitor’s chair as close to the hospital bed as possible, swinging his legs over it to firmly sit himself down. A slight pop and the plastic is ripped open in one swift motion.
The first one he pulls out is red.
“Might have to name our kids Sour Patch at this point.” She takes the offering from his fingers, biting down on the chewy candy and decapitating the little saccharine child.
“Oh, so we’re having unprotected sex now?” Green. His tone never wavers, even as he pops the sour candy in his mouth.
“Have to pay you back for all these sour patch kids somehow.” Orange. She pulls a face, but eats it anyway.
Their voices bounces off of the walls, and when she grins at him there is candy stuck between her teeth. A mixture of orange and red, sticky against her tongue as she tries to figure out where exactly they are buried. But Robert reaches out before she can pull out a mirror, his palm upon her jaw as his thumb carefully helps her dislodges it.
He tilts her head from one side to the other to check all the gaps in her teeth, making sure there isn’t more that he can help with. His thumb grazing her bottom lip as he lets go in satisfaction.
Invisigal blinks at first, a few times as it registers to her what he has done, before she whispers her thanks, and he waves it off like it means nothing. But it does to her, it all means something to her.
“Thought I told you to go celebrate.” The remnants of his body against any part of hers always gets burned into the back of her mind, unable to keep her mind or her eyes off of him. She looks at his hand, now flat on the side of the cot. Fingertips ever so slightly making contact with her thigh, over the sheets she doesn’t know if he realised but her own skin feels as though it is aflame.
“I am celebrating.” He moves his hand. Looking into the bag of candy, finger digging for his favourite flavour. “With you.”
He looks so happy when he picks out another red one. Robert leans his elbows onto the bed, in the little space between her body and the edge, a grin as he relaxes into the mattress.
“You said, ‘go be with your team.’” He eats the sour patch kid in one bite. “That includes you.”
He turns his head to be faced with her blinking back at him. A knot at the edge of her lips as, Robert assumes, she thinks about which snarky comeback would be most appropriate.
Then she lands on a punch to his shoulder. A move he feels himself reacting to even before it lands. But other than a blooming bruise on his skin, ultimately to his surprise, she lets it go. Undeciding on whether she wants to make some other joke about how he should play sexy nurse and treat her condition, or a sincere thank you where she can’t look him in the face.
Instead she just grabs another piece of candy. Places it on her tongue and sucks the citric acid off of it, before chewing through it. Mumbling a thanks, which in her mind she acquaints with the sweet, even though they both feel the lingering implications under it all.
“We’re grabbing drinks later tonight, Blazer gave us Monday off.” Robert begins to fill the silence, knowing that Invisigal won’t be the first to pick up the conversation right now. “Well, she decided that the whole company should be off Monday, which I think is probably for the best.”
And for a moment, Robert can’t help but wonder if this is all too much.
If visiting her when she told him that he didn't need to accompany her is too much. If sitting so close to her is too much. If the sour patch kids were becoming too much.
It’s when he has cemented his feelings for her that his brain starts to second guess itself. She did kiss him, twice, he reminds himself. That affections are reciprocated, that their movie date was indeed a date, that a kiss means that she too has developed romantic feelings. Still, uncertainty plagues him. To be so definitive of her feelings when he still gets confused with the workings of her mind.
He blinks back, swallowing his thoughts as he straightens his posture, watching her slump into the bed as she continues to chew. And then she smiles at him, catching him looking at her as she fills the gap between them with a raised eyebrow and a silent conversation. Asking him what’s going on in his brain without uttering a word.
He opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to it. “Let me guess, you’re still going to go in on Monday to help with everything.”
A sigh as Robert rewires his train of thought, “It’s the least I could do.”
Invisigal’s laughter is bright. He can hear her rolling her eyes, but it rounds out her tone. A mixture of disbelief and knowing that nothing could be more true.
“For what, saving LA?” She stifles her laughter, “Jesus, what a kiss ass.”
She’s gorgeous, he thinks. In every which way, the epitome of everything he’s ever fought for. The intention to be good, to do what’s best, even when things don’t pan out as planned.
And he wants this.
More than anything right now, he wants this. That’s why he’s here at the hospital. That’s why he made it clear to her in the locker room. That’s why he kissed her in front of their team.
“Courtney.”
The mention of her legal name snaps her back to attention. Her eyebrows crease slightly, and the rest of her laughter gets caught in her throat. He’s looking at her lips. Then her eyes, and back to her lips. Pink and soft, he knows what they feel like but a reminder wouldn’t hurt. A reminder might even save his soul.
“Let me kiss you first for once.”
And maybe he’s impatient for not waiting for her approval, but he swears he sees the smallest of nods as he leans into her. A hand to her jawline, helping her close the gap between them a little quicker. His opposite hand digging into the mattress as he leans himself over to reach her.
As he presses his tongue past her lips he tastes the remnants of the citric acid. Sour and sweet and eager. She lets him in, their teeth collide in the desperation, and he feels her moan into him. Her eyelashes are soft against his skin, and he can’t seem to feel close enough to her even with the taste of her saliva in his own mouth.
When they part it is only because they need to breathe. And it is their heavy breaths that rings in their ears as they finally disconnect, lips parted and their chests rise and fall in tandem. Robert presses his forehead against Invisigal’s, resting the pressure of the day onto her.
Finally when his breath is settled, he whispers against her. “You know, I’m really proud of you.”
And he says it knowing that it will sever the intimate moment, a smile already creeping onto his lips as she does what he expects and pushes his face out of the way. “Okay, mom.”
But he bounces back, and takes her head in his hands. Cupping her cheeks as he places a kiss on her forehead. Then her right cheek. Then her left. Before returning to where he belongs and plants his lips upon hers. Gentle, sweet and chaste.
“You’re so good, Visi.” The cool air of his breath on her lips. “So fucking good.”
“Stop.” She attempts to turn her head but he captures her lips just to keep her in place. And she giggles into his mouth as he refuses to let her go.
“I didn’t thank you enough.” He digs his face into the side of her neck.
She finally manages to push his face away, keeping him away at arm’s length. “Stop with this mushy shit please.”
It only makes him want to praise her more, but even he feels as though his words lack the depth of his own gratitude. He has grown up with some of the world’s greatest superheroes, but he never takes kindness for granted. To help someone without asking for anything back, to bestow aid to a stranger, to step in front of a bullet for someone. It never matters who, just that they’d do it in the first place.
“Alright, alright.” He chuckles as he fights for sovereignty of his own face. “It’s your turn to say, ‘Mecha Man you’re so cool, and so handsome, and so-’”
She would pour the remaining sour patch kids over his head if she wasn’t rolling her eyes so severely, “I am going to pour bleach in your coffee.”
“Just the way I like it.”
Robert thinks he should’ve brought something of more substance than sour patch kids. Their stomachs will probably start gurgling from all the sugar in an hour or so. But they make Visi smile, and they get stuck in her teeth, and they laugh over it together. And that’s all that he wants right now.
She’ll probably be released pretty quickly, Robert hopes before the night ends so that she can come along for drinks with the others. He’s pretty sure that they’d all like her there too, with her saving him and more importantly Beef, everyone’s really understanding the scope of the Phoenix Program in its truest form. Maybe drinking right after the hospital isn’t the best option, but what’s a few more days of being bedridden in turn for a celebratory night out with friends. He’ll make sure she sticks to water.
“So, there are some new releases on Friday.” He places a hand on her thigh, fingers squeeze her in reassurance. He needs her to know that he’s here for her, that everyone is here for her. “We should go see something.”
Invisigal’s hand snakes over to his, covering Robert’s hand and slipping her fingers between his. “Only if you’re buying popcorn.”
He laughs, knowing that this will be their Friday plans for as long as she will want them. “It’s a date then.”
“Yeah,” Invisigal grins, “It’s a date."