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He splashed cold water over his face. His skin was hot, with bruises and blood blooming over his cheek bones, hairline fractures readjusting as he cracked his jaw.
Robert stared at himself in the mirror. The mirror needed to be cleaned, as he had noticed every single day for the past year. He blew a bloody snot-rocket into the sink, then finger-gunned at the mirror.
Three spoonfuls of peanut butter, a banana, and two pieces of uncooked bread. At one point, he used to assemble these pieces into a sandwich, but, you know, it all turns to shit no matter what shape it’s in. Washed down with cold, two-day black coffee? Breakfast of champions.
The office was bustling as usual. His head was pounding, like his heart had moved into his head and each pump of blood was pushing on his skull. Concussion or hangover? Didn’t frankly matter.
“Hey, Robert, I– oh, dang, you alright?” Blonde Blazer leaned in over him. The fluorescent lights filtered through her hair. “You look like you met the wrong end of a horse.”
Robert raised his eyebrow. “Which end’s that?”
Blazer snorted. “I guess that depends on the horse. But really, what happened?”
He turned back to the computer, to his beautiful, blank Excel table. “Bar fight with some dickweeds. I think they took offense to my face. But, it’ll be fine, in like, a week.”
“We could get Malevola up here?”
Robert glanced over his shoulder. “After she comes back from her PTO, sure.”
Blazer sighed, and patted his shoulder. “Well, I’ll get you some Ibuprofin or something.”
“Thanks.”
Data analysis was his favorite part of the job. Did the sarcasm come across in the narration? Probably not. Mission reports and notes had to be written by someone, and that someone was Robert.
But mindless tasks were the perfect thing to take his mind off of—
______
“Bob-Bob!”
“You have five minutes before I’m off the clock.”
“And you’re already at your car. You like hard work when you want us to do it, that it?”
Robert sighed, turned around, and put his keys back in his pocket. “You’re right. What’s up?”
Flambae had his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. “Want to do some bonding?”
Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Thanks, but you’re not my type.”
“You couldn’t take me anyway. I’m talking about team-bonding and all that hot shit.”
Robert leaned to look around Flambae at the empty parking lot behind him. “And you forgot the team or something?”
“No, I want to show you something.”
“You are not making this less suspicious.”
“Suspicious? Bob-Bob, you wound me. If I had bad intentions, I would have lit your hair on fire on the way out.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed further until Flambae was a smug little line.
“Come on,” the super went on. “You’re curious. Like cats and shit.”
Robert held his glare for three seconds, then deflated like a popped balloon. “Dammit, I am. Don’t fuck me over with whatever… this is.”
_____
The neon-aspiring LED sign glowed dimly against five-to-six visible stars. ‘The Brazen Bull’ was sat in on the edge of Little Tokyo, with the entrance down an alleyway, past two dumpsters that reeked of what used to be good takeout.
“Another… supervillain bar?” Robert said after a second.
“Nothing super about it. I picked it out just for your puny little arms.” Flambae knocked on the door.
The slider clunked, and a single eye and an eyepatch looked out. “Yeah?” they snapped from behind the door, over the dim roar of a busy bar.
“Here for the, ah, contest,” Flambae purred. “What’s the password? ‘We’re losers who need passwords’?”
“In that get-up? No fucking supers.”
“No, no, no, not for me!” Flambae stepped aside, revealing Robert. Robert raised his hand reluctantly.
“... Hm. Name and entrance fee?”
“He’s Bob-Bob,” Flambae rolled his eyes and thumbed over a fifty. Thin fingers snatched it through, and the slider snapped shut almost before Flambae pulled away his fingers. “Asshole,” he muttered, wiping his hand on his pant leg.
“What the hell are we doing that costs fifty bucks?” Robert hissed under his breath.
The man rolled his eyes. “You coming or what, Bob-Bob?”
The door swung open. Flambae went, and Robert followed.
It smelled like smoke, like sweat, like spilled beer, like old body odor rubbing elbows. Robert turned to the bar, but he was grabbed by the hand and pulled to the back, around a corner, in front of a staircase.
“Why’re you here, super?” one curling giant snarled from the wall.
Flambae again thumbed at Robert.
They descended.
A concrete basement, with sealed, smooth floors. Mats spread around, no seats, a few dangling, flickering lights. It smelled like rot. There was dark staining around the cracks in the stone as if sickness was bubbling up from beneath.
Robert again asked what the fuck was going on.
“You seemed like you needed a win,” Flambae said. His orange eyes twinkled with the tungsten above them as his stare followed the dozen or so people milling around. “Give you context and bullshit.”
“Context? I’m not an English report.”
A tiny woman stepped out into the middle of the room. “Alright, those fighting come up, shirts and shoes in the baskets.”
Flambae shoved Robert forward. “That’s you, princess.”
Robert was beginning to get an idea of what was happening, and there was a familiar twist in his stomach begging to be undone and a slight prickle going up his spine. The ringmaster didn’t come up to Robert’s chest, with skin weathered from decades of sun and wind and cigarettes. A pair of boxing gloves hung from her belt under her stained wife-beater.
He looked at the other people stepping up and pulling off t-shirts and button-ups. Office workers, librarians, blue-collared laborers. There was a woman in sweatpants and scrubs that she dropped with her bra into the basket on top of Robert’s SDN shirt. The ringmaster kicked the wicker to the side as she pulled out a permanent marker, uncapping it with her teeth.
“Alright, who hasn’t been here before?” she said.
Two people raised their hands. She sniffed as she went to the front of the line. “Alright. Normal tournament bracket style set up,” she said as she began writing on people’s shoulders, their name and a single tally on each person. “No dick-punching, no organ rupturing, but accidents happen, so we’re not enforcing shit. If you win your first fight, come to me, I’ll give you a tally-mark, go find someone else with two tallies to fight, and with eight people, there should only be one third round. Winner gets the $500 dollar pot.” The crowd looked bloodthirsty.
“I don’t know you, you must be Bob-Bob,” she drawled as she came up to Robert.
“My friend thinks he’s funny,” Robert replied.
“He is, that’s fucking great. Anyway, good luck.” She looked him up and down. She reminded him of Chase, if only the expression. “You think you’ll win?”
Robert looked at the competition. “You never know. I’m gonna try, though.”
She lit a cigarette and took a long drag, blowing it into Robert’s face. “I’m trying to make some money tonight. Run hard for me, why don’t you?” She turned away. “Pair up, find a mat!” she called out.
Robert looked back at Flambae, who was on his phone. And taking a picture. Presumably of Robert from behind. Robert flipped him off, and Flambae just smirked.
“Looks like you’re my buddy,” came a voice next to his ear. Robert looked at the woman who had just come up to him. She was topless, like everyone else, and ‘Stella’ was scrawled on her arm. Robert was compartmentalizing his gender expectations as fast as he could to not look down too far.
“Oh, yeah, you’re new,” she said, chuckling slightly. She shook his hand (right handed, Robert noted). “Welcome. I hope you don’t think I’ll go easy on you.”
“I can survive getting beat up, my ego wouldn’t survive being pitied.”
She laughed again, her belly bouncing like a drum with her merriment. “Sick scars, too.”
“Thanks.” They were walking to a mat at the corner. One last handshake, and then they stepped back. Stella stepped with controlled grace, keeping her stance wide and controlled. She wasn’t advancing, just taunting, with her fists closer to her hips than her face.
He picked a bad first fight if he was doing two more in a row. Whatever. His heart thumped evenly in his chest.
He stepped. Her fist immediately went for his stomach, he weaved. He heard a man being slammed on the ground behind him, and she grabbed him by the shoulder. His face exploded with hot impact as her left hook sent him spinning.
Duck, duck, weave, weave. Shake the fuzz from your brain. His fingers were twitching around invisible controls. He went into her range, with a quick jab to her tit. She locked her elbow around his neck, lifting. Feet against her hips, he pushed, back on the floor, roll up to standing.
“Slippery bitch, aren’t you?” Stella growled. She grinned like a tiger.
You’re going to die. She’s gonna fucking kill you. He could hear gears and the thrumming of the Mechaman suit.
But, no, normal human opponents. You’re in danger of a broken jaw or shattered knuckles, nothing he hadn’t survived before. Robert forced air into his lungs, breathing in, holding, and letting out.
He was safe.
Stella had held back, and once he narrowed his eyes, she held her hand out. ‘Come on, then,’ her fingers said.
He flung himself into the fray.
She finally tapped out, laughing as Robert pulled her up off the mat. “Holy fuck, man. That was great.” They were both breathing heavily, faces red.
“Thanks. You were great, too.”
Before he could react, she pulled him into a slight hug, thumping him on the back. “I know that, dumbass,” she said. “You gonna be here next week?”
Robert pulled away, the sensation of warm, bare skin fading away. He was feeling his body, hot with blood right under his skin, sweat dripping down his bruises. “Maybe.”
“Yeah, because I’ll fuck you up next time. I’m not paying fifty bucks to lose to a skinny bitch.”
Robert shook his head, smirking.
Flambae suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders. “Come on, Bobbie, come over here.”
“Nice to meet you, Stella–!” Robert called back.
“Here, Gatorade,” Flambae threw the bottle at his face.
“Thanks,” Robert chugged it down. “No, you really got to tell me. Why are you having me doing this?”
Flambae sighed. “Are you not having fun?”
Robert thought for a second. Was he having fun? It had been years since he sparred with people. Mostly in the early years, when he needed to get better. His body was in better shape than it usually was, after a normal fight.
He smiled. “Yeah, I’m having fun.”
“So what’s the fucking problem? I swear to God, I’m not doing anything nice for you again.”
Robert nodded, chuckling. He sat down, breathing. “How’d you find this, too? They don’t seem to like you being here.”
“I hear things. I have friends who hear things, unlike you. And it’s their loss. But, yes, most of the fight clubs you can find are supervillains or enhanced or whatever. This one is very prideful of the fact that no one is a super, even though the prize is dogshit. You know Punch-up got $2k for his tournament?” Flambae was making murder-eyes at someone across the room. “But, whatever.”
“You don’t think I could win that one?” Robert joked
Flambae rolled his eyes. “With what, the power of friendship?”
“Touché. I better get another opponent before they leave me with the brick wall.”
Robert went to the ringmaster and got his tally.
__
He felt like he danced. The epinephrine, epinephrine, endorphins built up in the saliva and blood streaked across his lips and teeth, his limbs felt like cause and effect. He slammed the man’s head into the mat, again, and again, and again, and when Axe pushed up and rolled, Robert slammed his fist down into his throat, just to hear his choking.
“Is that it? Tapping out already?” Robert hissed out. He could see Axe’s eyes lock on him again.
Sweat, skin, flesh, sinew, muscle, bone, sweat, skin, muscle, bone, muscle and bone, muscle and bone.
Axe was struggling. Probably from a mild concussion. Robert had a fist that could fit under his ribs instead.
And he caught in his peripheral vision, Flambae off to the side, staring at him.
He put Axe down with all the dignity of a rabid dog. The crowd cheered. The ringmaster was collecting money.
Robert stood up, head spinning, his heart beating inside of his skull. He basked for only a moment, as the tension in his chest drained out of him, and he could breathe for the first time in years.
“Yeah, you needed a win,” Flambae said next to him, patting his shoulder.
__
He blinked out of the memory, the applause fading into office bustle. It was 9:00 a.m., and he had a job. He put on his headset, logging into the dispatching software.
“Good morning, everyone.”