Chapter Text
Herman was Robert’s everything, and Robert became Herman’s without either of them noticing when it happened. It wasn’t sudden or cinematic. It was slow, quiet, and relentless. It crept in during late nights at the SDN, under the hum of monitors and flickering fluorescent lights, in moments too small to matter until they mattered more than anything else.
Herman arrived as an outsider. Just another name on the roster, another presence filling space. But he stayed. He learned the rhythms of the place, the unspoken rules, the way Robert carried the weight of command like it was fused to his spine. Herman saw the cracks first. The pauses before decisions. The exhaustion Robert tried to hide behind sharp orders and dry humor. And instead of stepping away, Herman stepped closer.
They built something out of routine. Coffee left untouched until it went cold. Shared glances across the room when missions went sideways. Conversations that started professional and ended somewhere dangerously personal. Robert found himself listening for Herman’s voice without realizing it. Herman began measuring his days by Robert’s moods. Neither of them named it, because naming it would make it real, and real things could be taken away.
Love settled in anyway.
It lived in the way Herman stayed late when he didn’t have to, just to make sure Robert wasn’t alone. In the way Robert trusted Herman with decisions he didn’t trust anyone else to make. It lived in silences that felt safer than words, in hands brushing and never pulling back fast enough. They became each other’s constant. Each other’s anchor. Each other’s weakness.
By the time either of them understood what they’d become, it was already irreversible.
Herman wasn’t just someone Robert loved. He was the thing that made the weight bearable. The one person who saw him not as a leader, not as a symbol, but as a man who was tired and afraid and still trying. And Robert wasn’t just a superior to Herman. He was home. Purpose. The reason staying hurts less than leaving ever could.
They belonged to each other in a world that demanded sacrifice and never asked permission. And that made it dangerous. Because when everything else was on fire, when the SDN demanded loyalty and blood and silence, they were each other’s one soft place to land.
Robert sat in the break room, proudly showing off the diamond ring, he had spent months working on, the ring he put all of his time and energy into making it perfect for the younger hero.
“I'm gonna ask him tomorrow night” he beamed, the small delicate ring shining as the sun hit it at just the right angle.
“You don’t think you're moving too fast Loverboy” Courtney raises an eyebrow, taking a small hit of her inhaler. “Not many people are trying to snatch him up, you know.”
Alice let out a dramatic scoff, leaning back carelessly in her chair.
“Please, I'm sure that fuck wouldn't have cared if y'all had been dating a week. He's still gonna say yes.” She grabbed the ring from Robert's hand, Courtney walking up behind her to examine the ring as well.
Prism’s word had earned a small chuckle from Robert. It was true. He could have just met Herman, got down on one knee, and Herman would still be over the moon happy.
“Is it good?” He asks, although not caring much if she thought it was good or not.
“Get me one next” Courtney gave a small grin, glancing over to where Robert sat on the other end of the table. Everyone was well aware of the relationship between Robert and Herman. They just worked together in a way that felt right. Robert balanced out Herman's awkwardness and Herman seemed to know how to ease some tension out of Robert's shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah. I'll get you one when I'm out shopping for expensive jewelry" he said dryly, used to her jokes. “I can't lie, I'm…a little nervous? It’s not every day I'm proposing to someone” he admitted softly.
Alice could only roll her eyes, shaking her head lightly. “Don't piss yourself over this. Trust me, that wet fuck wouldn't even think about saying no to the guy who stole his virginity”
Courtney chuckled at Prim's blunt response. “I mean she's not wrong. The kid worships the ground you walk on.”
Her words weren’t far off. Robert had been Herman’s first real constant. Not just a coworker, not just a superior, but the first person who saw him and stayed. The first to choose him without hesitation. Before Robert, Herman’s world had been small and tentative, built on half-connections and people who left once they figured him out. Robert was different. Robert stayed. Robert listened. Robert made space for him in a life already packed with responsibility and expectation.
Friendship came first, quietly, almost accidentally. Long hours turned into shared jokes. Shared jokes turned into trust. Trust turned into something warmer, heavier, harder to ignore. And when it crossed the line into something physical, something intimate, it didn’t feel reckless or rushed. It felt inevitable. Like that’s where it had always been heading.
Robert became Herman’s reference point for everything. Approval, reassurance, safety. The person whose opinion mattered more than anyone else’s, whether Herman admitted it or not. When Robert looked at him, Herman felt anchored. When Robert was distant, the world felt off-balance. Loving him wasn’t a choice. It was gravity.
“Damn, I always thought it would be me and you who ended up together.” Courtney playfully moved over to punch Robert’s arm.
It wasn’t bitterness in her voice, just familiarity. History. The kind that had settled into something harmless with time. There had been a night, once. Too much alcohol, too many unspoken feelings, a mutual decision to blur lines that had already been bending. By morning, they’d both known it for what it was. An experiment. A distraction. A mistake they were mature enough to laugh about and bury without resentment.
Being friends had been the smarter choice. The safer one.
For Robert, though, that night hadn’t been about Courtney at all. She’d just been convenient. Warm. Present. Someone who wasn’t Herman. He’d told himself it was desire, or loneliness, or bad judgment fueled by cheap liquor. The truth was uglier and simpler. He had been trying to outrun feelings that had already rooted themselves too deep to escape.
Sleeping with Courtney was easier than admitting he was in love with Herman. Easier than acknowledging how much power Herman already held over him. For a few hours, he’d convinced himself that choosing someone else might dull the ache, might loosen the grip Herman had on his thoughts.
It hadn’t worked.
If anything, it made things clearer. Because even then, even in someone else’s arms, Robert had realized there was only one person he was actually running from.