Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The trouble was, Malevola had started to like the new dispatcher.

Unlike the twenty or so previous dispatchers Z Team had had, Robert Robertson (and seriously, what the fuck had his parents been thinking, naming him that?) was fun. He didn’t ride their asses about comm chatter no matter how much they laired it on, so long as they shut up and listened when he told them to. When they exchanged insults, he gave as good as he got. He was fine with letting them handle missions in ways the corporate suck-ups they were used to never would: Punch Up and Coupé had been allowed to compete in an illegal fight ring while keeping an eye out rather than shutting it down, Sonar had been given leave to talk finance with Vanderstenk during missions involving him, Golem had been handed childcare resources right away when he said he wanted to adopt a baby kaiju that he’d been sent to remove from the beach. Whenever the team played games with Robert, he found his own ways to retaliate instead of dobbing them to HR. (Malevola had learned fast not to let information about her personal preferences slip over team comms. Some of her teammates hadn’t been so lucky. Flambae being sent to help the owners of the blandest restaurant in Torrance with catering and Prism getting stuck dogwalking after their prank with Robert’s file cabinet had been hilarious.)

Robert was also just … a legitimately useful dispatcher. If any of the Z Team got stuck on a mission, he gave them quick advice that played to their strengths, assuming he didn’t just fix shit up for them by hacking, and he largely avoided sending them on missions that they didn’t have the skills to crush in the first place. When he couldn’t avoid one of the team interacting with the police, he offered to take over the talking for them and got the cops out of their hair quickly. His mission information summaries were succinct, helpful, and frequently funny, and his voice didn’t grate on the ears while he gave them.

So maybe Malevola had started to fucking believe it when Robert said he was there to help them. When he told Invisigal after she’d failed a few missions and defeatedly turned down further ones that fate was bullshit, that anyone could be a hero. Maybe, when Robert had reached out privately to Malevola after a drug bust call came in to ask her whether she thought Sonar could handle it without doing anything stupid, she’d felt like he actually had the team’s backs.

And because of that, Robert turning out just like every dipshit before him stang like betrayal.

Malevola didn’t have time to deal with the nauseating hurt of betrayal. Victor hadn’t responded to her attempts to get in touch ever since Blonde Blazer’s email had appeared all too innocently in their inboxes this morning to inform them that Robert was cutting someone from the team. She could have tempered her anger with “I knew that bastard was no good” satisfaction if only she’d been wise enough not to get suckered by Robert’s persona, could have focused better on the immediate problem, but she didn’t even have that.

Malevola tramped through the SDN hallways (early, all of them were here early today, no one wanted to be the one who got kicked to the curb) in search of a certain bat-hybrid freak, her mind occupied to the point of distraction with the question of how she could make Robert answer for the pain of betrayal without getting herself immediately cut. Her options were maddeningly few. The past week of the team’s taking turns pranking Robert to the best of their ability on their own day of the “when will Robert quit” bet had proven that the bloke was largely indifferent to being messed with. The closest they’d gotten to making him truly angry had been yesterday’s prank war, when the team had been aiming at each other, not him (in part as a “fuck you” to Robert’s efforts to make them act like a stereotypical hero team, not that Robert’s mushy speeches about lifting each other up and shit had turned out to be anything more than hypocritical bullshit after all).

Malevola paused in front of the leaderboard to give it a good glare. Performance would be one of the main deciding factors in who was cut, Blazer’s email had said. Sonar’s name was currently at the bottom of the board. He and Coupé had been battling it out over last place ever since Robert had performed the miracle of making Invisigal get her act together, and Coupé could climb higher within hours just by cooling it with unnecessary stabbings. If Victor got cut … None of the team would have an easy time staying out of jail without the Phoenix Program, but Victor would almost certainly lose all of the progress he’d made on his addictions on top of that, not to mention his new connection with Vanderstenk that he’d been so excited about.

(A sour part of Malevola wondered whether Invisigal’s climbing up the ranks to safety had been the reason Blonde Blazer had finally okayed a cut. Plenty of prior dispatchers had tried and failed to get a Z-team cut approved. Blazer had always had a particular soft spot for Visi, although whether it was romantic or sisterly in nature, Malevola hadn’t yet figured out.)

A brief, familiar squeak snapped Malevola’s attention away from the leaderboard and toward an outside corner of Blazer’s office. There was her bat boy. Right alongside Visi, the pair of them looking like they’d just crashed into each other while sneaking around.

A scan of the bullpen proved that Malevola wasn’t the only person to have noticed. She hurried over to her two teammates and stuffed them both through a portal into the nearest conference room. They blinked as they regained their footing, clearly uncomfortable and disoriented, but Malevola had made the portal go across the shortest physical distance possible to get them to privacy, so they shouldn’t have gotten more than a tiny taste of Hell along the way.

Malevola stepped through herself and closed the portal, rendering them safe from onlookers. “Alright, mates, just what were you trying to do?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“I —” Victor’s hand closed tighter around … whatever he was holding. Malevola eyed it suspiciously, but there was no hint of clear plastic, so it probably wasn’t drugs. Victor gave his head a reorienting shake and then said more smoothly, “I need information, Mal. I was just going to put a little mic outside Blazer’s door. Not breaking into her office, nothing anyone can be mad about. Hallways are public.”

That seemed like reasonable logic to Malevola, but she didn’t know if it would hold up with the bosses. Better to keep Victor on his best behavior today while she sabotaged his biggest competitors for leaderboard points. There were some field prank ideas that Malevola had held back from yesterday, too caught up in imagining Robert’s disappointment.

Visi scoffed. “Her office is soundproofed, dipshit,” she said.

Victor gave Visi a condescending shake of his head. “You clearly don’t know about acoustics and their weak spots. It’s something I learned about at Harvard. With my hearing —”

Visi interrupted him with a loud groan. “Shut up. No one cares, okay? And even if that worked, no way would Robert miss there being a microphone by the door, idiot. Bet you didn’t even think to hide it.”

“Were you just going to sneak in and hold your breath until shift starts?” Malevola asked skeptically. Neither one of them had grounds to accuse the other of being drongos, right now.

Visi stiffened, then gave a haughty sniff. “I’ll be fine. I do it every day, no big deal.”

Victor brightened. “Ooh, what kind of porn does Blonde Blazer keep in there?”

“Nothing at work; it’s Blazer. She’s all lame and professional,” Visi lamented. “She just pulls Robert in for a meeting like every other day.”

Malevola blinked as her brain supplied an image of Blonde Blazer having regular office sex with their dispatcher, before she realized Visi had actually meant she spied on Blazer’s office for overheard information instead of for pleasure.

“… Why don’t you sneak Sonar’s mic in and hide it for us, then?” Malevola asked her.

Both Visi and Victor turned and stared at this offered solution. They would have gotten there eventually, Malevola knew, once they were done arguing over whose fault the crash in the hallway had been. Or, well, Victor would have gotten there. With Visi’s whole “lone wolf” thing, it was harder to tell.

Visi rolled her eyes, performatively, wind taken out of her affronted sails. “Fine. Hand it over,” she acquiesced.

“Fuck yeah, teamwork!” Victor cheered, dropping the small mic into Visi’s outstretched palm and fist-pumping with his opposite hand.

Malevola swallowed down a fresh surge of betrayal at the reminder of all of Robert’s “we’re a team” bullshit. (She carefully did not think about how badly this conversation between the three of them would have gone a week ago. Well, they were going to make Robert regret teaching the Z-team how to work together, now.)

Visi opened the conference room door and disappeared.

“Get the speaker for that mic set up, babes,” Malevola told Victor. “Let’s grab everyone and listen to what Robert Robertson’s really like.”

… … …

A knocking sound.

The Z-team, clustered together in a large but seldom used basement storage room that Coupé had found, stopped their bickering and tuned in to the speaker in the center of the floor. The last staggered shift before their own had already begun, so there could only be one dispatcher visiting Blazer’s office right now.

“Hey, Chase said you wanted to see me —? Oh no,” Robert’s projected voice shifted into something partway between amusement and exasperation. “Is that another edible arrangement?”

The dispatcher sounded almost light, as if nothing was wrong at all. Like the upcoming cut had no effect on him. Malevola clenched her fists against a blast of magic.

“Robert! Hey. Yeah,” Blonde Blazer greeted him. “I don’t suppose you’ve found someone who actually likes melon that much?”

“You know, I think Waterboy does,” said Robert.

“Of course wet bitch boy does. Who the fuck else wants to ruin food with so much melon? Should be a crime,” Flambae loudly opined. The others shushed him, wary of missing a single word.

“Well, feel free to pass it along to him for me,” said Blazer.

Robert, voice still infuriatingly carefree, said, “Sure thing. Am I being dispatched to talk with Phenomaman again?”

Blazer chuckled at the not-actually-funny joke.

“It would seem the spurned hero’s efforts to win back his beloved have only pushed her closer to a new love interest,” Coupé mused, eyes glittering, while Blazer hedged a little and then asked Robert to do exactly what he’d suggested.

“‘New love interest?’ No way does Bitch-Bob have that kind of game,” Flambae scoffed.

Based on the flirtatious note in Blazer’s voice as she added, “I appreciate it. We should rebrand you as Pep Talk Man,” she disagreed with Flambae’s assessment.

Huh. Maybe there was a less-than-professional reason Blazer had such frequent meetings with Robert.

“Glad to know I haven’t lost all of my usable talents,” the dispatcher deadpanned. There was a quiet step backwards, and Malevola frowned. Wait, was that it? Was that all that the team was getting after the trouble they’d gone to to listen in? “I’ll see if I can find Phenomaman before shift starts.”

“Wait, Robert, that’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you about,” Blazer called him back.

The faint footsteps stopped. “Oh?”

Blazer took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and … I'm going to cut someone from the Z-team. Or you are, rather.”

Hold up. Malevola and the rest of the team exchanged glances to see if they were all parsing that the same way. Had Robert not known about the cut?

“What?” Robert said in a startled voice.

Apparently not.

“Wait.” Robert groaned, and his voice dropped to its “I’m too tired to be properly exasperated” register. “What happened.”

“Oh. This isn’t about one specific incident,” Blazer began.

Robert hummed in confusion. Malevola didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended that he’d assumed Blazer had meant someone on the team had fucked with one of the few “don’t”s that would automatically boot them from the Phoenix Program.

Blazer continued, “Part of it is about, like I told you already, the team as a whole being in jeopardy. The reality is, cutting someone towards the bottom of the leaderboards will show everyone we’re serious, and we need that right now. The Granny’s incident sparked a news retrospective on how the Z-team’s done so far, and SDN … lost some subscribers last week. The public perception is shifting towards the idea that the Z-team has had their chance, and upper management is paying attention.”

“But they haven’t had their chance, really,” Robert argued. “They haven’t had a consistent dispatcher yet, and the whole team is, what, eight months old? Even less than that for some of them. Much as it pains me to admit, I wasn’t that great in my first year, either. I doubt most heroes were.”

“You were never even close to my level, bitch,” Flambae muttered. “Don’t compare us.”

“How would you know?” Victor challenged, a trifle defensively.

Aww, someone’s touched that Bobby stood up for our reputation, Malevola thought, though she shushed him all the same to prevent a fight between the boys from drowning out the speaker.

Blazer sighed. “I don’t disagree, but you have to admit that some of them are taking their chance more seriously than others.”

The quiet after that statement lasted for long enough that the Z-team eyed each other nervously. Malevola focused on Victor with renewed worry. Victor was serious about the Phoenix Program, she knew that, but even in his carefully immaculate suit, he didn’t always come off that way to assholes who got butthurt about his finance … projects … or just put in no fucking effort to get to know him.

Victor’s ears were high and alert. Beside him, Visi was squirming, clearly just as uncomfortable. Golem set an engulfing hand on her shoulder. Even Prism looked a little wilted.

More than one Z-teamer appeared eager to break the tense silence, but they heard Robert draw in a breath and shut their mouths.

In the least commanding voice that any of the team had heard from him, Robert said, “Look, I’m not that familiar with corporate environments, so stop me if I’m crossing a line,” and paused as if to give Blazer a chance to do just that. She didn’t. He went on, “I know I haven’t known the team for as long as you have. And I don’t mean to question your leadership. But what I’ve seen of them would make me disagree with that statement.”

“It would?” Blazer asked, her tone not quite sharp but still defensive. “Coupé’s said several times this week alone that she’s only doing this for the pay.”

Malevola’s eyes, along with everyone else’s, snapped to the new subject of discussion. Coupé looked a little surprised and a lot tense.

For her own part, Malevola felt less relieved than she would have expected at Coupé’s being named before Sonar. Fuck, that dispatching dipshit had gotten them to start thinking like a team, hadn’t he? Malevola didn’t want to lose anyone.

“I’m sure that’s how she justifies to herself not having quit a job that has her finding lost pets and fetching coffees,” Robert replied.

Despite the obvious tension, Blonde Blazer huffed a laugh.

“She’s gotten impressively good at teamwork, lately,” Robert went on. “Not just with Punch Up, either. For all that their favorite pastime is pissing people off, Flambae and Prism both do great when paired with her. She even works fine with Golem, and he’s practically her antithesis. You don’t go from a deadly solo act to being that good at team-ups without caring about and putting in the effort to understand the people you work with.”

None of the Z-team dared to comment, though they kept watching Coupé. Was that a blush on assassin’s face? Nah; it must be a flush of anger. Her mask was just hiding her expression too well for the anger to be otherwise visible, was all.

“She’s still stabbing people a lot more than necessary,” said Blazer, but she sounded less certain.

Robert sighed. “Yeah, the stabbing’s not great,” he conceded. “Wish she hadn’t been raised to maim or kill anyone who caused her problems, or whatever the fuck. It’s … not that easy, working a job that runs counter to the baked-in kind of training.”

There was a smidgeon too much empathy in Robert’s voice.

Evidently, Blazer heard it too. “Has dispatching been that big of a change of pace for you?” she asked, her voice losing the remainder of its tension.

“Eh. Let’s just say, Chase brought in a crowbar and threatened to break my legs after the fifth time I got up to try and run to wherever it looked like a call was going to fail.”

Was that what was going on when Robert’s voice briefly cut out during certain missions?

Sounding amused, Blazer said, “You two have such a strange sense of humor when it comes to each other.”

“I’m not sure he was joking,” Robert admitted. “He did rip my arm out of its socket, once.”

“The fuck?” said Prism.

“What?” said Blazer.

“Long story,” Robert said dismissively.

“Oh, shit. Was Chase a villain?” asked Golem. The team had never quite pinned down Chase’s old identity. None of them were familiar with the major players from before thirty-ish years ago.

Punch Up’s eyebrows scrunched. “We sure it weren’t the lad himself who was a villain? He sounded mighty sympathetic to Coop, just now.”

Malevola didn’t think that was the case, but it would explain Robert’s oddly laissez-faire attitude towards reporting criminal activity to the police.

“Okay …” said Blazer, apparently deciding to leave that alone for now. “Well, I’m glad you’ve been seeing improvement in Coupé. She was a bit of a gamble on our part; we were hoping that since she’d cut herself loose from the mob and had stopped taking … fully murderous jobs even before she was caught, there might be some part of her that was open to reforming.”

“Makes sense,” said Robert. “And, yeah. I’d say there is.”

Coupé’s lips thinned as her teammates’ stares intensified. In a low voice, she muttered, “If it’s necessary for the job.”

“Sure, Coop,” Punch Up said placatingly, patting her thigh.

“Right,” said Blonde Blazer. “Well … Sonar’s still neck and neck with Coupé on the leaderboards, and he’s been here for longer than she has. His ranking isn’t because of point deductions, either.”

Malevola barely stopped herself from drawing her claymore. Come on, Bobby, don’t be a dickhead now, she thought fiercely, stepping closer to Victor to massage his ruff.

True to self-deprecating form, Robert answered, “That’s my fault, more than anything. I haven’t fully gotten the hang of working around his transformations just yet. I was planning to focus more on that this week; last week I was too busy getting Invisigal to cut out the self-sabotaging bullshit.”

“She’s made great progress,” Blazer conceded. “You’ve been doing amazing with her, Robert. Really. I’m just not sure you’d get the same results with Sonar. Visi wants to be a hero badly enough to change. Sonar keeps relapsing. Not to mention …”

“… The fact that he still hasn’t unlearned his Harvard ‘How to Be an Entitled Asshole 101’ lessons?” Robert suggested.

Prism, Flambae, and Visi all burst out laughing. Honestly, as much as she loved her friend, Malevola would probably be laughing herself in any other context.

Victor’s ears drooped adorably. Malevola flicked one.

“I think he does care about being a hero,” Robert went on, and Victor perked up, “for all that his way of showing it is pretending he’s already getting everything right. He’s like Flambae in that sense.”

Flambae abruptly stopped laughing. Visi’s laughter redoubled.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Flambae hissed at her, then turned a stink-eye on the hybrid he’d just been compared to.

Malevola tightened her grip defensively around Victor’s shoulders. “Nah, he’s gotcha there, babes,” she told Flambae.

“Fucking Bob-Bob,” Flambae muttered.

“More than that, though, he’s one of the few that already care about being part of a hero team,” Robert was saying. “That’s an attitude I need, going forward. Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to working more closely with him this week. I spent the weekend researching hybrids.”

Victor perked up even more, and Malevola felt herself begin to relax.

“You think you can help him control his transformations?” Blazer asked, surprised.

Robert gave a noncommittal hum. “Maybe, but I was thinking more that we’d get better at predicting and working around them. If we can manage that much … not only will his points go up a lot, but I suspect the drug usage might go down.”

“Why?” asked Blazer.

“Because I think it’s partly a stupid attempt at managing either the transformations themselves or some side effect of them. Find other ways of managing them, remove that justification for getting high.”

“Fuck, is it really?” asked Flambae, looking at Victor with a lot less hostility than he had a minute ago. “I thought you were just a little bitch who couldn’t handle his shit.” He paused. “I mean, that would mean you’re still a little bitch who can’t handle his shit, just different shit —”

“Bitch, stop talking,” Prism snapped at him. “Some of us need a hit every now and then to put up with all this shit.”

“To put up with all your shit,” Visi put in, and Golem chuckled. Flambae flipped her off with his good hand.

Victor remained tense. If Robert had had any idea that he was being broadcast to the whole team, Malevola would have thrown a portal through the floor right under his chair for theorizing about Victor’s personal struggles in all of their hearing. The tension in Victor’s shoulders only got worse when Blazer spoke again.

“We’ve had Sonar consult a hybrid health specialist,” she told Robert. “If there are drugs that can help him, he should already have a legitimate prescription.”

Robert’s voice got dry. “Right. ‘Should.’ I think you might have too much faith in the medical profession when it comes to chronic conditions, Blazer.”

“What do you mean?” Blazer asked, a little sharply.

“Ah … sorry. Just, doctors have never done much for my joint pain, and that’s a far more common condition than hybridization. The years of useless appointments have kind of taken a toll on my own faith.”

Victor lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh, Bobert, have I got the pills for you to try —”

“Not what he’s looking for, babes,” Malevola cautioned him.

“Oh,” said Blazer, a little sheepishly.

“The lad’s got chronic joint pain?” asked Punch Up. “What’d ol’ Chase do to him? Christ.”

“He’s just double-jointed,” reported Visi.

Malevola didn’t question Visi’s knowledge, but she did wonder whether Robert knew just how much time the invisible snitch spent spying on him.

“Look; maybe Sonar will stop relapsing, maybe we won’t,” said Robert. “But I think he can do it, and I don’t want to lose him. Any more than I want to lose any of them. He’s the best choice on the team for civilian evac, and I know we’ve been stuck with lower-priority missions so far because of the team’s prior performance and my inexperience, but someday that’s going to change, and I’ll need him when it does.”

Victor was so studiously still, Malevola could tell that he was taking the words, the belief in him, to heart. Good. Cheers, Robert, she thought. I owe you a beer.

Blazer sighed. There was a shffff sound, maybe someone rubbing their hands or their face. Bleakly, she said, “I hope it has the chance to change. Robert, you’ve improved things a lot so far, but I don’t know that it will be enough. A couple of the L.A. division’s board members visited my office yesterday. If there isn’t more improvement by the end of this quarter, there are going to be major cuts to the Phoenix Program.”

“There will be more improvement,” Robert said with that annoyingly unshakable confidence he had. Then he paused. “Wait. Yesterday? Did they … listen in on the dispatch?”

“Unfortunately,” Blazer confirmed.

The whole team went still. Oh, shit.

“Fuck,” said Robert.

Yeah. “Fuck” was the better word for this, actually.

Blazer, too corporate-American to curse, merely sighed again. “You’ve been an amazing dispatcher for them so far,” she repeated. “Better than I’d dared hope, if I’m being honest. But no other disciplinary measure we’ve tried has ever worked with the Z-team, and if they’re still sabotaging their team like this, not to mention assaulting you —”

“Whoa, hey, who said anything about the team attacking me?”

There was silence in response, in which Visi shifted awkwardly.

“Somethin’ to say, girl?” asked Prism.

Visi scoffed. “You think I’m dumb enough to actually touch him?”

“You did punch him in the face on his first day,” said Victor.

“Fucker!” Visi whirled on him. Her teeth clenched. “You didn’t hear the shit he was saying to me about the Granny’s call!”

“Your donut store fuck-up is why we’re in this mess, bitch!” said Flambae.

Malevola caught Prism’s eye meaningfully. It was always a toss-up whether Prism would choose to escalate or deescalate any situation, but whichever one she picked, she was good at.

“Nah, mates, this is because we were pranking each other during calls yesterday,” Malevola said, pointedly.

Thankfully, Prism decided to be helpful today. “Roberto must’ve been in a pissy mood after his first day,” she loudly mused. Everyone’s attention turned to her and consequently to the new topic. “If his bitch ass hates sitting in a chair so much. Hearing all those calls for help and not getting to do anything but watch y’all fuck them up.”

… Huh.

“Excuse you, I do not fuck up —” Flambae began in a raised voice.

Victor shushed them all. “They’re talking again!”

They shushed.

“— Thunderstorm that night,” Blazer finished. “The air wasn’t dry, Robert. Honestly, I should’ve done something about this sooner.”

Robert gave a drawn-out sigh. Carefully, he told her, “I appreciate you looking out for me, Blazer, but nothing happened. I was just embarrassed to admit that I tripped and bumped my head.” He gave a forced-sounding chuckle.

“Your head,” Blazer repeated skeptically.

“Mm-hmm,” Robert confirmed.

“You know, when I think of someone bumping their head, it’s the back of their head. Your nose was bleeding. The one directly beneath your eyes. On your face.”

“Okay, so I bumped my face.” There was a doubtful silence. “Look, the explosion fucked up my ears, and my balance is still a little off,” Robert told her.

“Right,” drawled Blazer. “And the suspiciously deep puncture in your desk that matches the knife in your pen holder?”

“I was testing out a gift,” said Robert.

“It was not a gift,” said Coupé. “He disrespected the literary talent of Carissa Black to me. That was unacceptable.”

“Ay, I’m sure he knows that, love. He’s just coverin’ for ya,” Punch Up reassured her.

“Hm.”

“I may have gotten a bit careless with it. Personally, I think it’s sweet that the team wanted me to have something to defend myself with in case some brain-dead goons decide to attack an SDN office,” Robert bullshitted.

“And the fact that you were wearing Galen’s spare uniform on Thursday?”

“Janitorial mixup while I was showering.”

“‘Janitorial,’” Blazer echoed disbelievingly.

“Yeah. Like when lunches get tossed from the fridge by mistake.”

“A takeout container being accidentally thrown out makes more sense than two whole outfits.”

“I mean, as lovely as they are, I don’t get the impression that the janitors here have had any real janitorial training, in fairness,” said Robert.

“Robert, this is serious!” Blazer’s voice wasn’t a shout, because Blazer didn’t shout, but it was certainly a cousin to a shout. “You don’t have powers. As you just pointed out with ‘bumping your face,’ you’re still in recovery. All you have right now is your leverage over their positions.”

“You sure know how to make a guy feel special, Blazer,” Robert deadpanned.

“Robert.”

The dispatcher sighed. “I promise,” he said seriously, “if I ever do feel unsafe at SDN, I’ll let you know.”

Silence, again.

“Guess the lad’s not a narc, heh,” said Punch Up.

“He is braver than he appears,” Coupé said approvingly.

“Maybe we should invite him ta drinks this week?” Punch Up continued.

“I can kidnap him if he tries to turn down the invite,” Malevola offered. She did owe him that beer. Maybe two beers, at this point. They’d used her portals to hide his clothes, after all.

Blazer, her voice firm but careful, said, “Chase has expressed some doubts to me about that.”

“About what?” Robert asked.

“About your … likelihood of reaching out for help when you get in over your head.”

A beat, then a groan. “Goddammit, Chase,” Robert muttered. More loudly, he continued, “Look, Chase is overprotective. It’s — if I’m being honest? — one of the reasons we stopped talking when I started out. He wasn’t right then, and he isn’t right now.”

Now that was interesting. Malevola had noticed that Chase was more invested in Robert than he was in the average Z-team dispatcher, but she hadn’t clocked their having a long-standing relationship to each other.

Prism’s eyebrows furrowed. “Does that white bread ass have Black genes somewhere? Is Chase his great uncle, or what?” She glanced at Visi, who shrugged. Visi looked more pensive than stubborn, so odds were, she truly didn’t know.

“I’m … not trying to say that I don’t trust you, Robert,” Blazer offered after the moment of tense silence, diplomatically. “I do trust you.”

“I … yeah. I … I trust you, too,” Robert replied, audibly deflating. The swallow that followed was loud. “If you think that cutting someone is the right call, I’ll do my best with the group left behind. Regardless of whether we agree.” He sounded almost pained.

In a soft voice, Blazer remarked, “You really care about them.”

“Mm,” said Robert, not disagreeing.

No one on the Z-team had anything to say to that.

“Invisigal got me thinking a lot last week, about where I might’ve ended up, if I hadn’t had my dad, and Chase,” Robert told Blazer. “I don’t know. Being a hero is about the choices you make. I stand by that. But what choices you make depends on what choices you have.”

They all looked at Visi, who was blushing herself, now. She noticed their stares after a moment, flipped them off, and vanished. If the placement of Golem’s hand on her shoulder was anything to go by, though, for once, she didn’t walk away.

Robert finished, “I’ve seen all of them make good choices. Not all the time, but more and more often. I guess I just want them all to keep having the chance to do it again.”

Blazer sighed. “Me too, Robert. I’m just trying to look out for the team as a whole, and right now, with everything that’s been going on, there are too many reasons to restructure.”

A glum silence fell.

“… Restructure?” Golem eventually asked his sagging teammates.

“It means the cut’s still on,” Victor told him, ears drooping.

Punch Up’s eyes widened. Turning towards the speaker, he said, “Ack, lad, don’t give up now! Ya nearly have her!”

“There’s not much more he can do, my guy,” said Victor. “She’s his boss.”

“And he’s just a yappy normie,” added Flambae, but it sounded uncharacteristically half-hearted.

Damn. Flambae had to know that he was the safest out of all of them. Malevola wouldn’t have expected Robert’s “we’re a team” mentality to affect even him.

“So, that’s it?” asked Prism, slowly standing up. When no one replied, she visibly swallowed her emotions down and said, “We still got a shift. I’m gonna fix my lipstick —”

“Wait!” Robert exclaimed so suddenly that they all jumped. Visi reappeared with a startled inhale. Malevola had a confused moment of believing Robert knew that they were listening in and was talking to them. “Wait, fuck, I’ve got a reason not to cut anyone right now that Chase will back me on,” he continued.

The Z-teamers who’d stood to leave sat right the fuck back down.

“Oh?” Blazer said, encouragingly enough.

“Yeah. Fuck. Want me to get him?”

“Go ahead,” said Blazer, and Robert stood up in a clatter of cracking joints.

“Oh, babes, that sound isn’t healthy,” Malevola remarked. Just how tense had the man gotten during this conversation?

The office door opened and closed. Nearer to the mic hidden under the desk, papers shuffled around. Blazer sighed.

“You did want someone who wouldn’t give up,” she murmured to herself, just loudly enough for the mic to catch it.

Punch Up chuckled. “Got more than ya bargained for with this one, did ya, lass?”

They all had, it seemed. Malevola remembered the group-wide disciplinary meeting Blonde Blazer had had with them after they’d managed to get the absolute fuckhead who’d tried to be their dispatcher just before Robert to quit in a record two days, where half the team had told her, in words ranging from slightly nicer to far cruder, that she should find them a dispatcher who treated them like they actually were what SDN kept claiming they were. Reformed. Capable. Heroes in the making.

And she’d gone and found them someone who believed that so hard, the team’s own best efforts and Blazer herself couldn’t convince him otherwise.

There was a yip! as the office door reopened.

“Aw, hello, Beef!” said Blazer, her volume fading as she moved away from the desk.

“Hi, Blonde Blazer!” said … was that Robert’s voice? It sounded like if a children’s show puppet had gotten strung out.

The Z-team stared at each other in disbelief.

Audibly suppressing a chuckle, Blazer replied, “Robert, I’ve told you, there is no way that’s his voice.”

“Yeah, no shit. The fuck was that?” asked Flambae.

“Aw, c’mon, Blazer. You think I don’t know what my own dog sounds like?” Robert played along.

“Alright, what’s this about?” Chase cut them off, the door clicking closed behind him. “Hope I didn’t disturb this fine boy’s rest for nothing.”

Blazer pulled herself back together and explained, “Chase, Robert and I were discussing the possibility of cutting someone from the Z-team —”

The tense thing in Malevola’s chest eased up a little at hearing the cut be downgraded to a “possibility.”

“Thank fuckin’ Christ,” Chase interrupted.

“Chase,” said Robert, quietly but quellingly.

“What? ‘Bout time those fuckers faced consequences they might actually listen to. Please tell me we’re getting rid of Invisibitch.”

“Invisigal showed a lot of improvement last week,” Blazer said, her tone distinctly unamused.

“Yeah, ‘cause she spent so goddamn much time harassing Robert and making him hack her way into easy money that some of that good-hero smell rubbed off on her by accident.”

“Well fuck you, too, asshole,” said Visi.

“Chase,” Robert repeated more firmly. “I didn’t do anything for Invisigal that I haven’t tried to do for all of them. Her wins last week were real.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Chase muttered. “We at least getting rid of the coked up bat freak or the assassin, then?”

“Actually, Robert said that you’d have a reason not to cut anyone,” said Blazer.

“Me? I still think you should get rid of all of ‘em!”

“Aww, is someone jealous that I spend more time talking to my team than to him?” Robert teased.

“Fucker,” Chase fired back, affectionately.

Robert’s voice turned serious again. “Chase, have you been keeping track of the police reports from his past week?”

“Why the fuck would I do that, Robert? That shit’s a one-way ticket to depression land when you can’t fuckin’ respond yourself or even send somebody else. Don’t tell me that you’ve been —”

“Be that as it may,” Robert dryly interrupted him, “it’s useful to keep an eye on patterns of movement. And this past week, almost every single report of Red Ring activity in the city has been at an SDN-covered property.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Victor.

Malevola blinked. “Babes?” she asked. She was all but certain that Victor had no history with the Red Ring. Hell, he’d already been in the Phoenix Program for months by the time they became prominent in the L.A. underworld.

“Only forty-one percent of L.A. commercial properties have SDN subscriptions,” Victor explained. “That has to mean targeted attacks.”

“Well, shit,” said Chase, apparently reaching the same conclusion. “Any shithead you cut from your team right now would be Shroud bait.”

Visi and Victor both noticeably stiffened. Malevola tightened her grip on her friend, suddenly thrice as determined to keep him from being cut. She’d seen enough criminal organizations in her time to know that the Red Ring was worse news than most.

“What?!” said Blonde Blazer.

“That, and, SDN will need every bit of firepower it can get if Shroud’s gearing up to attack. Especially when it comes to heroes who might actually have means of infiltrating the Red Ring,” Robert said with more calm than the discussion seemed to warrant.

“Why would Shroud go after someone who got cut from the Z-team?” Blazer demanded.

“Because he’s an obsessive piece of shit, and the idea of a lieutenant that Robert cut from his team for not fuckin’ being a real hero would be like fuckin’ crack to the fuckhead,” Chase spat.

“Is —” Robert began. His voice sounded odd.

Chase barreled on, “‘Saving’ the idiot from the cops and bribing them would probably be enough for any of this bunch of assholes to take the position, let’s be real, but he’d threaten them into it if he needed to. ‘Specially if he wants information on SDN.”

“Is that what happened with him?” Robert finally got out, and now Malevola could tell why his voice seemed off to her. For the first time in the week and a half she’d known him, he sounded young.

Chase paused. Softly, he said, “We’ll talk later, kid.”

“Ohhhhhhh, shit,” said Prism, wide-eyed.

Malevola wondered what specific part of all of that she was reacting to.

“Weaponized tragic backstory,” Coupé murmured approvingly. “A clever tactic.”

“Point is,” Chase said firmly, “since SDN wasn’t smart enough to can the team months ago, now you’ve gotta keep every last one of them close at hand until Shroud’s back behind bars. Maybe tell ‘em all that this idiot fought for them, too, so they decide they’d rather he stay alive to torment.”

“Right, thanks, Chase,” said Robert, back to his usual dryness. “Super helpful. Anyway, Blazer — do you think we might be able to convince any higher-ups who are anxious for a cut that it would be safer to hold off at least until we know whether and why the Red Ring’s targeting SDN?” he asked. “If whoever visited yesterday wants more immediate disciplinary action, you could always take back the promotion I got at the end of last week.”

“Your promotion?!” Victor exclaimed, scandalized.

“Shite,” said Punch Up, softly. “Didn’t think he’d go that far.”

“Fucker, how does you getting demoted for that nonsense make any goddamn sense?” Chase demanded.

Robert explained, “I egged on the bet the team had going about how many days I’d last. Yesterday’s prank war was probably because it was the last day any of them had bet on.”

… Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Although describing his joke that he should get the whole pot if he outlasted their longest bet as “egging them on” seemed a bit of a stretch, even if it had made getting him to quit before that day a point of pride for them.

Chase scoffed. “You did zero things wrong, kid. Those shitheads’ pissing contests aren’t on you.”

“Chase,” Blonde Blazer chastised, and he quieted with a mumbled apology. She took a deep breath. “He’s right, though. Robert, I’m not demoting you.”

“So …?” asked Robert.

Blazer took another deep breath. “And I’ll let the team know that we’re holding off on a cut for now.”

The listening Z-team cheered.

“Oh, thank fuck,” said Malevola, her chest loosening fully for the first time since she’d seen the email. She closed her eyes against the background noise of overlapping, “Way to go, Robbo!” and “Hot damn, bitch!” and “Kobe!” and “Perhaps you are not an entirely useless bitch.” and “Look at that! Ya did it, lad!”

“Just, be aware that there’s going to be a lot of trouble down the line if they don’t improve from where they’re at now,” Blazer warned.

“Thanks, Blazer,” said Robert, sounding relieved and not in the least concerned. “I think the team will surprise you.”

“Yeah, with how many new ways they find to fuck up,” said Chase. “Here, Robert. Take your dog back and go prepare yourself for whatever bullshit the assholes have in store for you today. Though I swear, if another one of them’s fucked with your computer, I’m changing my stance on throwing the lot to the Red Ring.”

Robert seemed to ignore that comment, as there was no sound besides the shuffles and soft yips of Beef changing hands.

“Good luck today!” said Blazer.

“Thanks,” Robert told her. The door opened and shut.

The Z-teamers eyed each other. They’d heard what they needed to, and they should probably turn off the speaker and get ready to go on shift, except —

“What did happen with Shroud?” Blazer asked.

— Except that. They really wanted to know the answer to that. SDN’s bland, heroic workplace drama hadn’t been this juicy in months. As one, they leaned in.

Chase exhaled harshly. “Blazer, I respect you,” he told her, “but no fuckin’ way am I about to relive the worst fuckin’ day of my life right now. All you need to know is, he’s a piece of shit and you should keep Robert as far away from him as you can.”

“Do you think that Robert’s being targeted?” Blazer asked seriously.

Chase’s voice eased a little at the topic change, despite what the new topic was. “Eh. Probably not directly, at this point. Doesn’t mean Elliot’s not keeping an eye out, though. Kid might’ve just been buying time about the cut, but he’s probably right about Shroud targeting SDN.”

“I’ll get in touch with our analysis department downtown,” Blazer promised.

“Good. Maybe they can figure out how to deal with this Red Ring bullshit and we can finally get rid of the worst of Robert’s merry band of fuck-ups. If he doesn’t find a way to stop it again.” Chase sighed. “Can’t believe he got attached to those assholes. We should’ve socialized him with decent people before throwing him to the pricks.”

“Robert seems perfectly social to me,” said Blazer.

“Don’t you start; you’re nearly as bad as he is. How many hours a week do you even spend outside a’ that suit?”

A buzz from each of their comms startled the team. Victor jumped forward and clicked off the speaker.

“Hey!” Visi protested.

“Bobby boy’s calling!” Victor told her. “First shift’s about to start.”

“Don’t all put in your comms at once, that shit’s suspicious,” Prism warned them, before promptly popping her own comm in. “Morning, Roberto. What’s this bullshit we heard about a cut?” For all the world, Malevola couldn’t have told from Prism’s voice that she’d just overheard the conversation in Blazer’s office.

Visi put her comm in next, too nosy to miss Robert’s reply. With great forbearance, Malevola kept herself from doing the same. She dragged Victor off to the ready room through a portal instead.

“You good, babes?” she asked him once they were more alone.

“Yeah …” Victor stared absently at the giant digital clock that measured out rest periods.

Malevola moved aside to give him space. Today had been way too fucking close of a call, and she didn’t want to push and see him shove down all his negative feelings in favor of silly jokes and chasing his next potential source of euphoria, as he had a habit of doing. They were working on it. She drew her claymore as quietly as she could and set to polishing it.

She was rewarded a minute later when Victor said with no veneer of laid-back self-assuredness smothering his emotions, “I have to do better, don’t I?”

Malevola got up to fling an arm around his shoulders and her tail around his waist. “You just need to focus and do the best you can, mate,” she told him with a nuzzle of reassurance. “She’ll be ‘right, then. Bobby’s got your back.”

Victor nodded seriously, once. Then he relaxed his posture and did a cocky side-lean. “Boberto knows a winner when he sees one, huh?”

Yeah, vulnerability remained a work in progress.

“Sure, babes,” said Malevola. She pulled her comm from her pocket. “Want to sign on and hear Rob’s latest pep talk?”

“Sweet talk from that voice? Fuck yes.”

Not what “sweet talk” meant, Malevola was reasonably sure, but fuck it. “I hear ya. Let’s get ready to show him how great you can be.”

… … …

Robert stood by the microwave, pensively watching his lunch get irradiated. Victor had told Malevola about the way the man jumped at sudden noises as if someone had tased him, so Malevola made sure her heels clacked with each step as she entered the break room herself.

Robert turned to look at her at the noise. “Hey, Malevola. Great work this morning,” he said, idly eying the plastic bag that she was holding behind her back.

Malevola smiled. The rest of the team had merely gotten a “Good shift.” from Robert when he’d signed off for the lunch break. She’d earned that “Great work.”: she’d been busy as a cat burying shit all morning. True to his promise to Blazer, Robert had sent Sonar out on a wide variety of missions, testing his abilities, with Malevola as backup in case things went sour. On top of that, she’d had her usual share of “scare these idiot kids straight so they don’t end up in jail” missions and two different investigations that had required a magic user. Plenty of opportunities to work off her lingering emotions from the morning, at least.

“Aw, it was nothing, Bobby,” Malevola told him. “But you better not give me that much to do again soon.”

Robert shrugged his acceptance. “I’ll see what I can manage.”

The microwave beeped, and Robert took his depressingly droopy burrito over to the table.

Malevola followed him and plopped her plastic bag down on the opposite end of the table. Robert raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

Malevola leaned back against the wall and let the silence continue for a minute. This was a novel experience, being in someone’s debt and not having them so much as suggest to her how or even that she should repay it. People tended to assume based on her appearance that she operated transactionally. And, sure, the demonic half of her family did fit that stereotype pretty well, and her life to date had demonstrated that the easiest way for her to maintain a comfortable lifestyle was “deals with the devil” employment (if one could call it employment; legal contracts tended not to be involved). She — the whole Z-team, really — owed Robert now, as Blazer’s followup email would have made clear even had they not listened in to the conversation this morning, but he didn’t seem to expect anything in return for the safety and breathing room that he’d won for them.

Maybe that’s just what real heroes were like. The job description was, supposedly, doing what was right for its own sake. What had Robert’s hero career been like? He clearly hadn’t stepped back from it by choice: had his been one of the not-as-rare-as-people-assumed cases where his powers came from an external source, one that he no longer had access to? Or had the downsides of using his specific powers been damaging enough that he’d been forced to quit? Who had he been?

Maybe if Malevola poked at him enough or got enough drinks into him …

Well, those were thoughts for another time.

“Here, babes,” Malevola said at last, nudging the plastic bag towards Robert. “Found these for you.”

Robert finally put down his half-eaten burrito and pulled the bag closer to look. He blinked when he first spotted the clothes; then his eyes widened and he dug through the bag until he pulled out the somewhat ratty dark blue sweatshirt at the bottom. He held it open in front of him as if inspecting it for damage.

Malevola felt her lips turn up in amusement. That sweatshirt was almost as much too big for him as his uniform shirt. “You lose a lot of weight recently, Rob?” That could be a clue about his hero identity …

“Hm?” Robert finally looked up from the sweatshirt, eyes ever so slightly red, and saw Malevola’s gaze flicking between it and what he was wearing. “Oh, no, uh.” He cleared his throat and began folding the garment. “No, this was just my father’s, originally. He was larger than me. Why my uniform shirts are all like this too, I have no idea. Ask Blonde Blazer.”

Well, shit. A little clothes-nabbing prank was one thing — it was always funny to watch self-proclaimed “valiant heroes” lose it over their clothes or food or personal spaces being messed with, the kind of shit that most villains had survived too many times to keep track of — but robbing Robert of a connection to a dead loved one was further than any of the team had planned on going.

By way of apology, Malevola set one of her hands on the cheap table and reached across with the other. The injuries that she’d transferred off of her teammates at the end of shift were mostly transformed into energy by now, so she could take on some more. Not that taking emotional wounds with her powers worked all that well, nor on any sort of permanent basis, but it was something.

“Thanks for ‘finding’ these for — What the fuck,” Robert interrupted himself as Malevola set a hand on top of his head and pulled with her magic.

Malevola had been told that being on the receiving end of her wound transferrals felt like a sudden, buzzing heat. Robert breathed in sharply when he felt it; Malevola finished and yanked her hand back just in time to avoid the paranoid dispatcher knocking her arm aside. Her eyes widened as the transferred pain bloomed in her. She hadn’t been aiming anywhere specific, since emotions could end up all over the place in the body, and she now had delicious aches from head to tail. Joint pain, indeed. Nerve pain as well, if she wasn’t mistaken. As for the emotional pain she’d been looking for: it was coiled in the chest, shoulders, and behind the eyes, stale and heavy.

“Mm, thanks, babes,” Malevola told him, feeling the transferred pain start to sublimate, leaving a rush in its wake. “Come back to me when that gets bad again, yeah? It’s a nice little boost.”

Robert’s gaze intensified. He didn’t look confused so much as calculating, his brain working itself toward some conclusion about what Malevola’s having healed him meant. The intellectual attention from such a sharp thing was almost as flattering as the way tension drained from his little body at the temporary reprieve from pain.

“And get yourself a better mattress and office chair with your winnings,” Malevola added.

Robert’s nose twitched at the command. Then he frowned. “With my what?”

Malevola pulled a wad of fifties from her pocket and held it out to him. “These. You outlasted the predictions for when you’d quit,” she explained.

It took Robert a moment to catch on. The paper bills, warm from being so close to Malevola’s body, made a crinkling noise as they changed hands. Robert stared at them with faint amazement. “I’ll be honest; I was not expecting you guys to pay up.”

Malevola let menace seep into her grin. “Oh, they didn’t want to.” But fair was fair, when Robert had saved them from Blazing retribution for all of their attempts at making the “what day will Robert quit” bet resolve in their favor. Never let it be said that Malevola was not a demon of her word. (And if this win gave Robert a taste for betting with the team? All the more fun.)

“Right.” Robert’s hand tightened around the cash.

Malevola straightened up and stepped away from his prize. “We’ve agreed that you’ll have to put money into the pot if you want any future winnings, though,” she told him with a wink, “so save at least one of those fifties.”

“Do you guys always have a bet running?” He sounded both exasperated and amused.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Robert shook his head but didn’t otherwise comment on the betting. He glanced down at the cash again, his expression returning briefly to “calculating.” “Well, as long as this isn’t a bribe …?”

“Nah,” Malevola assured him. “You don’t really do those, do you?” she asked, still a bit fascinated with how non-transactional this bloke was.

“I do not,” Robert confirmed.

Malevola looked him over again. The curiosity was killing her … “Who were you, before all this?”

Robert sat back, cash now in his pocket. “Right before?” His lips twitched, then fell into a smirk. “Someone with nothing to lose. For some reason, Blazer thought that made me a good fit for dispatching Z-team.”

“Aw, c’mon, babes, don’t be like that. Just a hint?” Malevola angled her body into a more suggestive pose. Robert just passed her an unamused look and turned his face away.

After a moment of staring into space, though, he gave a tiny shrug and told her, “I was blue.”

Malevola frowned. “That’s it?” What did he even mean, that he was sad or that his powers had changed the color of some part of him?

“Assuming this is your next bet, I’d say that narrows down the options without accusations of my playing favorites,” Robert replied, taking another bite of his droopy burrito.

“It’s not a bet — wait, fuck, it might be one now,” Malevola amended. She hadn’t checked in with the rest of the team in the past quarter hour. That could be a very eventful span of time, with this group. It was one of the things that kept this job interesting enough to bear.

Robert snorted.

“I didn’t ask so I could win a bet,” Malevola tried again, strategically leaving out that she absolutely would use any information he gave her to do just that. “I’m just, trying to get to know my newest teammate.”

That made Robert startle. And then —

Aww. Rob was a cute thing when he smiled.

Quickly, he turned his eyes back to the table and stuffed the last of his burrito into his mouth. Malevola waited him out.

“Tell you what,” Robert finally said after he swallowed, “whenever you feel like sharing your sad super origin story? I’ll consider doing the same.”

Alright, so maybe Robert was a tiny bit transactional. At least when it came to trust.

“Ooh, don’t think I’m drunk enough for that,” Malevola told him with an unserious hiss.

“No one ever is,” Robert lamented with equal unseriousness.

Malevola gave him one of her more devilish smiles. “Well, we’ll see about that. You’re coming to the bar with us this week.”

“I’m what?” Robert asked, blinking up from where he was crumpling his burrito wrapper into a ball.

“The team goes out for drinks on Fridays. You’re coming with. No getting out of team hangouts now.”

“Hmm,” Robert mused, as if he was considering arguing, but there was that faint, almost surprised smile on his face again. He tossed the wrapper over his shoulder towards the trash can. It fell right in.

Good coordination. Another hint.

“Not sure what I would wear to any bar you all like,” Robert said.

Ooh, we can dress him up! Prism doubtless had clothes that would fit him somewhere in her massive closet. He would look good in black leather. Maybe some chains? “Don’t worry about that, babes. We’ll take care of it,” Malevola promised him with a grin.

“Well, now I’m definitely worried.”

Malevola pointedly ignored the comment. She turned for the door. “Good chat, Rob. See you on shift.”

“Wait, Malevola —” Robert stopped.

Malevola looked back over her shoulder. Robert opened and closed his mouth once before finally getting out, his voice as earnest as she’d ever heard it, “Thank you.”

Aww. Damn, did that feel good to hear, sparking a particularly sincere form of pride within her chest. Maybe there was something to this hero business after all.

“‘Course, Bobby,” Malevola said, smiling. “Can’t lose you now. You’ve grown on us too much.”

The earnestness hadn’t faded from Robert just yet, and at that, something downright raw shone in his eyes —

(“You really care about them.” “Mm.”)

— And, well. Malevola had enough experience from her and Victor’s friendship to know that if she pushed right now instead of backing off, it might be a long time before Robert let that earnestness appear again.

“Make sure you get some coffee in you before next shift,” she told him instead.

Malevola closed the door on her way out and left to discover the nature of the newest team bet.