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It takes a couple tries of coaxing Phenomaman out of his hiding place before Robert goes to get Mandy. Normally, Robert is the best wrangler of the crew they could hope for, but Phen is feeling guilty and especially doesn't want to see him right now. He tried more than once.
"He's... in there??" Mandy asks, stooping to try and look into the darkness.
"Go away," they hear, muffled. Distinctly Phenomaman's voice. Wow. "Do not behold me."
Here's the thing. Robert tries really hard to support the emotionally-fragile hero and make sure his days go well. He actually prides himself on being able to utilize him so well and keep him stable in his depressed state. He gets dirty looks from the big guy's old dispatcher sometimes at functions or conferences for how easy he makes it look.
But sometimes Robert still fucks up. If anyone fails a mission, the alien still sometimes falls into a funk and abandons ship. It's been better lately! Of course if he himself fucks the mission, he's despondent and he bails every time. But he's getting better.
About an hour ago, Phenomaman was supposed to be saving a runaway car, and it swerved into a telephone pole. The woman in the driver's seat is in critical condition and she'll probably die in emerge. And it wasn't Katon-Ur's fault! He wasn't quite able to get there in time; he probably didn't know that a self-driving car might react to his presence by swerving. But now he's distraught and he won't speak to anyone.
Actually, he took advantage of the fact that SDN Torrance is still under repair, and he somehow managed to wedge himself inside the wall down in the basement. Apparently with the goal of rotting in there forever.
So far he's turned away Alice, after she offered that they leave work together and have a chat while they look through Goodwill bins. Then Herm, who he is usually happy to hug and blubber to. Now Mandy, who hasn't even tried yet and is already being dismissed.
Robert sighs, running a hand through his hair. He knocks on the ripped-out drywall next to the hole in the wall he somehow weaseled through. It makes a hollow thunking sound. Unfortunate that this part of the building isn't all concrete.
"Hey handsome." He hears a grumble, distantly. "I'm sorry about the loss. I should have sent Janelle or Victor with you."
"Do not apologize!" Katon-Ur admonishes loudly from in the dark. He's just a hunched-over ball, eyes glinting reflectively. It makes Robert think of when a wild animal gets trapped in your house because they accidentally find their way in. There's probably not a broom big enough to coax this one out, though. Then he hears a sob, and he knows he's dropped his head because the eyes disappear. "Please, just leave me here. Find a replacement and do not rehire me. I have already taken advantage of your good will enough."
Mandy takes Robert by the elbow and walks them back up to the bullpen. The extra noise and the distance means he won't be able to overhear them.
"This isn't working Robert." When he sighs, she squeezes. "It's not your fault. We're just not what he needs right now."
Robert makes a sound of agony, frustrated. But he should have- He should have sent someone with him. They lost someone, almost certainly, because of his fuckup. And now Katon is in pain. He should go back there and-
"Robert." He looks at her. "Accidents happen. Failure happens. We all know it, alright?" She smiles, frowning gently, and squeezes again. "I know you try for perfection, but nobody's perfect." Then she levels out, looking towards the stairs that lead downward. "We just need reinforcements."
"Reinforcements?" Robert asks, and then clues in. Ah. That guy.
"Send in the boyfriend," Galen says softly, from a few desks over. He doesn't look up from his monitor.
Robert sighs and pulls out his phone.
"Oh shit," Flambae observes, when Nick walks in. "We calling in the big guns already?"
Katon-Ur's boyfriend is drawing heads. He's nobody to most employees here after all, especially out of costume.
He's wearing sunglasses indoors because his hands are full and he can't take them off. He's got a tote in one hand, and a water bottle and his phone and his ID card in the other. Robert's kinda surprised his ID card from another branch works here.
Robert walks up and takes them off his nose for him. He's pretty sure he's one of the only people in the world that could try that and not have a finger bitten off. He folds the cheap plastic and hooks them onto the front of his shirt. He gets the barest hint of a smile for that.
Nick looks the same as ever, although the months out of prison are looking better on him. He still looks around SDN Torrance like everyone owes him money and is trying to arrest him at the same time. He still wrinkles his nose when a bigger hero walks too close to them. Becoming a hero doesn't seem to have improved his opinions on them. His hair is up though, which is unusual. He's still got a nice face. Nice taught tan skin too.
Banish the thought.
"Are you wearing a crop top?" he asks, a bit bemused, and Nick looks down at what he's wearing. A cut-off shirt he pulled out of a dumpster five years ago, sweatpants and sneakers. He did roll the band on the sweatpants once. So there's definitely midriff. He thought this was a free country.
"I guess? I was at the gym when you called."
The wonders of getting to work out in a real facility, instead of just running and jumping around outside. Nick fumbles his handful and his water bottle drops onto the floor with a loud clang that draws heads again. He just leaves it there on the ground with another dent in it, as it lazily rolls into his foot over and over.
"You wearing eyeliner?" Flambae sounds impressed when he asks. Nick looks between the two of them, brows dropping into a frown. He always looks like murder when he frowns, even in light conversation.
"What the hell is this." He gestures between them, keys jingling against the ID on the lanyard. "Is this an interrogation? Are we pretending to be cops? Fuck off with that."
Yeah, Nick is still the same guy. Two questions in a row from anyone other than his partner tends to get that reaction. Well, the gym explains why all of his hair is up.
"Hey fucker."
Chase walks up, arms folded, and Nick stares back at him. This is probably up there for the weirdest friendship Robert has ever witnessed with his own eyeballs, whatever these two have started to have. He tries to stay out of it. He doesn't think he'll ever get it.
"How's downtown?"
Nick shrugs, noncommittal, and Chase frowns. So he says a single sentence, a pittance.
"It's fine, I guess. Same shit different ass."
The old man bites back an annoyed sound. This ungrateful motherf-
"Oh yeah? Whoring and hero work are exactly the same?"
"Yeah, except Downtown doesn't wipe me off after they're done fucking me." Chase's lips twitch against his will. Damn this fucker. "Listen, when you get to my age you'll understand that-"
"-FUCK off."
Nick laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he gets a punch to the gut. He's two months older than this old man and it's his favorite bit to pull. Everyone else is tired of it except him.
Most of the rest of the Z-Team that aren't out just nod or wave to him. Visi materializes, and Nick doesn't even flinch. He dodges when she tries to throw the water bottle at him that she fished off the floor. It hits Waterboy walking by in the background, and he yelps like a wounded animal. She actually looks like she feels bad about the consequences of her actions that time. It's like kicking a dog. She recovers quickly.
"Finally showed up. You gonna fix your mentally ill boyfriend, or gossip like a girl? Also, are you wearing eyeliner and has anyone ever taught you how to put it on right."
Nick just looks at her for a second, unphased. Regards her and all of her character traits packed into a spiteful, triangle-shaped little body.
"... Sometimes, I think about holding you upside down and shaking you till the bad attitude falls out." And the stolen knick-knacks. And his spare keys, probably.
Her grin is sick. She sidles closer to Robert, hands on her hips.
"Ohh baby, I keep it tight. You want to get that out, it's going to be a cavity-"
Robert claps a hand over her mouth, practically smacking her in haste to make her shut up. Flambae laughs, loving the unprofessionalism in the workplace today. Phen being miserable he could do without, but hey, still a win because Robert is miserable.
"It's nice to see you caring about your teammates' well-being," Nick says instead, and she scowls, protesting around the hand. He turns to Robert, seirous. "Where is he?"
...
Robert and Mandy pry him out of the Z-Team's fingers and take him downstairs, and Nick whistles in a low, soft tone when he sees the hole in the wall. It's not big, and neither is the inside.
"We're not actually sure how he did it," Mandy admits.
"He can dislocate his joints. His ribcage is semi-collapsible too."
Mandy and Robert are diligently going to refuse any opportunity to learn why he knows that, and if or how they figured that out as a couple.
"Talawiyashwit?" they hear, voice muffled, making them all look over at the hole in the wall again. Then a couple of thumps, that Robert thinks is the gentle giant's version of a tantrum. "That is not fair!"
"The Z-Team doesn't play fair, Handsome," Robert calls, and then looks at Nick. "Can we leave you to it?"
"Yeah. I'd actually prefer if no one was around."
"Nick, do not come inside."
"How often do you hear that one?" Visi asks when she reappears next to him, unable to mind her business, and he shoves her out of his way roughly, sending her wheeling. "Alright, we're going! God, you're so fucking shy."
They tromp back up the stairs, and Visi is still badmouthing him like a rotten child while Mandy and Robert each take an arm. Eventually they all fade out of hearing range. She's such a brat.
Nick sets down his things, including the tote bag. He cups his face with his hands so that his lowlight vision kicks in, and he can kind of see him back there. It's convenient that he won't have to crawl around to get to him. He can just use his powers. He closes his eyes.
"Don't-"
In a blink, he's travelled through the shadow to press into his side. Katon-Ur makes a little sound of anguish. He can almost hear how rapidly his eyelids are opening and closing. Nick squeezes his upper arm, and feels him shudder and then sink further down, the wood creaking around him.
"Wow, you're pretty wedged in here," Nick observes. It's impressive, even with his flexible bones.
"... Please do not touch me."
Nick feels that painful clenching around his heart you get when things aren't going very well. He swallows, but drops his hand.
This is not your average depressive episode.
"Alright," he says. He settles down about a foot away from him, semi-comfortably. It's a bit cramped, but he used to be a cellar/attic rat when he did HVAC so it's not awful. He keeps his hands folded under his knees, which have to be up to fit in the space and still crouch or sit.
They sit in silence for a while, and Katon-Ur listens to the sound of his boyfriend's heart. Soft, even thumps against his chest cavity, so perfectly in rhythm. It's hard not to relax, just a little. Nick had frowned when he told him not to touch, but his face was even now. Perhaps he hurt his feelings.
He can't do anything right.
"So uh... Robert didn't really explain what brought us here," Nick finally admits, voice even and blank. He feels that ache of fondness, easily. He's keeping his voice neutral for him. "I'm wondering what happened."
"... I failed," Katon-Ur says out loud, and he feels the despair creep back in. Nick is watching him, dark eyes unfortunately observant. "... She is in the hospital. She will likely pass away."
"I heard that much." Nick doesn't leap to offer reassurances. He wants to be careful about putting too much human emotion on him at once. While he would feel the loss of a mission, he doesn't quite know how to handle sympathy, or empathy, the way that humans dole it out. Robert's dry delivery is probably part of why he does so well here. It's harder for Nick to do with him specifically, but he tries when it counts. "Did something else happen?"
Phenomaman blinks, and finally fully swivels his big head to face him properly. Nicholas is in gym clothes, so that must have been where he was, when they had to call him in to deal with his unruliness. Embarrassing. He inconvenienced him.
He does look adorable, wedged in the wall beside him. Like a small rat. And his dark eyes look especially alluring.
"I don't want to say you wouldn't be distraught at losing someone you were trying to save, especially when you messed up, but you were doing much more high-stakes missions at DTLA, right?" Nick would know. Based on what he hears from the Z-Team, they haven't got a clue what kind of crazy shit downtown handles sometimes in comparison to them. Phenomaman's real stats probably don't even show up on their fucking UI here. "That's why I'm wondering if something else is bothering you too."
"... I was distracted during the mission," he admits, furious with himself. Nick hums. "This morning, I was purchasing caffeine for the team with Invisigal, and someone on the street looked at me and told me I didn't belong on Earth. He said I wasn't wanted and I should go back to where I came from. I think I was blocking his way and did not notice, and that incited the incident." He does that sometimes. He doesn't really have that sixth cultural sense of space like everyone else. Or rather, his is very different.
Nick frowns, but keeps his lips pressed tightly together, nodding. The choice words he has aren't for his boyfriend, and he doubts he'll get a description to try and track down.
"Courtney used very descriptive language about where he could put his tongue. And his rectum. It was humorous."
That's why Nick keeps her around. He's going to buy her a whole pack of nicotine patches for that one.
"And I told her I was not bothered. After all, this is not my first encounter with xenophobia. While Earth has been quite welcoming and kind towards me, there are always going to be individuals who have these proclivities. I should not have been bothered."
"But you were." And of course Courtney took him at his word and let it leave her mind. He wouldn't describe her as emotionally intelligent. A good guard dog though, and she doesn't even like Katon excessively. "You thought about it all day, I bet."
He hasn't been in the best headspace this week to begin with. It's been a lot of sad vent poetry and long chats between all of them while their roommate cooks in the kitchen and they sit at the bar table together. His current medication they're trying doesn't seem to do much for him. It was kind of a long shot anyways, given the different biology. The therapy does help, but it's not an overnight fix. Nothing is.
"He is not wrong." Katon-Ur looks down at his shoes. "I do not belong here. It has been years and I continue to stand out such that any man on the street can see that I am an alien. And I cannot even save when I am trying my best."
"Katon-Ur, accidents happen," Nick reminds him gently. He sighs, and looks at him. "... If you don't belong here, then no one else in this fucking God-forsaken country does either. Everyone here is from somewhere else, or descended from people from somewhere else."
"Except you," Katon-Ur mumbles. Pointedly.
"Well yeah. I'm the 1%."
And he feels superiority about that, despite all the shit it's gotten him. He's not sorry.
He takes the chance to scooch a little closer, even though they're not touching yet. He aches for him and how miserable he looks, as he finally wipes at his eyes next to him. If Nick was allowed to he would help. His poor baby. Ugh.
"You're allowed to be here. You have as much right to the shitty American Dream as any other interloper," Nick says with an annoyed smile. If he finds that fucking guy- "You don't need to feel bad about standing out; it doesn't mean you're bad at being on Earth. You're an alien from outer space!" He leans closer. "More importantly, I want you here. And I'm indigenous so that means you're good."
"... I do not think indigenous peoples are a monolith." He looks a bit hopeful though, bottom lip trembling. It's a nice sentiment all the same.
"No. But it's more than most people get. And, I need you." Nick clicks the toes of his sneakers together, and risks a bit of vulnerability. He just can't look at him while he does it. "... You're my home."
Katon-Ur sucks in a breath, and then tips over onto his boyfriend softly, trembling. Nick murmurs nonsense, arms coming up so he can proceed with tugging him a bit closer and letting him bundle up against his smaller body. He kisses his hairline, glad he can touch him now. The temporary wooden supports creak ominously when he moves.
"I want to come back to you every day. So you can't go anywhere, okay? You have to stay."
Katon-Ur makes a broken noise of agreement, shoulders shaking.
"I'm sorry," his boyfriend manages, and Nick shakes his head against him, petting his hair. He doesn't have to apologise.
Nick shouldn't touch him. No one should. But he will, and he'll do it like he enjoys it, so Katon has to accept it even if it feels like it burns. It's a brand on his miserable soul. He burrows his face tighter against him.
"You're my home as well," Katon-Ur manages, and his human hums, pleased. "You and Tak'kon." Their giant alien roommate.
"Fuck Tak'kon, he shrunk my sweater yesterday."
Phenomaman lets out a small laugh, caught off-guard. The way the two talk to and about each other is amusing now, where it used to concern him. Sometimes he still gets nervous when the larger alien looks enraged, even though he is no physical threat to Katon-Ur. Atraxians are intimidating. Mostly, they are all comfortable together.
Nick cups his face, taking in the big puppy dog eyes.
"Accidents happen, sweetheart. You try your best every day, and you save so many people. So so many. But you're human where it counts. Sometimes we get distracted, or we make the wrong choice. Everyone does."
Katon-Ur knows this, logically. But it's nice to hear.
"... I feel that if I were less self-absorbed, she would be alright. If I could shoulder my hurt properly..."
Nick thinks.
"When you get an injury on your body, what do you do?"
Katon-Ur stares, and eventually Nick has mercy on him. He rubs at his cheekbones gently, massaging, and continues talking gruffly.
"You look down at the injury, right? You stop, you go 'ow', you curl up your body?"
He supposes. It doesn't happen all that often on Earth. He had stopped to whine and winge when Shroud hit him with the large energy beam... Even though he did return to battle after a damage-check and when the stinging wore off. It was a similar tantrum to when one of the Z-Team stub their toe, and he's glad there were no witnesses.
"When you take a wound to the heart, it's the same. It's not that you're self-absorbed, you're a really selfless guy." Nick brings their foreheads together. It's nice. Nick is so nice. "You got a boo-boo, you were still recovering. Assessing the damage, recoiling... so you were more focused on yourself. That's normal. The only thing you can do in the future is tell Robert, okay? He would've given you a buddy to help because he wants you to do well."
Katon-Ur breathes out, a heaving shuddering sigh. That's probably true. That's a directive for himself that he can try to follow. It won't help that woman, but it's an improvement.
"... Do you think Robert coddles me?"
Nick hums.
"Sometimes I feel as though at SDN Torrance, I am a large infant. At Downtown, they never made accommodations for me. I went on very high-stress missions frequently."
"But you like this," Nick points out, smiling. "You like getting to talk to civilians, and do the little things just as much as the big." He kisses the corner of his mouth. "That's one of the things I love about you. You're a real hero."
It was one of the reasons Nick had been so willing to keep meeting Phenomaman when they were escort and client. He thought the hero was really genuine and caring, and just loved his job and getting to help people. He wasn't the kind of hero that Nick had to be wary of.
"Alright..."
He looks down at Nick again. He looks quite cute in his gym wear. Usually he showers and changes immediately after working out. And he is so patient for coming all the way here, and not complaining about having his day interrupted. Urgh... His boyfriend.
"Also, I say this with all the love in my heart, but sometimes you do kind of act like a toddler. I know you know what I'm talking about."
Nick is a rotten boyfriend, actually.
"No I do not," he huffs.
He does know what he's talking about. Nick is smiling like a shark, pleased with getting away with ribbing him. He tips Phenomaman's big head back down towards him to kiss him on the nose.
"Can we get out of the wall now?" he asks, and Katon-Ur grumbles. He had been planning to stay here until SDN and him became one, so it will be a challenge getting out again. "We'll take our time."
...
When Nick and Phenomaman finally trudge up the stairs together, Nick is still picking bits of dirt and splinters out of his hair while his boyfriend holds his bag. He's taken it down to do it, so it's kind of hiding his face. He nearly walks into staff, but Phen steers him around the poor dispatcher, and then the waste bin he almost trips over right after.
"Oh shit he actually did it," Prism notes, delighted. "Fuckin' go boyfriend."
"Probably good to get back in the saddle then," Robert observes. He waves them over. "Hey Phen, you want to finish out with a-"
"Actually Rob, I'm gonna take him home," Nick tells him. Katon-Ur blinks, looking down at him, but doesn't offer any argument. He's just a bit surprised. They both look at Robert together.
Robert frowns, considering. He's not really used to a hero telling him what to do, but Nick isn't on his team. Also not on duty. He's not really used to a civilian telling him what to do either.
"... He's a seasoned hero, man." Nick smiles, a small twitch of the lips, and that makes Robert smile too, a little sheepish. Yeah, it's not really the same as Waterboy having a crashout, is it. He'll be back tomorrow and ready to work. He holds up his hands in surrender. "C'mon babe. I brought your comfy shorts and we can get some air by walking part of the way home."
"... You told me to never wear the shorts in public until you improved in combat," Phenomaman says slowly, but trails after him like a large nervous dog when he moves away. Nick grunts, rifling through his bag.
"That was mostly a joke." Mostly.
"Ugh." Flambae watches the two of them walk out of sight, joined at the hip. "If I end up in a fucking codependent relationship like that, just fucking put me down."
"Actually, euthanasia is already on the table for you. You're lucky Blonde Blazer wants to get a few more years out of you." Robert gets an eraser thrown at him for that, and then the hothead pushes some files off his desk and flips him off.
"They'd euthanize you first, bitch."
"I request it once a week, but I guess that's not covered by SDN's basic health and wellness package."
He gets a snicker out of Janelle for that one, and smiles, pleased. Making her laugh is basically his number one goal whenever he opens his mouth.
...
Nick pulls him by their joined hands up the apartment steps. Now that they are closer, the exhaustion is setting in. He wants to curl up in his bed and sleep for a millennium. He forgets to float, so his steps are heavy on the stairs.
The apartment is dark and cool, and it smells like fresh bread and laundry. Home. He sees the new apron hanger Tak'kon mounted to a support that Nick keeps bumping into and starting a fight about, and smiles. The crack in the tile where he slipped on lubricant and fell on his behind one month ago, shaking the whole structure of the rental.
"C'mon," Nick coaxes, when he pauses in the doorway to wrap his arms around his boyfriend's waist and rest his chin on the top of his head. He smells damp. And dusty, but that was probably from crawling into the wall. Still smells like him. Nick's feet are no longer planted on the ground, he realizes, but he stays in his hold like a stretched-out cat, used to it. He can still reach the ground with the balls of his feet if he tries. "Let's get you into bed, hm?"
"Okay."
His boyfriend closes the door and locks it once he's released, and then pulls him to Katon's bedroom. Katon's got three posters on the door now, layered, and it's messy inside. He hasn't felt like tidying this week.
He flops onto his mattress and box spring with a soft "oof" sound, which is overpowered by the dramatic creak of the springs. Immediately, he knows this was the right call. Nick is so wise. He curls up, trying to burrow into the haphazard bedding half-heartedly.
Nick usually insists on making the bed before he gets into it, but he doesn't say anything today.
Really, if humans are so obsessed with having a made bed, they should invent bedding that stays that way. The sheets never want to end up where they start. It is like Sysiphus with the boulder each day and Katon does not feel like playing these games, not even for love. They bicker about it.
Today, Nick shuffles off instead of grumbling about the bed, and he doesn't have the energy to protest. Just lies there. He misses him though. Maybe he should have tried to do it anyways.
He squirms, pleased, when his human returns. Katon watches over the blankets, staring. While he tries to blink semi-regularly when he is out of the house, he knows he doesn't have to try to remember at home. He has a glass of juice for him that he sets out of accident range, and a few snacks. Nick is so so good. A provider. Then his human slides into bed with him, trying to pull the light comforter over both of them even as Katon concerns himself with bringing them as close together as physically possible.
He's so warm. He wraps his arms tight around him and buries his face in him, inhaling loudly. Nick murmurs something soothing, then turns his head so he's less muffled.
"Just rest for a bit, okay? I'm here and I've got you."
Katon lets out a big shuddering sigh, and nods. It's nice here, even though he's feeling so so foul. And he gets to make love to Nick, who apparently has nowhere better to be. And Nick is so good at relaxing his body so that he fits against him perfectly. Like a cat.
"Maybe later I can read you Aurora Leigh again? And you can tell me about moose some more."
That sounds nice.
His human begins to squirm around until their fronts are pressed together, and then he winds his arms around him too and settles in. After making sure one of his hands slips up the hem of his shorts to rest on his posterior, of course. Despite his mood, he can't help but chuff. Nick is very predictable now in his behavior, at least to him. While the man tries not to be a complete pest towards him he can't ever seem to resist doing that when he wears these. He doesn't call him Dumpy, though.
Katon breathes out through his nose, eyes closed. He thinks about the woman in the hospital again. He made a mistake and she's in critical condition.
But Nick is right too. They are people. They have to decide quickly, and sometimes people have bad days or make the wrong decisions. Every hero has lost civilians. Katon has lost a few, although not many.
It doesn't make it easier. Each one makes it feel heavier.
He looks down at the top of Nick's head. He can see where his hair spills over a shoulder, and also his nose and the thick eyelashes he has, which brush his skin.
"I love you very much Talawiyashwit."
It is for the best that he did not stay to become one with the wall. Apparently, his presence means home to his very good boyfriend. He doesn't want him to be displaced.
"Mm. Love you too." He feels Nick's lips brush his skin in a weak little kiss, just the barest press. "Even when you make a mistake."
Something about Nick acknowledging that it really was a mistake, it actually unclenches his heart a little bit more. It was a mistake. Of course, Nick knows that his DTLA training would involve self-driving cars. He still loves him.
People make mistakes. He is a person.
"... I love you even though you do not put away your clothes," he says instead of continuing the subject. Nick hums where his head lays against his chest, and squeezes his butt.
"M'love you even though you don't make the bed."
"I love you even though your penis is too large." Nick's laugh is a bark that makes him jump, and then they both laugh.
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that one."
"It is impractical."
"Uh huh." Nick burrows closer. "Go to sleep, Kat. Tel-ur trig on."
Nick's Urgotian attempt is shabby at best, but it's a nice gesture. He breathes out again, and then begins to drift off.
He is where he belongs.