Chapter Text
…
It was nothing grand. He didn’t hear an explosion. Didn’t feel any pain. Just a mild sense of surprise at the fact it had actually gone off. All in all, death was as unremarkable as an ordinary day in life. His glassy, unseeing eyes locked into the stars above from where he had fallen down.
Yeah, it was peaceful.
…
His peace was short lived however, as a screech tore through his already shattered eardrums. His unseeing eyes slowly focused to reveal a dark shape looming above him, clashing, merging and diverging with a red streak that kept fading in and out of view.
Pain was slowly coming back to him, as if his body was finally falling in tandem with reality. Fireworks of pain bloomed all over his body, going through his veins like electric currents, accumulating in his head. Another screech. Was it a migraine? Could you get a migraine from blowing your brains out?
Dying is way more annoying than I imagined.
His vision went dark once more.
The next time his eyes cleared, the red streak was joined by a flashing blue one. The screeching continued, but the pain was duller.
Finally. His nerves were shutting down.
He drifted off once more, thankful that it was over.
It has to be. I don’t have the energy to drag myself to the edge.
-
His gaze cleared once more, the screeching was gone this time, replaced by an annoying beeping sound. One he was so intimately familiar with. Hospital, and the steady beeping of a heart monitor. He looked around the room. Sterile, clean walls, fluorescent white digging into his skull as if it wanted to excavate his neurons. To the corner of his bed, Chase. He looked like shit. Robert didn't remember ever seeing him this disheveled. Not even at his dad's funeral. He tried to smile, ease Chase's worry, but his face didn't want to cooperate with him. Annoyance settled in. Chase still wasn't talking, just looking at him with red rimmed, empty eyes. He tried to speak, to tell the old man off. He didn't need pity. Whatever had landed him in the hospital, he had gone through worse. A garbled noise came out of his throat. Fucking hell. He tried again as Chase shot up from his seat and started howling for the doctor. This time he made a noise akin to Frankenstein's monster.
Progress I guess.
Chase only yelled harder, pacing between the bed and the door. Robert wanted to strangle him. Just as a blur of blue walked in through the door, he went out like a light again.
-
Mandy walked in right after the doctors left with a glum expression on her face. Chase had tried to appreciate it at first, but after two weeks of holding vigil at his stupid kid's bedside, his patience was wearing thin. The room was always bustling with one idiot after the other. Namely the idiots who found Robert with a bullet through that thick skull of his while he himself played nanny for the aforementioned idiot's rotund dog. So suffice to say, Chase was pissed to high hell.
"The fuck you want?” he grumbled.
Mandy fiddled with her hair. Chase didn't have time for that. Robert had woken up for the third time this week and he still wouldn't fucking stay awake. He wanted to put his head through a wall.
“Out with it, Blazer.”
"You remember that I renewed Robert's lease last week?” She said, biting the inside of her cheek.
He bristled. "Of fucking course I remember, I swear to god, I'm killing this kid when he wakes up, going and pulling a stupid stunt like that.” It hadn't been a pleasant week. Just four hours after they hauled his ass here, his phone had lit up with a message from Robert of all people, apologising for dumping the paperwork on him. He had to call Blazer to sort everything out.
"Well.” Mandy said. "Today-uh. A new message came through. To the Z-team. And me.”
"Get to the mother fucking point.”
She pulled a face at his swearing, but let it slide, thank fuck. He did not have the energy to play parental control.
She took a big breath. "It said that he left contingency plans in a safe at his house. So. I went back. There was a note for you there.”
Jesus Christ. Contingency plans. Who even was this kid, Batman?
She pulled out a small envelope. Chase's heart dropped.
"I didn't open it.” She handed him the letter. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry Chase. This is hard for all of us.”
Yeah right.
Her and her corporate bullshit. None of them knew Robert like he did. Even now, he saw a little freckled scrawny kid in that hospital bed instead of the grown ass adult lying there. Covered in scars Chase wasn't there to prevent. He just gave a curt nod, trying not to crumple the letter in his hands.
"I'll be back later.” He opened it with shaking hands only after he was sure she had truly left.
Two photos slipped out alongside a small paper folded over and over again. Bastard might as well have folded it into a paper crane. He set that aside for now. The first photo he flipped over was one he never saw before. It was blurry and taken from an angle, right after the fight with the Red Ring. Even the thought of it made his blood boil. The bastard who caused all of this was in his cushy cell while Robert hung on to life by a thread thinner than his hair. He wished for the hundredth time it was Shroud who was in Robert's place instead. Deep down, he knew it wasn't all Shroud's doing. It was Robbie, Bette, Chase himself and all the people that came and went while he was away living his glory days. He really needed a drink. He put the photo back in the envelope.
The next photo, he was way more familiar with. It had been taken at one of the many Brave Brigade meets. Robert wasn't even supposed to be in the picture. He had zoomed over at Chase with a stupid toothy grin on his face. Fuck. He missed the kid so damn much. He could feel tears stinging his eyes again. That was all he did these days. Eat, shit, cry like a baby, rinse and repeat. It was about damn time they put him in a fucking nursing home. He showed that photo back in the envelope as well.
Next was the letter. He unfolded it with all the poise of a prisoner being read his death sentence.
For all its complicated ass fold, it had so little words on it.
“Love you old man, take care of Beef or I will haunt you.”
Chase balled his hand into a fist. Of course the little shit thought of Beef even at his very last moment. Complete with a fucking smiley of all things. Repressed bastard. He folded it over once to put it back when his eye caught something on the back.
"Thanks for everything.”
With that, the floodgates opened back up. At least no one was around to witness it this time.