Archive of Our Own

“This is a slow suicide mission. You get that right?”

Toxic glances sidelong at Komodo, like the big dragon man will suddenly stop being selectively mute after four hours of silence through this goddamn stake out. As expected, the big bastard says nothing, doesn’t even react to what he’s saying, and continues to stare intently across the parking garage at the battered little blue hatchback they’ve been stalking.

“On the off chance we do grab him and he’s not packing some kind of fucked up Mecha Man light saber or something, then two guesses who Z-Team dismembers.” He points back and forth between them over the center console and the cupholders stuffed with Fuego Taco wrappers. “It’s us, buddy. That dick punch guy is gonna rip my nuts off, Coupe will cut my dick off, and then the fire faggot is gonna burn all my skin off. I’ll be sackless, dickless, and skinless and dead. In that order if I’m extremely fucking unlucky.”

He waits for some kind of reaction.

Komodo, ever the professional, remains facing forward.

Toxic sighs and sits back in the passenger seat, flipping his phone up and continuing to scroll his messages and not think too hard about the reality he just described. In theory, the Phoenix Program is about reforming deranged fucked ups into upstanding citizens who don’t skin you alive, but Mecha Man even as his most upstanding was never very merciful and it’s hard to imagine he’s trained his pet goon squad not to maul when they really get mad.

“This is fucking stupid,” Toxic says for the twenty-fifth time. “Telling us to kidnap Robertson is the boss’s way of killing us off. Slowly. Painfully. Because she doesn’t like us.”

Komodo ignores him.

“We should just drive off into the sunset and go into hiding. She’s still new and if we move fast, we can outrun her little localized crime gang here. She’s not like Shroud. She can’t see the fucking future or whatever. She’s just the bitch who killed the old boss— Oh shit. Fuck. Goddammit you useless twink. You couldn’t just watch fucking Netflix or something tonight? Jesus.”

In the parking garage, about forty feet out from their creepy kidnapper van, a familiar figure in jeans and an old bomber jacket exits the apartment elevator and walks toward the shitty hatchback. He pops the trunk and starts rifling around. He’s wearing headphones. He’s digging around in a series of duffle bags and boxes in the back of the vehicle.

Robert Robertson III.

SDN relocated him for the third time in the last six months.

Shroud didn’t manage to kill Mecha Man the old-fashioned way, but outing his real name and identity to every Red Ring villain in Torrance and therefore to every villain, hero, news outlet, and social media platform in the blogosphere greatly increased the odds of him dying by way of wronged nemesis seeking vengeance. Or deranged fan.

Like it or not, Mecha Man and Robert Robertson are now one identity.

One identity lots of people feel very strongly about.

Toxic tilts his head, studying the under-cover superhero currently wrestling with a box labeled ‘kitchen stuff’ because he clearly overpacked the one box and it’s too heavy now.

“Okay, be honest. Would you tap that?”

Komodo makes a noise of disgust, unlocks the car door, and starts to exit the vehicle.

“Fine. But when something bad happens to you don’t come crying to—”

Komodo instantly vanishes as two flaming fists clamp shut around his skull and he’s yanked out of the mouth of the door at high-speed and vanishes, screaming, presumably out the side of the 7-story parking garage and into open air. Ah. Cool. This is a trap. That makes so much sense actually.

“Fuck.”

Toxic gets out of the car, hands up, in time to see Robertson turn around, tugging his headphones off and looking mildly apologetic. It occurs to Toxic—standing there, watching Malevola, Punch Up,  and Coupe all materialize from portals, shadows, and literally other cars parked in here—that Robertson trying and failing to get a box from his car was porno equivalent of some chick going, “Oh god, I can’t get this door open, I sure hope some big-dick burglar doesn’t get me.”

“Hey,” says Robertson, who is Mecha Man.

“Fuck you, twink.”

“Weird,” Malevola declares, then a portal opens directly next to Toxic and her hand punches through the gap, grabs him around the throat, and he’s yanked through to where she’s standing. Up close, the yellow of her eyes shifts like something molten. “Don’t be fuckin’ weird, mate. And don’t turn into acid.”

She’s holding him in the mouth of the portal.

“If this closes on you, I’m not responsible for what body part it takes off.”

“Where is Invisigal?” Robertson moves to stand a little closer. He’s got his hands in his pockets, seeming unaware or unconcerned with Coupe who is smoking with umbral darkness directly behind him, a knife in her hand, looking at Toxic the way a police dog looks at a target. Robertson shrugs. “Cooperate and maybe you can cut a deal or something.”

“I’m not doing shit. I can’t wait until your fucking girlfriend skins you alive or whatever she’s planning.”

Mecha Man maintains his resting bitch face and says, “So she did send you.”

“Who else, you dumb whore?” Toxic gets shaken like a fucking maraca by the demon lady for that, which hurts. He glares around a bit manically at Mecha Man’s gang of pet supers, all impatiently waiting, and rolls his eyes. “Christ, fuck me dead… Look. Rob. Babe. Can I call you, Robbie?”

“Not if you want to keep all your teeth,” Robert says, deadpan.

“And your dick,” says Punch Up with absolute malice and intent.

“Fine! Fuck!” Toxic waves his hands. “I’ll cooperate. I don’t even like Invisibitch. She’s a cunt and weirdo. She sent me and Komodo to, like, kidnap you but like I said to Komodo—” he gestures toward the open sky between parked cars, presumably where Flambae ripped his fellow villain out into the night sky at forty miles per hour and on fire— “I think she did it because she wanted us to get fucked up.”

“Awwww,” says Malevola. “She’s feeding us idiots to fuck up? That’s sweet…”

“Where is she?” Mecha Man repeats the question.

“You don’t care why she wants you?”

“I know what she wants,” he says with flat disdain. “She wants to talk. Which is why she sent you chucklefucks to get caught in an obvious trap. You’re the message in the bottle, so let’s skip whatever weird banter you have in mind and just cut to you telling me what you know, and Mal doesn’t take an arm off.”

Toxic opens his mouth to say something about how Mecha Man wouldn’t do something that violent, then re-evaluates because Mecha Man was absolutely the kind of hero who would take limbs, usually in an active fight mind you, but this is Z-Team and the standards are probably a lot lower. And they have a weird thing about arms?

“Christ. Fine.” He slowly reaches into his pocket. “Here. Take my phone, you fucking nerd. Password is one-four-five-two. Just… wait for her to text.” Toxic waits until Mecha Man, a little warily, takes the phone from him and unlocks it. “See? Easy. If she wants you to find her, she’ll text you. There. I cooperated. Can we—OH GOD MY DICK! WHY?”

Robertson, somewhere above Toxic because he’s on the floor clutching his freshly punched crotch now, says, “Punch Up, what the fuck?”

“I’m not letting the little pissant get out of this un-punched just because he rolled over.” The short ass supe protests loudly, “He was gonna kidnap you, lad!”

“Sure, but he was helpless and that’s, like, wrong…”

“My diiiiick!”

“Just—” Robertson sounds a little exasperated— “make sure he and Komodo get escorted to SDN.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to set up my remote station and scrape this phone.” Robertson sounds almost cheerful as Malevola hauls Toxic to his feet and starts dragging him toward another portal. “The safehouse should be good for the night at least. No, Coupe, I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“But—”

“No. I’m fine. If Vizi wanted to kill me, she’d have sent some real fuckin’ villains. She didn’t.”

Coupe hums. “Love tap?”

“Maybe.”

And that’s the last he hears before the portal shuts.

Flambae is pissed.

He perches on the edge of the safehouse balcony balustrade like an angry lamp-eyed gargoyle, glaring until Robert hands him a beer. Then he shifts his weight to sit properly on the railing and sip resentfully at the offered drink. His touch steams the condensation off the sweating bottle almost instantly. Yup. Still pissed. So pissed he’s not maintaining his temperature.

“You good?” Robert asks neutrally.

“No. You should have fucking let Coupe keep an eye out. She’s literally a fucking assassin, you stupid bitch. She’d see them coming.”

“Vizi isn’t trying to kill me.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Flambae rolls his eyes, his stare faintly luminous and furious in the dark. “You seriously think she’s not coming after you?”

“Why would she?” Robert asks flatly. He sips his beer and shrugs. “She killed Shroud and gave me the Pulse back. She fought alongside us against Shroud. Whatever double-dealing she was doing, I don’t think her plan ever included fucking us over in the endgame. Just… protecting us in a way that made the most sense to her.”

Flambae groans. “Oh, come the fuck off it, Bob-Bob. She killed the Red Ring leader and took over his gang, becoming one of the bigger super villain figureheads around and you think she did it for the fucking team?”

“No,” he says.

“Then what?”

Robert shrugs. “A bunch of fucked up reasons probably.”

Flambae groans again, more and so deeply he puts his back into it, hanging his head and shaking it. He’s dressed casually, in fire-retardant pants, boots, and a dark jacket. Not his uniform so he’s off clock. (So, he’s Chad right now, not Flambae.) He’s got his hair pulled back in a fuck-boy man-bun thing which he usually hates, so it’s pragmatism over style tonight.

“I think she sent two villains who hate you directly to your safehouse, dipshit. I think she’s telling you to back the fuck off. I think it’s a threat when villains let you know they know where you live, you dumb fucking bitch. Blazer is gonna fuckin’ relocate you a fourth goddamn time over this. You need to stop chasing her—”

“I owe it to her to at least try—”

Chad swears at him in Dari. Robert doesn’t speak Dari so he’s never exactly sure what derogatory is being flung at him when the other hero gets too mad for English, but he’s pretty sure he’s figured out ‘bitch’ and ‘motherfucker’ in Persian purely off context clues alone at this point.

“You don’t owe her shit! You tried, fucking moron, and she didn’t want to do the work or whatever. She bailed out. That’s it.” He takes a long drink and exhales. “Fuck.”

Robert says nothing, then: “If I’d been better at my job—"

“Oh, shut the fuck up. This isn’t a fucking cartoon, Bob-Bob. Some people don’t want to be saved. Stop giving yourself so much credit for fucking Courtney fucking up her own fucking life.”

Robert eyes the bottle in Chad’s fist which is now literally boiling over.

“Goddammit.” He sets the bottle down and shakes steaming alcohol from his fingers. “See what you made me do? I boiled my fucking beer.”

Robert hands him the rest of the one he’s drinking. “Sorry.”

Chad takes it from him and finishes it in one go, then glares at him. “You want me to stay?”

Robert, arms folded on the railing and looking out over the city, just smirks without looking at the superhero sitting next to him. “Trying to babysit me again?”

“You fucking need it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Not when it’s her. You’re fucking weird when it’s her.”

“Well, she’s not here.”

“She knows where this safe house is. You should fucking go. We should leave. Now. Tonight.”

“It’s fine.” Robert pulls Toxic’s smart phone from his pocket and looks it over. “Like I said: It was a message in a bottle, but not a fucking threat.”

“You don’t think it was a threat. I think it was a fucking threat. Most of the team thinks it’s a fucking threat. You’re freaking us the fuck out.”

Robert finally meets Chad’s burning orange stare, is surprised to realize the other man is breathing a little hard and looks truly upset and trying not to seem upset. Huh. Shit. He turns a little to face his guest properly and drops a little of the nonchalant nihilism deadpan thing that’s his baseline and tilts his head.

“You really think she’d kill me?” he asks, genuinely.

Chad sighs, rolling his eyes, examining the skyline, before looking back at him. “No. Not kill you. I don’t fucking know what. But—”

“Something bad,” he offers.

“Something bad.”

Robert smiles a little which seems to embarrass Chad who clicks his tongue and sulks on the edge of the balcony, glaring through the sliding glass door into the safehouse apartment. It’s hotel furnishings and what duffle bags of clothes and gear that Robert felt necessary to unpack here. Robert hasn’t slept in a place of his own in while now.

“I’m staying,” Chad says.

“No. You’re not. I’m fine.” Robert folds his arms and leans against the rail. “Don’t you have a boyfriend waiting—?”

“Fuck off. Stop asking me about my fucking boyfriends, Bob-Bob.”

“Go home. You have people.”

“You’re people.”

Robert blinks at that, then more quietly says, “I appreciate it. But I want to be alone right now. Alright?”

Chad heaves a sigh of disgust and hops down from the railing, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and heading for the door. His civilian clothes can handle a little bit of flame, but not the amount it takes to fly, so driving it is. Robert walks him to the door while he gets his car keys into his hand and glares at him one more time from the hallway.

“Blazer’s gonna make you move again.”

“And I won’t argue,” Robert assures him.

Chad’s face does something complicated, but he just says, “Fine. Fucking moron.”

“Good-night, Chad.”

“Fuck you.”

It’s a tone-thing, but that particular ‘fuck you’ means ‘be careful’ in Chad-English so Robert smiles a little watching his irascible teammate walk out of sight down the hallway. Then he closes his door, locks it, and goes to examine the bedroom with the resignation of someone who knows they’re going to sleep like shit but are far too physically exhausted to not, at least, lie down and succumb to stillness if nothing else.

He rubs a palm over his face.

“Okay,” he mumbles.

The safehouse apartment is truly empty. Beef is staying at Chase’s place; there was a non-zero chance that the kidnapping sting went sideways and Toxic might have tried to grab him from his apartment, not the parking garage, so he didn’t want his dog around. So, it’s just him and his thoughts tonight which… yeah, not great.

He examines Toxic’s phone, opens the contact list, and scrolls to the listing that says ‘INVISI-CUNT’ and studies it.

He studies it a while.

He thinks for a millionth time about standing in that locker room, stun-locked and horrified, as Vizi detailed to him the gory details of how she’d nearly killed him and then stood next to him for months, in one-on-ones, after hours chats, at team meetings and mission de-briefs, just hours and hours in close proximity, one of his most irritating and intense subordinates. He thought she—

He sets the phone down on the end table by the couch and says to himself, “No. Jesus.”

And he goes and takes a shower and gets ready for bed. The AC works pretty well in this place and it’s clean and the bed is unspeakably luxurious compared to what’s used to so bellyflopping onto the comforter, still pleasantly damp from showering, and a little hot from the steam is like fucking therapy. Goddamn. Hot water and a better mattress would fix him. He’s sold.

He closes his eyes, dragging on of the pillows under his chin and exhaling into it.

He was wrong. He’s gonna sleep fucking great tonight.

Robert starts to drift.

Then something calmly and quickly takes his unresisting wrist, the one laid extended in front of him, and cuffs it to the headboard before his half-dozing brain can register what’s happening. He wakes up really fucking fast then. He starts to yell, but of course an invisible hand clamps over his mouth and suddenly there’s weight on the mattress with him, on top of him, straddling his back.

Robert feels her go for his other wrist, but he yanks it free and whips his elbow back into what he hopes will be Invisigal’s head but probably ends up being her ribs. Once, twice, three times. Hard enough to torque his body to his back, plant his feet, get his knees up, and try to mount-break her position on top of him.

Unfortunately, if there was one thing Vizi didn’t need much mentorship in, it was hand-to-hand combat.

“Goddammit! Are you fucking serious?!” Robert thrashes, gets an invisible hand jammed against the side of his face, feels another hand grabbing his free wrist again. “Stop! Fuck! Stop! I’m not gonna fucking fight with you! Just fucking relax. Talk to m—” The blow to the face is both much, much harder than he was expecting and… well, not a blow he was expecting period if he’s honest. His vision goes out briefly. Christ. He tastes fucking blood. “Jesus…”

Robert feels a second click of metal close around his wrist and then he’s fucking cuffed flat on his back to the bed and a brand new fully formed dread materializes inside his chest like stage four cancer as he realizes how fucking bad this could really go.

Then Invisigal—Courtney, former Z-Teamer, the woman who killed the man who killed his father, and almost killed him with a pack of C-4 nearly a year back—becomes visible where she’s knelt on the mattress, straddling his stomach, looking down at him with a black re-breather strapped to her face. There’s a wild shine in her dark eyes that even in the half-light through the windows Robert can recognize as some kind of mania.

“Vizi—”

She covers his mouth.

Her grip is steel-boned and painful. Stronger than he remembers. He can see half a dozen glowing enhancements pulsing softly, rapidly, under the thin cloth of her shirt.  Her fingertips dig into the hollow under his cheekbones. He endures it, waiting for the adrenaline rush to pass so she’ll come down get into whatever she’s here to say.

But she doesn’t let go of his face.

Fuck it.

Robert bites her hand.

So the first words he hears from his long-lost maybe-traitorous protégé in nearly six months is, “Ow! Jesus! What the fuck?”

“What the hell are you doing?” Robert snarls. He knees her in the back, hard, which catches her off guard enough she jolts forward with a yelp. “Stop being a fucking creep! Get the fuck off me!”

Vizi does not get off him. She shifts her weight and wraps her hands around his throat, shoving his head back into the mattress. She doesn’t actually choke him, but the threat is enough to stop him thrashing and he lies there wide-eyed, breathing hard and listening to the new leader of the Red Ring breathe even harder on top him.

She looks the same as she did the last time he saw her. He can’t see all her face with the rebreather on, but it’s her. Last time he saw Invisigal, a weapon of mass destruction was burning behind her while the body of Elliot Connors—Shroud, his father’s killer, local rising star super villain—cooled at her feet. She’d been… sad. That was what he’d thought as she winked at him and tossed him the Astral Pulse.

He's not sure what this is.

“So,” he says, trying to sound calm. “You wanna talk or what?”

Silence.

“You think I want to talk?”

“I think you’re an asshole trying to scare me. But, yeah, think you want to talk so let’s skip to that.”

“You don’t know what I want, Robert. That’s kind of the whole fucking problem between us.”

Robert swallows, feels his throat move against her palm and that she tightens her grip slightly when he does. (Fuck, fuck, fuck…) He’s hyperaware now of how little he’s wearing, of the various seams and folds of Courtney’s jeans digging into his bare ribs and stomach, of the cold air from the AC unit passing over his naked legs. No. Fuck. This isn’t— this isn’t that. It’s not—

“I don’t think fucked up BDSM bullshit was your end goal after six months,” he says flatly and more confidently than he feels. His heart is hammering. “Last time I saw you, you killed Shroud and ran. Dick move, just a little. I wanted to do that myself, but whatever.”

Courtney stares at him.

Robert glares. “Stop fucking around. Let me up.”

She almost starts to do it, as if on instinct, then stops.

“I don’t want to talk.”

He tenses his jaw to keep from making a face. “Fine. I want to talk. Talk to me. You owe me that.”

“I don’t owe you anything anymore, Mecha Man.” She says the superhero moniker with something that isn’t disdain but something that’s trying to be. “We’re even. This isn’t about that.” She leans over him, one hand rising toward his face. “You’re gonna stop trying to fucking contact me. Stop trying to talk to me—”

“I’m sorry,” Robert cuts in immediately.

She stops.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see what was going on with you,” he goes on, keeping his eyes on hers. “I should have clocked something was wrong, but I didn’t know you enough. I was distracted and angry and fucked up and didn’t do right by you—”

Vizi screams.

Literally, she gets in his face, teeth bared, until the scream becomes words: “You didn’t figure it out because I was lying to your fucking face, Robert!” She slams a fist into the headboard. “You didn’t figure out what perfect fucking after-school-special bullshit to say to me because I tried to fucking kill you and then lied about it. For months. I let you run in fucking circles trying to figure out what my fucking problem was, to fix me, but it’s easy, Rob. I’ll just show you what’s wrong with me.”

Then she runs a hand down his chest, fingers hooked, clawing over his stomach, then back up, over his right pectoral, down the muscle over his ribs and his entire diaphragm goes tight. Like anticipating a knife. Her touch gets almost gentle, exploratory and indulgent, tracing his right collarbone, fingertips brushing down over the scar tissue and discoloration of old injuries. Her thumb passes over the rougher skin of his right nipple and—

“You tried to kill me,” Robert snarls. “So what? You did it, felt so shit about it, you turned yourself over to the Phoenix program instantly?” He sneers. “Oooh, big fucking villain stuff that. Killing Shroud? Hell, I was gonna do that if you gave me five minutes. Probably. Who cares? Who’d you do that for? To protect yourself from him? To protect the rest of us? I don’t buy for a second that being big boss of the Red Ring was your big actual plan—”

Vizi, forgetting to be a creep as a threat, throws her hands up and snarls, “Shut up, Robert! You don’t fucking—"

“No. I don’t know what spiral you’re on, but this isn’t the only fucking option you have. It just isn’t.” He shakes his head. “This is you back on that fucking swing set trying to quit the team and sabotage yourself, so you don’t have to face anything.”

Vizi’s started to breathe hard, ragged, her eyes shining behind the fringe of her bangs as she glares at him, but like maintaining eye contact is a taking all her focus. Robert, for his part, holds her gaze like they’re having a one on one in the break room again. He shrugs.

“I’m not gonna make this easy for you.”

“You’re crazy.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I’ve done nothing but fuck you, Robert.” Vizi fists the blankets next to his head, her grip ripping something. “Over and over and over and you keep standing there and taking it and telling me it’s not my fault, but it is my fucking fault, and you need to stop lying to yourself that somehow I’m secretly a baby Blonde Blazer—"

Robert maintains his deadpan as he says, “I wouldn’t go that far. Blonde Blazer gets emotional about Hallmark movies. You don’t have that in you.”

Vizi stares, then snorts.

“Goddammit,” she whispers. She sits back, still straddling his hips but in a less threatening way and more like you do a sparring partner in the gym. She reaches up and removes the rebreather mask, tossing it aside. “You’re so fucking crazy. I’m here to fucking hurt you, Robert. Stop trying to have cute fucking banter with me.”

“Stop thinking my jokes are funny, then.” He ignores what she just said about hurting him. He says, quietly, “I never said nothing was your fault. Ever. I just said I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough on the up take to help you. That’s it.”

Vizi looks tiredly down at him. She continues to look at him, sadly (that sadness again, same as it was that night, in the fire, the blood dripping from the knife) then a neutrality enters her stare. Something drains away as she looks down at him. Her eyes get empty.

“Vizi,” he starts to say.

“You need to give up on me,” she says blankly. “I need you to back the fuck off. I need you to stop fucking chasing me around trying to fucking talk me down like you’re still my goddamn dispatcher, Robert. Professor shit. Coach stuff. All that.” She’s leaning close again, her hand sliding up his throat, her thumb running over his lower lip and when he flinches she says, “I need you to be Mecha Man and think about which of my goddamn limbs you need to take off to stop me doing the shit I’m gonna do to you.”

She starts to push her thumb into his mouth. He jerks his head away. She slides her other hand to side of his face, cupping his jaw.

“Performative bullshit,” he says, even as she starts to hook her thumb into the corner of his mouth again. He bites her for it, then snaps, “You don’t even want to do this. You’re just doing it, what? To make a point? Stop!” He jerks his head aside as she goes in to kiss him. “Stop it! You’re fucked up and acting fucked up to prove you’re fucked up. It’s bullshit! It’s— ow! Goddammit!”

He’d like to say he’s still sure she doesn’t want to hurt him, but the problem is her wanting to hurt him and her doing it might be two things on two different and parallel paths. She pulls back, blood from his split lip on her mouth and then bends back down to kiss him again, pressing his skull back into the mattress with the force of it.

Fuck.

She’s a lot stronger now. Those mods—

“Stop,” he tries to say against her lips.  He tries to sound calm, but the panic makes his voice rough. “Courtney, stop.”

“You’re so fucking hot,” she says, low and with a bit of groan that doesn’t sound quite real. Like the first time in bed with someone and putting on a voice. She says, “I’ve wanted to fuck you for so long—”

He’s not sure why that, of everything, locks his throat up, but he snarls, “Bullshit.”

She rears back with a snarl (that’s real) and slaps him, hard enough he sees white. (No, no, no…) She grabs him two-handed at the nape of the neck and kisses him again, biting at his already split lip until he yells and jerks in her hold, just so he can feel how much stronger she is than him. That he can’t get out of it. He can’t—

“You like taking it when I fuck you over, Robert?”

He thrashes. She holds him down.

“Fine. Let’s test that.”

Her hand is suddenly between his legs, grabbing him blindly through his boxer-briefs. It hurts. A shock of pain as she jams her knuckles carelessly into his testicles in her urgency to make her goddamn point, radiating up from his groin to the back of his throat. His eyes slam shut immediately. He swallows a shout. His heels dig into the mattress he—

“Well? Do you like it?” Her mouth is on his ear, breath hot. “Does this get you off?”

She slows her hand against his groin, gets less vicious, more... intentional. Touching gently, rubbing over the curve of his cock through his clothes like a girlfriend in bed after date night or something and kisses him more gently. That’s almost worse. It’s worse as she slowly mimics seduction, slips her hand under the waistband of his briefs. She ignores it when he squirms and tenses up. She wraps her bare hand, hot and a little sweaty around him and—

Adrenaline blurs the details. She pins his left knee to the mattress with her shin to force his legs open. Her hand on his dick is too rough, dry. She spits into her palm. Still hurts. Jesus Christ. Goes on way too long. His thighs jerk instinctively trying to close. His hands start shaking uncontrollably against the headboard; he can hear the metal clicking against the wood.

“Vizi.” His vision’s getting blurry. “Vizi—” He chokes, groans, “Jesus, cut me some slack here.” He feels his eyes run over at last, wetness sliding over his temples. “Okay. Fuck this. Suck me off or get on top but stop chafing my fucking dick already."

Vizi looks down at him.

Don’t, he thinks. Don’t. Fucking don’t…

She says, “Nice of you to take a shower before all this.”

Then she shifts back, pushes his knees apart, pulls his boxers off, and lowers her head. He grips the bars of the headboard and bites down the noise that lunges into his throat. The ceiling. The shadows striped across the drywall. Robert tries to focus on that. The silky drag of her tongue is an instant electric bolt to his over-stimulated nervous system, licking up his spine until he’s arched under Vizi’s mouth as she closes her lips over him.

He’s gotta relax. He’s gotta let this happen. He’s gotta…

He closes his eyes.

 After a while, Vizi lifts her head and says, “There we go.”

Then she kicks her boots off, slides her jeans off, and climbs back on top of him.

Ceiling. Focus on the ceiling. Robert grips the bars of the headboard again. He tries not to think about it: Her fingers on his erection, the slick pressure and heat as Vizi sinks down, how he can feel her throbbing around him, the shock of sensation as she starts to ride him, her hand on his jaw and her thumb smoothing over his cheek. It’s only then that he hears himself. (Shit, he hadn’t realized he was talking.)

“Stop, stop, stop, stop…”

“Relax, Rob.”

“Fuck off. Jesus Christ.”

“You’re being such a baby about this.”

“Courtney, you gotta—"

She covers his mouth with one hand.

“You gonna stop coming after me?” she whispers. Her black eyes shine in the dark, reflecting the light through the window. “Robert? Look at me. You gonna stop coming after me?” Her other hand moves to his chest, one finger against his sternum. “This is where I’m gonna put the bullet if you keep coming. You understand me? You won’t see me fucking coming.”

 Robert glares.

“Think I’m lying?”

She moves her hands to his shoulders, starts to knead her fingers into the slope of muscle from neck to deltoid. He freezes on reflex, waiting for her hands to lock around his throat again but she doesn’t. She just… works her fingers into the tense striation of his trapezius, down toward his pecs, then back up again. Firm pressure, professional. Feels… good. She’s working the muscle group almost exactly like—

Realization hits him with a sick slug to the gut.

“You were so fucking strict,” she whispers, “about not hooking up with subordinates.” She tilts her head. “You were such a fucking prude about it; I was so surprised when you two hooked up. Look, maybe it was just that one night.” Her hands skate over his shoulders, down to his sternum. “Didn’t know Chad was the nice kind of handsy…”

“Fuck you.”

“There we go.”

“Get the hell off of me!”

“Chad gets a little pathetic in bed, huh? Or he did that night. You were both a little drunk.” Vizi grips his shoulders, uses the leverage to roll her hips down against him, clenching obscenely, rising and falling, her breath catching in throat as she fucks herself with his cock. “Shoulder massage after sex? Like… really?” She grins, panting as she breathes, “You'll never see me coming. I could have... hidden here tonight. Almost wish… you’d let Chad—fuck—stay tonight. He was kinda… hot to watch—"

“Go fuck yourself, Vizi.”

Vizi jerks, nails digging into his shoulders, throwing her head back, eyes closing as a sudden shock of orgasm shudders through. The pleasure tightens her cunt like a fist around him. She fucks him through it. She exhales shakily, sweat dripping from her chin.

“Fuck, Robert.” She laughs a little unsteadily. “Jesus, that was good.”

He tastes blood. His own. Biting the inside of his cheek to stop him from losing it completely as Vizi hunches over him, grips his jaw and makes sure he’s looking up at her when she starts to move again. He realizes with a sick, roiling horror she’s not going to stop until he comes too. That this is going to go on for as long as she wants to keep making this point. He slams his eyes shut.

“Look at me,” she says.

He does, but his vision is blurred.

She leans closer, until she’s almost nose to nose with him. He can feel her breath against his mouth as she says, slowly, “Honest to god, I think almost killing you is my fetish.” She leans in, kissing his neck, ignoring the way he recoils. “I wish I’d fucked you before you knew what I did to you.” She bites, then licks along his collarbone, murmuring, “I wish I’d fucked you and told you I bombed you with your dick inside me.”

Robert closes his eyes again.

“Open your eyes.”

She’s staring, fascinated, down at him when he looks at her.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking hot.”

“I get it,” Robert snaps. “You never respected me. It’s always been a weird power dynamic thing. You’re a rapist and a perv. Can we skip to you fucking maiming me or leaving already?”

Vizi says nothing for a while.

Then, “I want to see you come for me, baby.”

“Jesus, Viz, don’t—”

She pushes him into the mattress, presses her lips to his ear, whispering, “I’m nice. I’ll make it good for you. I don’t hate you. Okay? Rob? This isn’t me hating you…”

She’s rocking herself on top of him while she talks, her grip on his jaw feels like steel, like she could snap his spine from the base of his skull if she wanted. Maybe she could. She whines a little, shuddering as she drives her hips down with a wet sloppy noise, skin on skin, and she sits on him and just rhythmically tightens and releases for a while. 

“Christ, I’m so hot for you.”

He feels her come again, her pussy spasming tight, his own arousal like a rising fever. He feels fucking insane; panic and rage and this clawing manic sensation he realizes only now is some variant of grief only because he’s so very familiar with grief. He knows mourning dead things like the back of his hand and Vizi fucking him against his will to make a point feels like something dying.

“Stop.” The word is a croak in his throat. “Vizi, please—”

“Jesus.” She jolts again with what might be another climax. “Jesus, Robert…” She kisses him, licks his mouth open, says, “Beg me. Beg again. Beg me for it.”

“Fuck you. You’re fucking crazy—"

“Do what I tell you or I’ll flip you over and really fuck you.”

He shakes his head, “You don’t mean that.”

“What?”

Robert feels a flush of dread and shame like a knife through his belly. Maybe it’s the shock settling in, dulling his reactions. He can’t think clearly, he just…

“You don’t—” He swallows. “This isn’t—”

“Oh my god, you don’t think I’m serious?” She laughs. “Jesus Christ. You still think I’ve secretly got a hard on to be a hero. Oh, my fucking god. How stupid are you?” She grabs him by the hair this time, wrenching his head back and pinning his skull to the mattress. She presses her mouth to his ear, hissing, “I will fuck you until you fucking scream for hours, Robert, and I’ll keep going. Do you understand me? I am not your fucking friend. I am not your goddamn pity project. You can’t save me.”

She shakes him.

“You can’t fucking save me. I’ll rip you apart. You do fucking get it yet? Do you understand me—?”

“Jesus! Stop! I get it!”

“I don’t love you anymore!” She grips his jaw with her free hand, shouting inches from his face. “I barely loved you when I did! You’re a thing I wanted for a while because I was in a weird place but I’m over it. I’m over you.” He jerks, squirming as she says that, but licks the sweat from his neck and breathes, barely even talking to him so much as to herself, “Once we’re done here, I’ll have had everything I wanted from you.”

“Okay,” he says, not moving, not resisting. “I understand.”

“Beg me for it.”

He freezes.  

“Beg me or I’ll figure out who Chad’s niece is, Robert.” She runs her hands down his chest, drags her nails over his pecs, over his ribs. “I’ll wait until she has a dance recital and I’ll kill him in front of her, I swear to—”

“Please,” he says. “Vizi, please.”

“Please, what?” she whispers, eyes wide.

“Please fuck me. Please, it feels good.” He wants to puke, but the roughness in his voice could be arousal. Sure. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything. Whatever you want, just please.” He jerks his hips up beneath her, thrusting shallowly into her for the first time. He holds her wild-eyed stare. “Please?”

She kisses him again.

This time, he opens his mouth and moans against her tongue. He kisses her back. Feels her suck a ragged, desperate little breath when he does it and pull him into a kiss that feels like being eaten alive. She’s almost gentle. Stroking his hair as she renews her efforts, rocking over and over on top of him and he, desperate for this to be over, to convince her, to sell this fucking fantasy—the same fantasy that drove her to kiss him in that locker room six months ago, a kernel of horror metastasized and deadly now—he plays along.

“Faster,” he whispers, eyes stinging even as he says it. “And… harder.”

“Like that?”

Robert jerks, spine arching as she changes pace, tight and hot and stroking him out perfectly over and over until—

“Yeah, like that. Don’t stop.” His breath hitches as she hilts him, perfect, almost agonizing. His hands are shaking again. “Yeah. Like that. Exactly like that. Don’t stop. Please, don’t…”

Vizi does as he says. He can feel her watching him, but he keeps his eyes shut. If he looks at her, he’s going to lose focus, and this will keep going. The orgasm is finally starting to build. The worst fucking climax he’s ever had. Pleasure and pressure building under a patchwork of glowing hot bruising and the clawing animal panic telling him that he’s fucking dying and getting off while you’re getting killed is not conducive to survival.

He’s close now. He’s so fucking close.

He needs this over.

He needs this to be done.

He—

Vizi stops moving.

Robert bites down a noise somewhere between a moan and sob because the panic that hits him sets claws in and pries his whole goddamn ribcage open. He’s ripped open and raw and Vizi’s staring down at him, watching his face with this alien attention to detail. Her hand moves to the side of his jaw, the pad of her thumb sliding over his cheekbone to the corner of his right eye, wiping the sweat and tears away.

“Sorry,” she says after nearly thirty seconds sitting perfectly still on top of him. Her stare is the worst fucking thing he’s ever fucking seen—wide-eyed and fascinated and seeing nothing of Robert himself under whatever fucked-out, fucked-up expression he’s making that’s apparently doing something for her. He has to fight down a gag reflex as she whispers, “Let’s try that again.”

When she finally leaves him at a quarter to two in the morning, Robert doesn’t call Blazer to report it. He doesn’t call anyone. In fact, he doesn’t move. Courtney unlocked his cuffs before she left, but he doesn't move. He lies curled in the ruined bed, arms wrapped around his torso like a knife wound, trying to quiet the new screaming litany in his head—the one that sounds like Courtney telling him to beg while a voice that sounds a lot like his dad tells him how fucking stupid he is.

Over and over.

I’m too old to cry, he thinks, numb, sitting in the shower around four AM.

“Get up,” he says to himself.

The bathroom is filled with steam.

“Get up,” he says again.

He can’t tell if he’s crying; the hot water soaking his head and shoulders is too intense.

“C’mon. Get up. Get up.”

He continues to sit for another hour. Somewhere in the apartment his phone buzzes. He should check his messages.  He needs to get the fuck up and gets his phone. He needs to stop thinking about that locker room six months ago and reliving every word he said—“I don’t know what to feel right now.”— and where he could have fixed it. He needs to stop obsessing about the alternate universe where this didn’t happen.

“Get up,” he says again.

He wraps his arms around himself, praying for the scalding hot water to do something, anything, about the way his fucking insides won’t stop churning. He’s puked twice already. He doesn’t have anything left to give up.

“Please, get up,” he says. “Please, god, please…”

It’s 8:27AM.

“Yeah. Everything is fine, but I hear you.” Robert tucks the phone under his ear while he finishes packing his only opened duffle bag. “Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.” He zips the bag says, “No, I hear you. I’m not gonna argue. Mmm-hmm. Got it.”

He checks the mirror in the bathroom, winces at the vicious mottle of bruising along his neck and jaw. He looks pale and sleepless under the fluorescents. The contrast of bloody hematoma and freckles against his complexion is so harsh his reflection looks ill. 

“Actually, Mandy? I’ve thought about what you said. About… needing to process things.” Pause. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m asking for some time off. Like, I dunno, give me a four-day weekend?” A longer pause. “Thanks. That means a lot.” Robert touches the red-black marks across his throat and almost absently, he murmurs, “I just… I really hoped she’d come around. You know?”

A very long pause this time.

“I’m fine.”

A pause.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

A pause.

“Yeah. I think I’m done. This was the last time.”

A pause.

“Nothing happened, Mandy. Why do you think—” he stops, listens— “Nothing happened. I just thought a lot about what my team has been saying and I think they’re right. I’ve been… fucking up. Trying to chase Invisigal because I feel… responsible for her?” He sighs, reaching up to massage his forehead. “I know. I know that’s fucked up. I know that’s, like, therapist shit. I know—”

Blazer gets loud enough, her voice tinnily becomes audible through the room saying, “—absolutely not your responsibility—”

“I know.”

He huffs a laugh, winces, his expression threatening to collapse under the weight of forcing a smile to make it sound natural on the phone. He’s turned to sit against the bathroom counter, eyes closed, one hand tucked under his opposite armpit, the other hand holding the phone to his ear. His tone does not match his dead-eyed expression.

“I’ll let downtown handle anything Invisigal adjacent from now on.” A beat. The corner of his mouth twitches up. His eyes flicker and crease a little. “They did huh? Who?” A pause. “Coupe and Flambae. Tch. Who’s the narc now?” He laughs and its real this time, warming his next words until they’re soft as he says, “Yeah. Thanks, Mandy. Yeah. I swear I’m fine. I’ll see you Monday.”

Then he hangs up.

Courtney—stood invisible, effortlessly holding her breath—watches Robert grab his jacket and pull it on, watches him sling his bag over his shoulder and grab his keys and his phone. She watches him stop briefly at the door and become momentarily seized by the panic attack that leaves him leaning against the jamb, hyperventilating, saying softly and frantically, like a mantra, “Get up, get up, get up…”

Which works for some reason.

Then he shakes it off, walks out of the safehouse, and closes the door behind him.

“See you soon,” she murmurs.

Then the room is empty.