Chapter Text
Laying on the cold hard ground, his nostrils filled with the cloying smell of iron and hot pain pulsing through his head with every beat of his heart as he stares up at the woman floating above him, he's tempted to make a joke about the familiar sight.
Not that he will. At least for Blonde Blazer, this is the first time they've met, and he doesn't want her first impression of him to be that he's an absolute creep.
Her strong silhouette is backlit by the streetlight above them as she hovers in the air, the blonde locks of her namesake gleaming prettily and the fierce look on her face made even more intense by the harsh shadows cast by the shitty light. Blue eyes blazing (hah) as she stares down the villain in her grasp, she doesn't bother looking at Robert as she talks to him.
"Are you okay?" she asks, the soft note of concern in her voice at odds with the subtle anger in her expression.
Weird, he doesn't remember her being this upset the first time around. Then again, that was against those skittles wannabes who were more nuisance than threat, only deciding to attack Robert when he got in their way first (though it really was rude of them to steal that TV while he was watching it). This guy on the other hand, seemed very genuine in his attempts to kill Robert with that tiny knife he was swinging around before Blonde Blazer stepped in.
"Peachy," Robert hums as he sits up, ruffling the back of his hair to get the dust and dirt out of it. He's going to have a fucking headache in the morning, but he's had worse. "With a poker that small and none of the technique to make up for it, he didn't even manage to scratch me."
Blond Blazer blinks, then looks down at him with large eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly. He can see on her face that she wants to laugh, but doesn't know if she should just in case the dick joke wasn't intentional.
"Hey fuck you man!" the guy dangling from her grip on his shirt yells, face red and splotchy as he picks up on the insult as well. His feet kick wildly in the air as he struggles. "It's not small! It's a normal sized knife! You were just—too fast, and shit!"
"Ooh sorry, touchy subject?" Robert croons mockingly, lifting a brow. "Must hear similar complaints a lot, huh."
"Listen here you homeless-looking bitch—" the guy snarls, only to cut off when Blonde Blazer lifts him a little higher, like she's curling a two-pound dumbbell. Robert glances down at his clothes. He doesn't look homeless, does he? He's wearing his nicest pair of jeans, and his shirt doesn't even have any holes in it.
"Excuses after the fact never makes anyone feel better," she says mildly, and Robert snorts before flinching. Ow his nose.
The guy splutters even further, probably not expecting Ideal Corporate Hero Blonde Blazer to jump on the innuendo train, and Mandy turns her attention back to Robert.
"I'm going to drop this guy off at the nearest police station," she says, nodding her head at the attempted stabber like it needs clarification, "and then I'll be right back, okay? Are you okay to wait here?"
"Sure," Robert agrees with a small shrug, like his stomach isn't currently flipping over with a nauseating mix of relief and dread. He lifts his hand in a lazy wave. "Fly safe."
She gives him a smile, one that's a mix of superhero customer service with something a little more genuine underneath it, and then she's zipping away in the next second. Robert sighs as the criminal's screams of terror ring through the air, watching until Blonde Blazer's blue and yellow figure disappears from his sight entirely.
It figures that, after two whole weeks of picking a fight with every low-level criminal he could find around the vague area she saved him originally, he'd finally meet her the one night he was just trying to walk home from the gas station. What a strange brand of luck he has.
With a soft groan, Robert pushes to his feet and swipes his plastic bag up from where he dropped it on the ground, walking over to a nearby wall as he digs through his purchases. He leans against the wall and shakes two pills of pain reliever out onto his palm, popping them in his mouth and swallowing them dry before twisting the lid back on and dropping the bottle back into the bag. Closing his eyes, he leans his head back against the hard brick.
Fuck. He didn't anticipate things being this difficult. Which was probably stupid of him, because most things in his life end up being difficult, but he was hopeful this would be different.
He knew, objectively, that events wouldn't always happen like he remembered them. Hell, he made sure that would be the case, taking precautions and preparing for the explosion before walking into Shroud's trap again, thus cutting his coma time short by a whole month. But coming out of the coma earlier meant having the press conference earlier as well, and he never encountered the skittles gang later that night. He didn't realize what that would mean until Blonde Blazer never arrived to save him. Not knowing what else to do, he resorted to wandering around and beating up small criminals in a vague attempt to both keep down the petty crime rate that started going up after his kind-of-retirement announcement and recreate a situation similar to the one she rescued him from last time, hoping that would summon her or something.
More than once he thought about walking into SDN and applying for the job the normal way as more days passed by and the pressure in his chest increased, but it was more of a daydream than an actual option. Doing it that way would get rid of the leverage he needed, putting him in SDN's debt for fixing his suit instead of them offering the repairs as a way to entice him to take over their most problematic team. While he's sure Mandy wouldn't hold it over him personally, the main branch would definitely force him into a contract that would keep Mecha Man on their roster for the next year or five. Call it arrogance or entitlement, but he refuses to let that happen, and it left him at a crossroads.
Tonight, finally, is the break that he's been hoping for. Mandy's finally here, and based on the way she talked and looked at him, she was looking for him for a reason. He'd bet the fanciest can of Beef's dog food in his pantry that she's going to offer him the job again, and he won't have to spend his nights trying to breath around the panic that he irrevocably fucked everything up before it even started anymore.
Ugh, for a guy who's fairly well known for his strategy and planning, he sure is fumbling through this a lot. Well, it's not like this whole time-travel bullshit was something he planned in the first place. He's just… making the best of a situation he never wanted to be in.
There's the soft clack of shoes landing on pavement, accompanied by the breeze created from a superhero's flight, and Robert lifts his head to give Mandy a tired smile. Her eyes roam over his face as she walks over to him, no doubt taking in the bruising starting to show around his nose.
"Are you sure you're alright?" she asks again. "It looks like he got your nose pretty good."
"Eh, guy had a pretty good right hook, but it's not broken or anything. I'll be fine," he assures with a half-shrug.
Some of the tension in her shoulders relaxes, her face smoothing out into a more neutral expression as she seems to take his words at face value. It throws him for a moment. He had been expecting her to push at least a little more, making sure he's actually okay and not just pushing through his injuries, as she had been prone to doing last time. Maybe it's because they're still strangers right now, and so she's less concerned about him?
…Or maybe it's because she hasn't witnessed him go through all those fights and the second suit explosion and the whole torture thing. Yeah, that might be it.
There is a flicker of amusement dancing in her eyes and flitting around the edges of her features, only noticeable because of how well he knows her, and a small grin lifts the corner of his mouth.
"What?" he asks. "You look like you wanna say something."
"No, I just—" she falters, blinking at being called out. Then she lets the cautious amusement win, smiling in a way that's more 'Mandy' and less 'Blonde Blazer', though he can tell from the stiffness of her back that she's ready to bury it again at any moment. "It's just kind of funny, I guess, that you managed to avoid getting sliced so well but got taken out with one punch."
"First of all, I didn't get 'taken out'," he corrects as he pushes off of the wall. He puts his hands in his jacket pockets, the bag swinging on his wrist as he continues, "I totally could've gotten back up on my own. Eventually. And the guy was better at punching than he was at stabbing. He must have more practice with using his hands."
She laughs at the joke, relating the comment to the previous digs he made at the guy's sexual experience like he hoped she would, and he chuckles along with her. He's found that while she may not be the type to typically make dirty jokes like that without lots of alcohol in her system, she certainly appreciates laughing at them. Which is great, since working with the Z-team seems to have permanently altered his humor without his consent.
(He misses them)
"I'll take your word for it," she says, voice bright with levity and humor. Then she looks him up and down, not in a creepy 'blatantly-checking-out-the-stranger-I-just-met' kind of way, but more so just taking him in fully for the first time tonight. Her eyes linger on the dried blood he can feel under his nose, and he resists the urge to rub at it.
"You look like you could use a drink," she says sympathetically. For a moment it's like he's hearing double, the words a direct echo of what she said after the skittles gang.
Robert looks down at himself, taking in the dirt covering his clothes and the small tear at the knee of his jeans that wasn't there when he left his apartment an hour ago. His knuckles are scraped and bruised from a previous fight he got into last week, and he knows there's some dark bruises peeking out from behind the collar of his shirt from when he got slammed into a dumpster a few days ago. Not to mention how he's still a little too skinny for his clothes, not having been able to gain back all the weight he lost while he was hospitalized yet.
Dirty, damaged, and desperate. Though he'd like to think he looks a lot better than he did originally, he still feels a bit like a neglected alley cat.
"…You offering to pay?"
She is, in fact, willing to pay, so long as he puts on his hero costume so they can go to a superhero bar.
Robert blinks and idly swirls his cup, watching the beer spin in the glass as the ambient noise of the bar washes over him. It's nice beer, higher quality than the cheap shit he usually orders for himself, and he'd feel guilty about wasting Mandy's money on it if it wasn't for the fact that she ordered it for him herself. Maybe she felt more confident taking charge since he doesn't look as dead inside this time? Or maybe his nerves were a little more obvious than he wanted them to be.
What happens tonight is important, and he's worried about fucking it up, his earlier relief at seeing Mandy again nowhere to be found now. There's so many ways things could still go wrong. Already every interaction he's had with Blonde Blazer so far has been very different from what he was expecting, and he's barely even done anything! If something even this small has already been altered this much, who's to say how fucked things will keep getting as he goes along?
(Well, when he says 'small', he means it in a general way, as in compared to all the other bullshit he will go through in the next few months. For him personally, going out with Blonde Blazer like this was—and still is—one of the biggest and best things to have happened to him in a long time.)
((He breathes out slowly and takes another sip of his drink. It's only his third glass, but he's already getting sappy. Maybe he should switch to water.))
After smoothly revealing that she knew he was Mecha Man—as opposed to revealing she knew he was Robert Robertson—things quickly derailed from the expected script. She told him that Track Star told her who he was, and that she was checking up on Robert on the retired hero's behalf. Not really a lie, of course, but it left out the part that she was scoping him out for a job offer at the same time. It was also a lot less ambiguously flirty than the 'proposition' route she went before, however unintentional that flirting was at the time.
But Robert played along, both because there wasn't really a reason not to and because he genuinely doesn't mind just shooting the shit with her. Last time he didn't get the chance to talk about Chase with her much as she only revealed his hand in this at the end of the night, so that's what they've been doing this time, relying on the familiarity of a shared friend to smooth over any awkwardness of talking to an essential stranger. He's gotten a lot of potential blackmail material over the course of the evening about the grumpy old ass, which he definitely plans to make use of.
It's also… nice, to hear how Chase has been all these years from someone who's somewhat close to him. It's not like him and Chase never talked about what they got up to in the years they lost contact, but it wasn't really a high priority for either of them, especially when there was so much shit going on in the present to talk about instead. Besides, the retired hero is a lot more cynical than Blonde Blazer is, and that alters how he perceived and thus told his stories. Hearing things from an outside perspective shines a nicer light on Chase than the hero himself did.
God, if they were actually related, Robert would be inclined to think the low self-esteem was a genetic thing. Thank god it's just an occupational thing instead.
"Heeeey, bitch!" a familiar accented voice calls. If it wasn't for the fact Robert knew the comment was aimed at him, he'd have thought it was just some tipsy bastard calling out to a friend.
He glances at the clock behind the bar, taking another sip of his drink as he does. He didn't spit alcohol in Blazer's face again—thank fuck, he's not sure he could live through that embarrassment twice—but she did still leave for the bathroom a couple of minutes ago. Flambae's later than before. Or maybe Blazer just went to the bathroom earlier?
All these little things, these little shifts…
"Hey, I'm talking to you, Mecha Bitch."
Robert glances over at his future co-worker, equal parts uninterested and amused. Flambae's always been his own unique brand of annoying, that's true, but it's weird to see just how much the flaming superhero had apparently mellowed out throughout their acquaintanceship. And here Robert thought time travel would make things less surprising.
"Not the worst thing I've been called, but not the most creative either," he drawls as he shifts to look at the small group better.
Coupé and Punch Up stand behind and on either side of Flambae, positioned for both maximum intimidation through a united front and providing support if a fight breaks out. Well, medium intimidation. The thought's there, at least.
It's decent teamwork for a group that only vaguely gets along at this point, that much is clear. He wonders were all that synergy went when he was trying to dispatch them.
"Did you need something?" he prompts.
"Us? Oh no no," Flambae chuckles mockingly, like Robert said something funny. "We thought we should help you out, actually."
Robert lifts his brows. "Oh yeah? How so."
"You see, this is a superhero bar, Mecha Dick, and according to the news, you are no longer a super hero." Flambae saunters—fucking saunters—over, shoulders pulled back in confidence and movements smooth with the type of grace only achieved through serious training. He stops behind Robert's chair , purposefully out of sight unless Robert turns around, and Coupé and Punch-up follow his lead, lingering further away but still loosely boxing Robert in.
Despite himself, the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He makes a mental note to lecture them on some basic rules of dealing with career heroes after he becomes their dispatcher, such as never standing in their blind spots.
They may be decent fighters, but adrenaline and PTSD are one hell of a mix. Also, it's just plain rude.
"Only semi-retired," he corrects blandly, like he isn't hyper aware of Coupé's position. His ears strain for the sound of a knife pulling free from it's sheath, despite knowing it's probably not coming. "You might have missed that part of the press conference while pulling on that spandex condom you call a costume, but I said I wasn't throwing in the towel just yet."
Coupé chuckles lowly at the insult to Flambae's suit, before clearing her throat to hide it. He can't see it, but he can imagine the look Flambae gives her in response.
"Semi-retired doesn't exist in this line of work, you idiot," Flambae scoffs. "Either you're retired or your not, and with no robot for you to hide behind anymore, you're hardly still a hero."
Ignoring the many ways in which everything he just said is wrong, Robert looks over his shoulder to pin Flambae with an unimpressed look. "Yeah? And who are you to decide that?"
Robert means it as a dig, an implication that Flambae isn't important enough to make that kind of call, but the dark-haired man seems to take it as an opportunity to introduce himself properly.
"I, am the hero Flambae. I control the fire…" he waves his hand and it alights with flame, a palm-sized fire that's bright enough to obscure his missing fingers, "…and the flame, and my skin does not burn."
… wow. He forgot how truly fucking cheesy that line was. And the pyromaniac had the nerve to complain about Robert's speeches.
"I'd say it's nice to meet you, but really it's just been vaguely annoying," Robert tells him honestly. He tips his drink in Flambae's direction in a mock cheer, then turns back around as he sips at it. "Look, Flam-broil or whatever, I'm just here with a friend to enjoy some drinks, so—"
A hand smacks the bar counter top next to him, the solid thud of it cutting Robert off, and Robert gives Flambae an unimpressed look.
"That's rude," he comments lightly, subtly pulling Blazer's glass of pure alcohol closer to himself. He doesn't want to have to explain why it spilled on his watch.
Flambae's sharp eyes narrow with irritation as he leans into Robert's space, the admittedly pretty orange-yellow color seeming to glow in the warm lighting of the bar. The air between them starts to grow warm as Flambae unconsciously heats the air around him, his body heat steadily rising as his temper does. Or maybe he's doing it on purpose. It's hard to tell.
"Don't pretend as if you don't recognize me," Flambae warns in a low voice. Robert's eyes flicker over to the bartender, who seems very interested in not being helpful at all, then over in the direction of the restrooms on the off chance Blazer's on her way back. Naturally, there's no sign of her, because nothing can ever be easy for him, can it.
Robert considers his choices. He could just pretend he doesn't know Flambae at all, of course, and hope that just being less of a dick this time around will be enough to curb some of the man's anger once he comes clean about his identity again. Surely that should be good enough? It's not like he started this confrontation in the first place, nor does he really owe Flambae anything, so as long as he doesn't embarrass the arrogant flame-wielder again, things should be okay. Right?
He thinks of all the little things that have already changed without his intention, and thinks of all the big things he still needs to change in the future.
After a short pause, he sighs and puts down his drink.
"Alright, I'll bite," he says, turning to face Flambae fully and leaning his elbow on the counter, his posture lose and relaxed to show that he's not interested in a fight. It has the added bonus of putting Coupé back in the edges of his peripheral vision, too. "Should I just start guessing or do I at least get a hint?"
Flambae's expression of irritation flattens. "Was the fire not hint enough? 'I am the fire, I am the flame'? Come on, Mecha Moron, I thought you were supposed to be at least a little smart."
Despite himself, Robert's lips twitch up in a grin, which widens at the confused look that crosses Flambae's face because of it. "Just because you add 'Mecha' in front of a word doesn't make it a good insult," he needles, then hums as he pretends to think. Even cups his chin to really help sell the act.
Flambae doesn't move away as Robert studies his face, just stares back at him with a steady intensity, and honestly, if he didn't already know who Flambae was he'd think the guy was hitting on him. Seriously, first Blond Blazer and now Flambae—does no one know how to approach him in a regular way? Is it everyone else who's weird or does Robert just give off a certain energy? He'll have to ask Chase about it when he meets the man again.
Flambae's eyebrows furrow, his patience quickly running out. "Surely it cannot take you this long? Do you have brain damage or something?"
"Maybe he needs ta throw up," Punch Up helpfully chimes in. Flambae leans back with an alarmed look on his face.
"No, I don't need to throw up," Robert corrects blandly. He lazily gestures at Flambae. "Just took me minute to recognize you without that fuck-ass mullet you used to have and no flaming dollar-bill confetti."
An irritatingly smug look crosses the taller man's face, but before the urge to punch it off can fully settle over Robert, it turns into a scowl as Coupé snorts.
"Are you good?" he asks pointedly. Coupé waves him off with a nod, and he turns his attention back to Robert. "The mullet was fashionable at the time, fuck you."
"Sure," Robert agrees unenthusiastically. "Now that we've established that, I'd like to get back to my drink if you don't mind—"
He apparently does mind, slamming his hand back on the counter hard enough to rattle the glasses and looming over Robert in an attempt to intimidate him again. It wasn't effective the first time he pulled this move like, three minutes ago, and now it's even less so. The bartender doesn't so much as glance in their direction. Robert sighs.
"That's it? You cut off my fingers and you think I'm going to just let it go?"
Robert hopes the look on his face comes across as calm and unmoved, instead of the tired and annoyed it really is. "It's been like, years dude. Get over it."
"'Get over it'?" Flambae hisses, leaning so close his breath ghosts across Robert's cheek. Prism's voice echoes in his head against his will, saying something about 'bold words' and 'kissing distance'. Ugh. "You permanently maim me and you tell me to 'get over it?! Do you have any idea how difficult it was to relearn how to do everything with two missing fingers?"
"Probably not as difficult as relearning how to do things with third-degree burn scars would be," he shoots back dryly. Flambae blinks, and though he doesn't lean back at all, the sweltering heat in the air lessens a little. Very little. Like a truly minuscule amount. "Look man, I don't know what you want from me. It's not like I cut off your fingers for fun—you were burning down a bank while there were people still in it, and then you were trying to kill me. I certainly don't like that I had to do it, but I'm not going to apologize for it either. Besides, you said you're a hero now or something, right? You seem to have done well for yourself despite whatever shit you've gone through, you should focus and be proud of that instead of trying to pick a fight with me."
Flambae stares at him with an unreadable look, his jaw clenched so tightly Robert's half convinced he's going to chip his tooth again from the sheer force of it. Punch Up and Coupé patiently wait for Flambae's response, watching their coworker/friend/whatever-they-are to see what he wants to do.
"Whatever," Flambae eventually spits. He straightens up and turns around, leaving Robert with one last insult as he walks away. "Your washed-up ass isn't worth the anger anyways."
Robert watches the three of them leave the bar, then turns back to his drink and chugs the rest of the glass. Signaling the bartender for a refill, he rubs at the bridge of his nose and exhales slowly. He's not entirely sure that could have gone better, but he knows from experience that it definitely could've gone worse, so. At least he didn't fuck things up at bad as he could have, he guesses.
Shockingly, that doesn't cheer him up very much.
The bartender sets his drink down in front of him at the same moment Blazer finally reclaims her spot on his right, apologies spilling out of her before she's even fully seated. "Sorry, the line was crazy long for the bathroom, guess spandex and Kevlar armor doesn't lend itself to easy potty breaks, hah. You weren't too bored waiting for me, right?"
"Not at all," he says, smiling at her.
"Oh, good," she sighs, relieved. She grabs the drink Robert was watching for her, another glass of just pure alcohol, and takes a big gulp. "Right. What were we talking about?"
"You were telling me about the time the coffee machine broke, and Track Star—"
"Oh! Right, yes, he was an a rampage—"
Somehow, in between swapping stories and commiserating about the shared misery of superhero-ing, Mandy remembers to test him on his dispatching skills. Doing it in the bar isn't as fun as doing it on a billboard with a spectacular view of the Hollywood sign was, but he still aces the test with an even better score than last time, and teases her about her now terrible negotiating position. After a few more drinks and a lot more laughs, he once again ends the night curled up with Beef against the charred and broken Mecha suit, feeling light with the promise of the new job waiting for him.
For the first time since he woke up in the past, sleep claims him easily.