Chapter Text
There are a few things that Courtney knows for absolutely certain about Robert. It’s fewer than she’d like, maybe about five if she counts them, and all the guesswork is disheartening at best and maddening at worst. If the guy would come out for drinks more often, she might be able to push that number up to ten-ish, but she wouldn't hold her breath. Her chest felt a bit tight, so she took out her inhaler.
The thing is, she thinks as she eyes him at his cubicle from the breakroom, that even from the pitifully little she knows about him, there’s a glaring, shining thing that she’d like to forget. Really, if it wasn’t so in her face all the time, she might have been able to ignore it until it left her entirely. No such blessings, though. It was written on the walls.
Here are the things that Courtney knows about Robert, no doubt, absolutely for-sure:
His favorite donuts are the long ones with the cream inside. He loves his dog more than anything in the world. He’s Mecha-Man. He’s a real-deal, bonafide hero.
And he’s in love with Blonde Blazer.
Courtney knows it, because everyone knows it; and if the Z-Team aren’t brave enough to face the music, she will be. Mecha-Man is in love with Blonde Blazer. Robert is in love with Mandy. They’re perfect, and stunning, and utterly sickening. They’re the power couple, the lovers next door, and everything that good, stand-up people aspire to be once they settle down for the rest of their straight-edge lives. They’re everything the Z-Team isn’t. Courtney feels like she’s asphyxiating.
And really, it’s worse for Courtney than it is for any of her colleagues. She knows the way they all feel about them; they’re villains. They covet, they steal, they hoard. They’re getting better; but some instincts don’t ever really leave you. And Courtney loved him first, so they can all just suck it.
They’d wanted to negotiate, like any of them knew anything about diplomacy. Like they’d been around Robert long enough for all that heroic radiance to shine through the comms and inundate each of them. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, honestly; Courtney doesn’t like sharing, but she likes the Z-Team, and she could stand it well enough that it wouldn’t really feel like sharing. They’d formed a plan. A great plan, honestly, and Courtney was already buzzing with excitement (and a few other things) when she remembered: there was something they hadn’t accounted for. Something that no villain, no matter how reformed, could ever stand up against.
They hadn’t accounted for Blazer.
The whole plan went to shit, and there would be no compromising on having him; they just wouldn't have him at all. Courtney held her breath as she watched Mandy approach Robert’s desk. When he looked at her, without an ounce of reproach, only reverence and kindness and love, she stormed out of the breakroom, safe and out of sight for as long as her lungs would hold her. When she was out on the street again, she reconnected her comms.
“Hey, what’d I miss?” She tried to grin, failed miserably. “You got anything for me, Robbie?”
“Bob-bob’s busy,” Chad sneered over the line, and Courtney knew with perfect clarity the face he was making. “You done with your little girlfriend yet, bitch? The real heroes need to know where to go. Fucking slacker.”
Courtney heard Malevola sigh (which was hot as fuck, by the way). “Leave him alone, Blazer’s his boss. It’s just business.” She paused. “It is business, yeah?”
“Hey, lots of things can be business, if you think about it. Harvard taught me that.”
“I don’t have any interest in your idea of ‘business,’ Sonar,” Robert came back onto the line, and Courtney swore she felt the tension dissipate. “She was just checking in. Relax.”
“No prob-problem, boss!” Courtney chuckled a bit under her breath. Waterboy was one hell of a suck-up; but at least he was sweet about it. “Blazer is- uh, she’s- important. To the-the, uh, company. And to, uh- you?”
Yeah, important was one word for it. Courtney rolled her eyes and kicked a weird-looking pebble. The Z-Team was important, too, but Robert didn’t look at any of them like they were sent from on high to deliver sunshine and rainbows and eternal happiness for all.
Robert sighed out a laugh (a really, really hot laugh) over the comms. “Yeah, she is. Invisigal, I’ve got a robbery for you at the bank on 32nd; I expect everybody to come out unharmed. Flambae, nice job with the paparazzi; take a break. Punch-Up and Coupe; I need you on a drug bust at the warehouse on 53rd. Prism, let me know when you’re all set at the animal shelter, I’ve got a purse snatcher that could do without his sight.”
“Bitch, I’ve been done.” Prism’s voice crackled over the line, amused and apathetic in one. “I’m on it, Rob, you know me.”
Robert laughed again, and Courtney did not blush or smile or get a bit wet when she heard it. “Thanks, Alice. Keep me posted.”
The rest of the shift was fine, after that. Well, about as fine as it could be. She shut down the robbery, yanked the gun right out of the attacker’s hands and sent him home running. It felt fucking great, and she hated how she hoped, just a bit, that Robert would agree that she had done a stellar job, because then he would give her one of those genuine half-smiles and a pat on the back when she got back to the office. Alright, maybe more than just a bit. She wanted it more than anything in the world.
She was just taking her break, lighting a smoke in a filthy alleyway a few blocks down from the bank, when her phone pinged. She pulled it out of her pocket, and haphazardly typed in her password one-handed. Flambae had texted in the Z-Team chat; the one without Robert, from long before he started at SDN.
‘holy shit you would NOT believe whag i just heard. sardine after work too much to text’
Well, that was something. She took a drag from her cigarette and leaned against the stained brick wall. Maybe today would start looking up after all. She tucked her phone in her pocket as Robert called out her name in that low, gravelly tone in her ear. She could get the drama later; right now, Invisigal had a job to do.