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“No, do not go into the burning building with your torso on fire.” A pause. “Because you’ll burn any survivors you try to pull out, you idiot.” A sigh. “Just– do your job, please, Flambae?” A pinch to the bridge of his nose. “Thanks.”
Robert placed the headset down on his desk, closing his eyes. Two more hours. Just two more hours. Then he could go home to his apartment, and his dog, and sit with the sad husk of his broken mech suit that would stare at him with its dark and empty eyes until he hauled himself to bed, where he would not sleep for six hours, and then get out of bed and do it all over again.
God, this job could kill him. The mortality rate of dispatchers hadn’t been something that Blonde Blazer had informed him of, but…
“Hey, Chase,” he called over the wall of the cubicle, not even bothering to stand. “Is there a high mortality rate for dispatchers?”
The older man replied, through his rhythmic clacking on the keyboard, “Not usually, unless one of these assholes goes off on their own and decides to murder you in your fuckin’ sleep.”
“We can still hear you,” Sonar’s deep deadpan came through Robert’s neglected headset, louder than normal. He fought and lost to suppress a chuckle when Chase responded hotly into the microphone, picking his headset back up slowly and slipping it back on.
“I don’t fuckin’ care that you can hear me. You’re supposed to be doing your goddamn job, you flying rat-freak, so go do what you were fuckin’ told. Got it?”
“...Jesus,” Sonar replied, obviously taken aback by the outburst.
“Thank you, Chase,” Robert said, finding his composure again, “for that, um. Wordy interjection. But… he is right. Get back to it, Sonar.”
Sonar mumbled something unintelligible, but his tracker on the map started to move towards his next target regardless. Robert hummed in approval. “Tough love,” he muttered to himself thoughtfully. Maybe that was the approach; they didn’t respect him as it was, but they seemed to at least listen when he bit back at their insults. Maybe he’s gotta be meaner with them.
He felt like that pep talk in the conference room helped them a little (even if the day did end with him letting somebody go) (which didn’t end up sticking; as long as he let Phenomaman and Waterboy on the team, Blonde Blazer let him keep the rest of the weirdos), but they seemed to respond best to his orders when he met them at their slightly cynical, bitchy level. Which, in all honesty, he was pretty good at. Something tugged at the back of his mind, though; a memory of everyone’s faces, after he told the Z-Team that they could rise from the ashes. Being cruel or flat-out rude wouldn’t work. Banter a little, but never stray into anger. A balance.
Robert sighed again. He felt like his whole fucking life was a balancing act; and some days, he prayed for the tightrope to snap.
“Hey, Bobby?”
Punch-Up’s thick Irish brogue filled his ears, snapping him out of his self-pity reverie. He touched a button on his headset. “What’s happening?”
“Yeah, Flambae just set another tree on fire. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it this time, but, eh. It’s still burnin’!”
“Is it one tree, or a few trees?”
“Oh, it’s about…. Seven? I think? It spreads pretty fast, you know.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose again. A steady headache was beginning to form. “Waterboy,” he said without looking at his screen. “You think you can handle extinguishing duty?”
“Sir, yes- yes- of course I can do, can do it.” The reply was enthusiastic, and Robert felt himself smiling despite himself. The kid was happy to be on the team, at least.
“Thanks, Waterboy,” he replied, watching the hydrokinetic’s icon move swiftly across the map. “Anyone want to give him a hand?”
A chorus of “Eh”s and one “Not really?” poured through his headset, and he rolled his eyes.
“Okay, not a question anymore: Coop and Punch-Out: you’re on security. Keep civilians away from the fire, because they always want to know what’s happening, and that gets dumb people hurt. Prevent that. Sonar, Malevola, evacuation. Check houses and apartment buildings, and go wherever the firefighters can’t. Prism, Phenomaman, Golem: if the media shows up, tell them we’ve got everything under control, because we do. Until then, you’re support. Get people to ambulances, set up recovery zones, whatever the responders ask you to do. Invisigal–”
“What?”
Robert jumped slightly, whirling around in his chair. There stood Invisigal, unlit cigarette dangling out of her mouth as she crossed her arms. She inclined her head to him, eyes flicking to his computer monitor.
“Having a bit of trouble there, Oracle?”
He sighed, glancing at his computer screen. “You’ve all got your assignments; let’s get it done, team.”
He yanked the headset off, glaring up at Invisigal. “You’re supposed to be working.”
She shrugged a shoulder, moving past Robert to perch on the edge of his desk. His head lolled back, and he fixed her with a disapproving glare. She only smirked in response.
“Invisigal. Come on. I thought we turned a corner, what with the whole ‘leaderboard’ thing. You’ve gotta-”
“The only thing I gotta do is not die, dipshit,” she snorted, looking down at Robert. “Forgive me if I don’t obey your every fucking whim.”
“Listen. I just don’t want you to get in trouble,” he rose from his chair, meeting her eyes. Scoffing, he reached forward to pull the unlit cigarette from between her lips. “And you can’t smoke in here-”
The cigarette caught on her lips, and with a start, he realized that it wasn’t a cigarette at all.
A… lollipop?
“Give that back, asshole,” Invisigal snatched the lollipop back from Robert, jamming it stubbornly back in her mouth. “You’re not supposed to take other people’s shit, you know. It’s a real dick move, hero.”
“You’re not smoking,” Robert said dumbly. He looked back down at his fingers, still curled, the ghost of the lollipop stick still lingering. He met her eyes again, brow furrowing. “You’re always smoking.”
Invisigal huffed, looking away. Her short hair fell more across her eyes, and he could see a faint pinkness rising in her cheeks. “Yeah, well, I’m not now. Leave it alone, okay? Fuck.”
Robert sat down, still looking up at her, dumbfounded. Eventually, he shook his head to clear the cobwebs that had started to form in his brain. “Look. You give me a good reason why I shouldn’t just send you back out there, and I won’t tell Blonde Blazer that you’re not at your post. You can… shadow me, as a dispatcher.”
“Sounds like a metric fuckton of fun, really.” But, even as she snarked, she grabbed a chair from an empty cubicle behind her, and rolled it up to Robert’s desk. Chase leaned back in his chair to watch, and Invisigal flipped him off without comment. She plopped down unceremoniously, swinging her legs up to rest on Robert’s desk, and he swatted them with a nearby file folder.
“You’re still at work, fucker.”
She laughed, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth. “Whatever, fucker,” and she pulled her legs back down, opting to spread her legs. “So, what’s all the nerd shit? Does it help you ‘dispatch’?”
“Yes, actually.” He slipped the headset around his neck, making sure to turn the microphone off. Leaning on his fist, he fixed Invisigal with what he hoped was an authoritative stare. “So. Talk. Why are you here?”
“It’s the only job they’ll give me,” she replied smoothly, smirk never leaving her mouth.
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Invisigal.”
She blew her hair out of her eyes, pointedly looking away from him. Eventually, she mumbled, “I’m having some breathing problems.”
“..oh. Is it, uh… how bad is it?”
Rolling her eyes, she gestured with the lollipop. “Well, I’m not smoking, am I?”
“Oh.” He felt a small pang of guilt ripple through his stomach. “Is it just the asthma…?”
Now it was her turn to sigh; her gaze fixed on the floor, she mumbled, “I had a really bad attack last night, and I’m still fucked up from it.”
“Oh.” Now he really felt guilty. He inclined his head towards her pocket. “You still got your inhaler?”
She pulled it out, shaking it and puffing it into her mouth to prove a point. Swallowing thickly, she croaked, “It wasn’t enough last night. It was pretty fucked up, I…”
He didn’t say anything, just leaned closer to her, trying to be a comforting presence. She took a shaky breath, hesitating before she whispered, “I really fucking thought I was going to die. It was like… my lungs were completely deflated, and I couldn’t inhale any more.”
“Shit,” Robert breathed. He… really didn’t have anything else to say. He’d never had an asthma attack before, so he couldn’t exactly say that he ‘knew how it felt’. But…
“I had a, uh, really bad panic attack, not long after I got out of the hospital,” Robert said, attempting to keep his tone casual. Invisigal glanced at him, but he kept talking. “My vision got fuzzy, my hands were trembling so bad I thought they were going to fall off, and… you know, I couldn’t breathe. It was… like I wasn’t a person anymore. Like I was floating above my own body, like a…”
“Like a ghost of yourself,” Invisigal murmured. Her eyes scanned Robert’s face, and he felt a flare of heat rise to his cheeks. God, he hated all the attention.
“What’d you do? Jerk it out?” Her tone was playful, but there was a very real anxiety beneath her eyes. Robert could see it, and the familiarity of it was… jarring.
He shrugged, a finger tapping on his thigh. A steady rhythm, a calming one. “Talked to a therapist. Turns out, getting help from a professional is really helpful.”
“Boo,” she leaned back in her chair, legs extending in front of her. “Big Pharma wants you to get help for your issues. Makes them more money.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I’m just a self-help shill. You caught me.”
Invisigal chuckled, but it was short-lived. It died quickly, her smile replaced by the worry that she’d been wearing since she brought up her asthma attack. He didn’t… love that. Something about her anxiety was making him anxious, and he really couldn’t afford that right now. He was supposed to be a reliable dispatcher–
“Oh, shit,” Robert hissed, grabbing his headset and turning the mic on. He looked back at the screen, scanning for his team’s icons. Ah, there they are.
The Z-Team, thankfully, was on the scene. It looked like Sonar and Malevola did listen to his orders, and were both flitting in and out of the blaze (hopefully, with evacuees with them). Phenomaman, irritatingly, was also in the area that was clearly on fire, but at least Prism’s icon was holding point at the evac site. Coop and Punch-Up were also at their posts, but if the scattered movements of their icons were anything to go by, they were sparring in some form. Not doing their jobs. He sighed again.
“Z-Team,” he said, in his most authoritative voice, “status report. Please.”
“Getting people out of trouble, just like you asked, Boberto,” Sonar’s deadpan came through the mic, his icon lighting up on Robert’s screen. “It’s only easy when they, you know, cooperate.”
“I mean, to be fair, you are a bigass bat monster right now,” Malevola replied, sounding slightly winded. Portaling must be pretty hard work, Robert thought idly. He’d have to ask her when she got back.
“Yeah, but I’m trying to help these fuckers.”
“Please don’t call the evacuees ‘fuckers’,” Robert sighed. If he sighed any harder or any more often, he was either going to combust one of his lungs or pass out.
“Aye-aye, Bobby,” Sonar’s reply only made him sigh harder.
“Coop? Punch-Up? What… What the hell are you doing, guys?”
“Just putting on a little show for the folks,” Punch-Up replied, jovially. “The kiddies are lovin’ Coop and I play-fightin’.”
“You’re… entertaining the evacuees?”
Coop’s tone was icy as she replied, “It was his idea.”
“Well, I was an entertainer, ya know. Figured we might as well cheer people up, seein’ as their houses are on fire.”
“That’s… shockingly thoughtful,” Robert said, slightly dumbly. The whole team was full of surprises today, it seemed.
“I’m always usin’ me head, Robby!”
“Okay, sure. Keep it up, you two. Hey, uh… Phenomaman? Whatcha doin’, bud?”
“I am assisting with evacuation, Robert Robertson! Do not worry, I am making myself useful!”
“...I did ask you to run media guard with Prism. The people like you, so you’re good for… media stuff. We’ve got plenty of people working in the blaze.”
“That is true,” Phenomaman replied, sounding thoughtful now. “However, when Malevola began losing strength due to overuse of her portalling abilities, I thought it best to give her a ‘hand’ with it.”
“Okay, uh. How’s he doing, Malevola?”
“Oh, he’s great! Anyone Sonar and I can’t pick up, he’s grabbing like sacks of potatoes and just pulling them right out of there. Major help right now.”
Robert smiled to himself, proud. It hit him, all of a sudden: this was a good team. And they were getting better. “Okay. Thanks, Phenomaman. You’re all doing great.”
“Am I doing good?” Prism’s voice was confident; clearly in ‘performance’ mode. “The answer better be ‘yes’, bitch.”
“Yes, bitch,” Robert replied easily, clicking over to a news site tab. “The media is loving you, if any of these headlines are anything to go by. ‘Prism Dazzles at Downtown Fire; Assures That Everything is ‘Under Control’.’ They’re all… huge Prism fans, it seems.”
“Fuck yeah!” Her cheer was enthusiastic, and he could imagine her blue and pink hair moving as she danced. “I’m media-trained, bitch!”
He chuckled, scanning the screen for the rest of his team. “Golem, you good? Are the ambulances there yet?”
“Yeah,” Golem’s deep voice resonated through the mic. “Helpin’ them set up tents and stuff. Gets real easy when I can just pick up the tent and move it when it’s too close.”
“That’s my boy,” Sonar sounded very, very proud, which, admittedly, warmed Robert’s heart a little.
“I’m glad you guys are all working together,” Robert tried to keep his tone professional, but he couldn’t help but beam proudly. Their team progress was… so good. In the corner of his vision, he could’ve sworn he saw Invisigal flash a smile, but he couldn’t be certain. The screen was blinking again, though, and Robert’s eyes averted themselves again. He followed Waterboy’s icon, head cocked to the side.
“How are you doing, Waterboy? Good?”
“I have everything– all the damage– all of the damage under control,” Waterboy stuttered, but he still sounded confident, which was a welcome change from his normal anxiety.
“You need a hand? I know taking care of fire is hard to do alone. I can send one of the others over to help–”
“Don’t even worry your pretty little head about it, Bob-Bob,” a familiar, nasally accent came through his headset. Flambae. Robert hadn’t even seen his icon move, but there he was, next to Waterboy on the map.
“...what are you doing?”
“Don’t even worry about it, bitch. I’ve got it covered, okay? Me and Waterboy are saving the day.”
Robert scrubbed a hand over his face. Don’t sigh. You’re gonna collapse a lung. “Mind telling me how you’re doing that? Because, last time I checked, you started the fire in the first place.”
“What, a person can’t redeem themselves?” He could picture the expression on Flambae’s face, clear as day; he imagined it as smug, but slightly less intimidating than it could be (given that Flambae had, very recently, burned off his eyebrows).
“...Okay, tell me what you’re doing to help.”
“I’m reabsorbing the flames, Bob-Bob,” Flambae scoffed, in a tone that just screamed ‘what, are you stupid?’
“Yeah, he can do that,” Invisigal whispered, and Robert had to suppress a yelp. He frowned at her – don’t fucking do that, he mouthed, and she snickered at his expression – but he kept his eyes trained on the screen.
“Waterboy. Is Flambae… you know, helping?”
“Say yes,” Flambae muttered. There was a very loud whoosh in the background of his mic.
“Ye-s, yes he is,” Waterboy stuttered, but he said it with finality. Flambae, actually helping him. Well, I’ll be damned.
Robert nodded to himself. “Good job, you two. I’m glad you’re… working so well together.”
Flambae laughed haughtily. “Of course we’re working well together. I get along well with everybody, bitch. I’ll keep the Wetnap alive.”
“Don’t call him that.” Robert pinched the bridge of his nose, yet again. “Hey, Waterboy?”
“Yes- hello- yes, captain?”
Finally, he let himself relax, smiling as he said warmly, “Keep up the good work.”
At that, he muted the microphone. He leaned back in his chair, looking at Invisigal. He noticed the slight smile tugging at her lips, the little wrinkle of her nose.
“Okay, I’ll bite: what’s the smile for?”
She snorted. It was a harsh sound, a laugh that erupted from her. It sounded kind of silly, really.
Unfortunately, Robert couldn’t shake the thought that it was a perfect sound, too.
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just…” She paused, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You were telling them that they were doing good. That they… were doing things that mattered.”
“To be fair, I’m pretty sure Flambae started the fire in the first place, so ‘good’ might be a bit of a stretch.”
“Oh yeah, he for sure set a fire. But… he was trying to fix it, and they were all helping him. Even Sonar, and Sonar doesn’t do dick.”
She let out a long sigh, coughing slightly at the end and pulling out her inhaler for a hit. As the inhaler met her lips, she took a glance at Robert’s screen, slightly mournful.
…Ah.
“You know,” Robert began, “just because you couldn’t be out there today doesn’t mean you’re not doing a good job, right? Even heroes have to take sick days.”
She pulled the inhaler away, glaring at him. “Yeah, except this isn’t a ‘sick day’. This is a ‘My Body Is Fucking Bullshit and I Hate It Because It Doesn’t Work’ day. I’m about as useful as a fucking cardboard box today.”
“Hey. That still counts as sick.”
“But heroes never rest, right? They just keep working and working until somebody gets lucky enough to kill them.”
Robert shook his head. “Look. A lot of heroes have a pretty shitty concept of work-life balance, I will admit-”
“Including Mechaman,” Invisigal leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms.
“...okay, fine, yes, including Mechaman.” He couldn’t quite suppress his eyeroll at that, but he barrelled forward anyway. “But. I learned pretty quickly that being sick doesn’t help with hero shit, and that the most important person to take care of when you get like that is you. Doesn’t make you any less of a hero, or worthless, or bad. You can’t help people if you’re sick, and you can’t help yourself if you’re sick. Trust me. It's part of that whole 'asking people for help' thing we talked about.”
Invisigal is quiet for a long moment, just studying his face. Her eyes darted from the top of his head, to his eyes, and they lingered on his lips for just a second. A fierce heat rose to his cheeks, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. She blinked hard in return, a light blush dusting her nose.
“Hey. I don’t know if… If I can go back out there today. The smoke…”
“You don’t have to,” he leaned forward, placing a hand on her elbow. “You’ll make yourself sicker if you do. There’s no point in hurting yourself to save others.”
“Don’t you mean ‘there’s no point in setting yourself on fire to keep others warm’? Seems more thematically appropriate.”
At that, he did laugh, tilting his head back. “You should tell Flambae that one. He’ll get a real kick out of it, I’m sure.”
“I’ll tell him you said it first,” she replied easily. “You’ll look very handsome without eyebrows.”
She scooted her rolling chair closer, looking at the screen. And Robert didn’t do anything, just… watched. The way her eyes looked at every little detail, following the icons as they moved back and forth near the blaze. She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth, biting slightly at her lower lip.
“Hey,” she nudged him with her elbow. “Golem’s flagging. Let him tap out, tell Phenomaman to start moving tents and shit.”
“Oh. Uh. Okay.” He flicked the mic back on, speaking directly to the large mudslide man. “Hey, Golem, buddy. How are you feeling?”
“Little tired,” came the rumbled reply, like rocks moving down a hill. “Still going, though.”
“Go take a rest, man. You earned it. Phenomaman: will you start moving tents for Golem?”
“Certainly, Robert Robertson.” The hero’s icon moved from the fire to where Golem’s icon had stood, quickly moving back and forth. Helping his teammate.
“That was a good call, you know,” Robert glanced at Invisigal, head tilted. “Pretty impressive.”
“Eh, not really. I just… know how the team works.”
“Well, Z-Team Leader-” Her face turned a bright red, and she swatted at his arm. “-would you give me a hand keeping them alive until the fire gets put out? I’d appreciate the help.”
She shrugged. A smile seemed to tug at the corners of her mouth, and she tried to fight it off to no avail. “Sure. Someone’s gotta help the worst team’s worst dispatcher.”
“Eh, I don’t know. I think the team’s doing pretty good.”
She looked back at his computer screen, finally letting the smile win. “Yeah. I guess they are.”