Chapter Text
As soon as string lights started to go on and the articficial, nose-burning smell of cinnamon began to be pumped out of storefronts into the street, Robert could feel his mood sink to the depths of the ocean.
He’d given a million excuses over the years. Seasonal depression; he sat in front of a special light box for thirty minutes and felt like a rube for having bought it. One year he’d pretended to have a religious obligation against Santa Claus and Christmas sweaters in favour of the vague ‘true meaning of Christmas’. One of his favourites was giving the excuse that he despised the capitalistic corporate Christmas that now existed that had consumed traditional, quiet family Christmases like an enormous whale swallowing plankton.
The real reason was less quirky and less funny and much sadder.
The truth was, he’d despised Christmas for years— ever since he figured out that Santa Claus didn’t exist, that his father would never be home on Christmas Eve, that the problems of everyone else in LA surpassed his a million times over, and that he was only a single drop in the ocean of his father’s concerns.
“I hope those aren’t tears that I see, Robert.” His dad’s voice was deep and booming and imposing. The kind of voice low-tier villains heard and ran for the hills. The kind of voice that made him feel at once proud (his father, the hero) and afraid (his father, the disciplinarian). “There are people all over this city who will hear today that their father has died. Their uncle has been in an accident. Their grandfather went crazy with an axe and chopped their mother’s God-damned head off in the living room.” His dad leaned his mouth — a thin line of anger — on his linked fingers, expression grave and distant. “And you have the —“ A disgusted little cough of disdain. He was really winding up to go off on one, now. All of the grovelling and snorting tears back up inside of Robert’s sinuses in the world wouldn’t make it better at this point. Even when he was home later in the day, or tomorrow morning, he would be stern and unapproachable, the action-figure dad that stayed stubbornly silent despite any interaction whatsoever. Dad behind plastic. “You have the gall, Robert, the gall to be crying over presents? Over presents under a damn tree, when people lose their whole families in one day?”
It was coming, the money shot. His dad would never hit him, he’d never hurt him physically. Mecha-Man Astral would never do such a thing. He protected the innocent from harm, killed men who hurt their families, rescued children from burning buildings as part of a day’s work, par for the course.
He never hit him, but he hurt him all the same.
“Sometimes when you’re really, really good, I think you’re like us. That you see the reality of the situation we’re in and know just how lucky you are. But usually…” he heaved his big figure to stand — not even the president would look so official, so commanding as he did in this one moment — Robert’s small body tensed, as if he was going to make a run for it, as if there was any way in the world to outrun what he knew his father was going to say, as if there was anywhere on earth that he could escape the ramifications of it. “Usually, I’m smart enough to realise that you’re nothing like me or your grandfather at all. You’re a selfish person at heart.”
People had bad dads. People had awful dads. People had fathers who beat the daylights out of their mothers and whaled on them, in turn, for dessert. People had fathers who locked them in basements and starved them of food and let them walk around on the street in clothes that were too small and kicked them out of the house at sixteen.
What was his big trauma? My daddy didn’t hug me enough? Boo-hoo, my dad was too busy saving lives to sit at home playing Monopoly with an eight-year-old?
“Gimme a fucking break.” He exhaled smoke into the cold air, moodily looking down on the lights of the city from his balcony. If he went to a therapist’s office they’d laugh him out of the building. You wish you were closer with your dad? They’d say. You and everyone else in the world, kid.
He couldn’t even speak to Chase about it. Chase was his second father, the adult man who he had spent the most time with, the man he learned to tie shoelaces from, but he couldn’t breathe a slightly negative word about his actual father to him.
After his death, Robbie had taken on the shine of an infallible religious figure. Perhaps it had been because Chase had looked up to Robbie; perhaps it was that Robbie’s death had marked the end of the period of his life where he could use his powers unafraid of the consequences of rapid aging, the end of the Brave Brigade proper, ended the prospect of easy Sunday mornings sipping a slushie with his unofficial little brother. With Robbie’s death, all of that had gone, like losing the boon of a patron saint, and the chasm all of those pleasant things had left behind was like the sticky consuming void of a tar-pit.
He’d heard miniature versions of his father’s lectures from Chase. The well-worn talking points treaded over and over like a hiking trail. Point One: He Was A Hero. Point Two: He Was A Father To Me When I Had Nobody. Point Three: You Don’t Have Real Problems Compared To Ninety-Nine Percent Of People. Point Four: You Didn’t Know Him Like I Did. Point Five (the kicker, cherry on the cake): Stop Being A Little Bitch About It.
One Christmas Eve, Chase had been staring down the door like it was an incredibly engrossing film for almost an hour. His sneakered foot tip-tap-tapped a restless beat on the floor. He was dressed casual; but deliberately casual, like the outfit was picked up off his bedroom floor freshly ironed and laundered. He reeked of aftershave, his sneakers were immaculately free of dirt like they’d been just lifted from the box, and his twists had the shine and faintly earthy smoky smell of the oil he used after they were newly done. The overall impression was that he had been manufactured earlier that day in the Chase factory.
“Are you sure you’re good if I go?” His voice cracked a little, sounded distant even to his own ears. By the sound of it, to Robert, he might as well have been in outer space, floating beside the International Space Station and asking the same question.
“Yeah. Swear.” Robert’s own voice was infected by adolescent nonchalance, a desperate trying-to-be-cool. The last thing he wanted was for Chase to sit here all night, waiting up for Robbie and slowly resenting Robert more and more each passing second. A little bit of love for him chipped off moment by moment as if with a chisel. He wouldn’t be a baby. He wouldn’t give in to the selfish urges that his dad despised. You’re twelve, almost a teenager, so stop being a bitch baby and let him go. You’re too old to be scared to be on your own.
“I’m sorry, little man. It’s just my girl’s family asked me, and…” Chase trailed off, his brain already halfway out the door. “Call me if you need me, alright? You know I’m just a second away.”
“I’ll be fine, I’m not a baby. Dad leaves me here by myself a shit ton.” The curse rolled around in his mouth like a hard candy. It felt suitably grown-up for his situation. Bitch babies didn’t swear like that and could totally chill by themselves on Christmas Eve. Actually, it was way better, better than being with anyone. Really adult and cool.
“Yeah, not on Christmas, though.” Chase sounded guilty, but not enough to stay. “Well — call me if you need me. Listen, thanks, Robert. You’re a good kid.”
He left at his usual record-shattering speed. The Chase-shaped hole in the air that Robert could almost imagine was left behind still smelled like aftershave and laundry and hair oil. You’re a good kid was still spinning around in the merry-go-round of his mind.
Back in the present, Robert flicked the end of his cigarette into the trash can below, watching the glowing tip sail through the air. He’d been invited to Christmases. Chase was having his first with his controversially younger-looking girlfriend, and asked Robert along. Mal and Victor were having a bender on Christmas Day, which was bound to end up with snow of a different kind, which had been offered to him. Alice and Chad were going to Alice’s family’s place, because he was basically one of them at this point — one of the few SDN Christmases he hadn’t been invited to.
Herman had said something about spending it with his grandma, in his little hopeful way which was really more like an indirect invitation, but Robert had steadfastly ignored it.
He would spend this Christmas the exact same way he always did, on his own, asleep by eleven, just like any other day in any other month. Where he would impose on nobody and take up a space from pity in anyone else’s life.
Like Chase said, he was a good kid, and those don’t selfishly take up room where someone else could be.