Chapter Text
It's not like Robert has forgotten Valentine's Day exists. It's hard to not notice holidays as they come and go - they're writ large on advertising billboards, unavoidable in shops and storefronts, creeping into hero work.
St. Patrick's day is a mess of cleaning up drunken mistakes. Christmas is infused with winter low-income desperation whenever it's not a mind numbing lull. New Year's attracts explosions, hiding gunfire under the cover of fireworks. Easter seems to have some kind of themed villain every year, which is absurd, in Robert's opinion, but it happens. Diwali washes the city in lights, flushing violence from its usual shadows and into the crowds.
So no. Robert hasn't missed Valentine's Day. He's just resigned to it.
The usual gamut was low level, but there was a lot of it. Most organised crime didn't seem to give a shit about the day, so it was domestic violence. Hate crimes. Misogyny and incels. Rashes of muggings near high-end restaurants. Sexual assault in alleyways, or worse.
There had been a handful of management meetings discussing it. Robert had, somehow, been included - he wasn't sure he counted as a manager, personally, but Mandy had huffed at him and just said she wanted his input as well. Chase had nodded approvingly as soon as he walked in. And the only other one was Galen, who he hadn't batted an eye. They'd discussed how best to tackle the holiday, then had a second meeting with the current-hero dispatchers where they ironed out whether it would be more beneficial to have extra volunteers in the field, or stick as close as they could to a regular workflow.
Robert didn't know most of the people in that room were heroes, but then they didn't exactly know he was Mecha Man, either.
In the end he'd chosen to stay dispatching. The mech was a thing of beauty, but she was more suited for the heavy impact and quick flying of fighting a kaiju than she was for the finer mobility needed to disarm a robber in a dingy alleyway.
He still walks into SDN like he's heading into battle.
Several desks held indicators of the day - the woman he'd seen leaving with her husband and kid, on the night of his dinner with Blazer, had a wonky macaroni card, some chocolates, and a bunch of flowers. Other desks held more cards, more chocolates, or little gifts personalised to each person. Robert slows automatically near a desk heaving under gifts, laughing softly, then moves onto the empty one beyond it.
Which isn't his.
Robert pauses with his hand on the chair. Surely… no.
He doubles back to the last desk. Even without the slat helpfully showing his name, Chase has stood up from his chair, cackling at his face.
"You went past your own desk," he hoots. "Even you think this is so ridiculous you went past your own desk!"
Robert laughs incredulously along with him, helpless to it. He can't tear his eyes away. "Holy shit," he breathes, reaching out to pluck a note from the edible arrangement.
Greetings Robert! Phenomaman has written. The team informed me that just on this occasion you would perhaps not like one of my melon deliveries. Instead, please enjoy these red berries shaped like roses! Love, Phenomaman. xoxo
Chase, reading shamelessly over his shoulder, says, "That alien fuck actually wrote xoxo?"
"He likes the idea of them being hugs and kisses," Robert answers numbly, "they were talking about it last week." He's staring at the arrangement. Strawberries, raspberries, apples. Blackberries for contrast, though they're the longest blackberries he's ever fucking seen. There's even two halves of a pomegranate, as though Robert has ever been able to afford a pomegranate in his life. "I don't even think I can eat half this shit before it goes bad."
"Pah," Chase scoffs. "Just pick at it while you're working today. Maybe it'll save you getting fuckin' scurvy. Besides, you have chocolate if you get sick of healthy shit."
Robert lowers Phenomaman's card. "There's chocolates?"
"Yeah, fucker. There's probably anything you ever fuckin' mentioned liking in here."
That's a fair shout; somebody's put a box of Twinkies there, which has been decorated with three immediately visible fuck you for getting this first post-its. The chocolate options are vastly different - one is a bar of dark chocolate and honeycomb, placed neatly next to his keyboard with one of Coop's knives left on top as if she'd made a point of not wanting it to be touched. The other is a massive, heart shaped box, held loosely closed with a wide golden ribbon and tied with a bow. It screams 'excessive holiday scam'. Several of the chocolates inside, Robert doesn't even like.
Sonar has slipped a note beneath the ribbon that says, Always down to spend the big bucks on my favourite dispatcher ;) and then, underneath, Mal said I wasn't allowed to buy you weed :(
Robert snorts and shows it to Chase. Chase reads it and shoots him a look. "If he ever gives you any of that shit, you're sharing."
"Eh." Robert shrugs. "Weed doesn't do much for me. Just makes me sleepy. Then nauseous."
Chase makes an indignant noise as he reaches for some tupperware.
"Fucker, what was the one thing I used to say to you? If you wanna try weed, then make sure you try it with me so I can make sure you have a good fuckin' experience!"
"I didn't try it on purpose. Some plant asshole had the bright idea to grow some in the mech's air systems when I was busting a gang. Turned the cockpit into a hotbox. I had to get home on autopilot and even then I stunk for weeks."
Chase smears his hands over his face and muffles out, "You're gonna be the fuckin' death of me, kid."
"Uh huh." Robert pops the lid open and peers in. Mecha Man shaped cookies, some iced with the neat hands of an adult, some clearly done by a child. One of them, at the top, has for u Mecha Bitch on it. He angles the tupperware towards Chase and deadpans, "Any bets for this one?"
"I thought the flaming fuck left you that shit?"
He follows Chase's point to a heating pad. It's boasting another one of his stolen post-it notes, which does have Flambae's handwriting scrawled on it, but it says:
I do NOT approve of this, bitch. Send it back - F.
Bitch, you don't HAVE TO, it's not FOR you! Love you Roberto <3 hugs, your girl Pris.
"At least that broke the food streak," Chase says cheerfully. "It's almost like you never eat, or something. Weird." Then, before Robert can argue: "What's that one?"
He props Sonar's oversized box onto its side, chocolates rattling, revealing more of a red corner as well as a handful of other things. There are two envelopes, for one - the red Chase had spotted, and a plain white one - but the object their eyes fall to immediately is a little statuette of Beef.
"Holy shit," Chase breathes, picking it up first by virtue of being closer. He lifts it to eye level, and Robert is too busy staring at it as well to even make any jokes about cataracts.
It's perfect. Beef, lovingly rendered in clay and carefully painted. He's got his head tilted, tongue out, tail frozen mid-blur. He's fat and glorious and Robert is helpless but to scoop up the real thing and squish him just to get some of the feeling out. Beef wriggles gleefully, clearly pleased by the development.
"I'm keeping this," Chase declares.
"Fuck you," Robert scowls instantly. "That's my gift. Get your wrinkly fingers off -"
"Fucker, you get the real fucking thing!"
"And you still steal him half the time anyway!"
Chase wraps his hand around statue-Beef and scowls at him. Robert hugs real-Beef closer and narrows his eyes right back. They both valiantly ignore the face wash Beef is contributing to the standoff.
Chase relents first. "How's this - whoever doesn't have the real Beef gets mini Beef."
Wary, he says, "That's… reasonable."
"Fucker. Of course it's fucking reasonable. Now hand Beefy boy over and open those envelopes already."
Robert makes Chase put mini-Beef down first, as per the terms of the truce. He rolls his eyes like Robert is a paranoid bastard, but Robert isn't fooled. He nudges mini-Beef into place next to his computer as he scoops up the two envelopes.
"Red first," Chase orders.
The white one is made of cheap paper, but it has just a faint enough smell of cigars that it's nice instead of awful. Robert figures it's Punch Up even before he slits the envelope open (thank you, Coop, for the knife) and pulls out two handmade tickets and a note.
One ticket says ringside; the other says fighter. Punch Up did a nice job on them; neat, unobtrusive borders, clean block capitals. Instead of the cheap paper from the envelope, it's thick, grained cardstock. Underneath both ticket types is an address for an underground fighting ring Robert goes to. Considering the place would never be so regulated as to have tickets, it's no wonder they're handmade.
He had no idea Punch Up even knew about this. Let alone where. Jesus. He must've seen Robert one of the last times he went.
Sure enough, the note says, Ringside's for me, lad! So I can cheer you on properly this time!
Robert stuffs the tickets back into the envelope. Above his armful of Beef, Chase's eyebrows hike up. "What's up with your face?"
"Nothing."
"Cool. What's in the envelope then?"
"Punch Up gave me -" Fuck, fuck - "nudes."
What the fuck, Robertson.
Chase's eyebrows, somehow, slide higher. "I know you're lying," he says, "but I don't know if I want to push it when that lie is somehow the better option."
Robert shoots him a weak smile and slits open the red envelope next. This one is weird - it buzzes in his fingers, oddly warm, tellingly supernatural. Malevola has sealed it with black wax and a symbol he can't quite make sense of at a glance. She's not given him tickets.
What slides out is - a necklace.
It sends a weird jolt through him when it hits his palm. Robert sets the envelope down so he can poke at it, curious, but the jolt doesn't happen again. The necklace thrums softly, a little warm. It's a different thrum to the buzz of the envelope, but the heat is the same. Regardless, it's a simple flat shape, almost like an arrowhead. Robert turns it over and sees the same eye-screwy symbol on the back that the wax had.
Chase's giant stupid head shoves itself in the way. Robert leans back so he doesn't get a mouthful of hair, casting his annoyed expression at the wall.
"What's the point of this?" Chase protests. "You're not a jewellery guy."
Deadpan, Robert says, "That you know of."
Chase turns away from his scrutiny to glare at him. "What? You got some piercings I don't know about? Fat chance."
Robert allows a tiny grin. Chase's mouth drops open.
"Fuck off," he says immediately. "Where?"
"You're not getting it outta me that easily," Robert snorts. "Hey, if you touch this, does it feel like a static shock?"
Chase twists away with a squawk when Robert moves it towards him. "Get away from me with that magic shit! I'm not getting fuckin' half-demon cooties -"
"If anyone has cooties on my team, it's Sonar."
"Ain't he roommates with Malevola? Cross contamination or some shit. Point is," Chase barks, ducking again, "don't fuckin' touch me with it!"
"Chicken." Robert folds it into his palm and checks the envelope. "There's no note," he frowns. "How'm I supposed to know what it is?"
"Maybe asking her, genius."
Robert ignores him. Well, okay, he doesn't ignore him - it's a good point. Begrudgingly. Not that he's going to tell Chase that. Instead, he runs through a mental list of the team and frowns. "There's one less than there should be."
He winces viciously and immediately. How much more ungrateful can you get? Jesus fuck.
"I mean -! Not that everyone had to - I just - there's one from everyone and - Chase, stop laughing," he hisses.
Chase flaps a hand, steadying Beef with the other. He doesn't stop snickering.
Robert shoves him into his cubicle, scowling, and plucks Beef from his arms so he can shove Chase down into his chair. "You're the worst," he tells him, and goes back to his cubicle to power his computer on for the actual shift they have now. The system runs through startup at its usual ancient pace. Robert uses the time to reorganise the gifts so they're taking up a little less space, tucking the notes into a separate pile so they're closer at hand, fingers brushing over everything with a kind of private reverence.
It's only when he moves Sonar's giant fucking chocolate box again that he sees it.
A little green plant. It's got fern-like strands, but the leaves on them are more like chubby spades. Someone has laminated Waterboy's note for him; he's drawn an arrow up to the plant, naming it as a maidenhair fern and specifying that it's safe for dogs. Then he's written, thank you for being our dispatcher, Robert! and surrounded it with three smiley faces.
Robert's face softens. It slots reassuringly into place, the same satisfied hindbrain thought that's pleased seeing the team all in one room.
He clears his throat. "Morning, team. Thank you for the love this morning, that was… unexpected." He lets the initial swell of excitement die down. "I'll have to thank you all individually at lunch. Unfortunately, not everyone out there is feeling the holiday. I hope you're braced for a busy fucking shift."