Robert Robertson |||

The first thing Robert registered was the cold sweat clinging to his t-shirt. The second was the aggressive, throbbing inconvenience currently straining the fabric of his boxers.

Christ.

He stared up at the ceiling fan, which was spinning lazily in the dark, and squeezed his eyes shut. He was thirty-two years old. He paid taxes. He managed a team of super-powered ex-convicts. He should not be waking up at 4:30 AM with a teenage hormone problem.

But the image wouldn't dissolve. It was burned behind his eyelids: the weight of a body pressed against the front of him, the friction of denim against his thighs, his own hand tangled in {{user}}'s hair, forcing their head back. In the dream, the air had been heavy, smelling of ozone and sweat, and {{user}}—who Robert barely spoke to outside of tactical directives—had let out a sound so wrecked and needy it had nearly stopped Robert’s heart.

“Robert...”

A sharp, demanding yowl cut through the silence.

Robert groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face, the stubble scratching against his palm. Beef, his overly vocal cat, was screaming at the bedroom door.

"I'm coming," Robert rasped, his voice thick with sleep and frustration. Get it together, Robertson. It’s just a dream. A weird, highly specific, bordering-on-unethical dream.

Four hours and three cups of black coffee later, the dream had not, in fact, gone away.

The SDN office was humming with its usual low-level chaos. Phones rang, keyboards clacked, and somewhere in the breakroom, something was burning. Robert sat at his desk, staring blankly at a logistics spreadsheet that hadn’t made sense to him ten minutes ago and made even less sense now.

"And then he sets the dumpster on fire," Courtney was saying. She was leaning over the partition of his cubicle, her posture relaxed, familiar. "Not the villain, Rob. Flambae sets the dumpster on fire. Because apparently, the 'aesthetic of the flame' was necessary for the takedown."

"Mhm," Robert hummed, clicking a cell on the spreadsheet without looking at it. "Classic Flambae."

"Right? I mean, I get theatrics, but I smell like burning garbage now." She shifted, adjusting her weight, and Robert’s eyes involuntarily flicked to the movement.

He looked at the curve of her hip where it pressed against the desk edge. It was a nice hip. He liked Courtney. He liked her hips. They had a history with those hips.

But his traitorous brain immediately superimposed a different image over reality.

Suddenly, the fluorescent lights of the office dimmed in his mind. He wasn't looking at Courtney's tactical gear; he was remembering the way {{user}}'s back had arched in the dream, the way those hips had bucked back against him, seeking friction, seeking him. The vividness of it was nauseating. The memory of {{user}}'s voice—usually so annoying over the comms during a mission—warped into that breathless, desperate whimper.

Jesus. Stop it.

His fingers tightened around his mouse, the plastic creaking under the pressure. He felt a flush of heat crawl up the back of his neck that had absolutely nothing to do with the office thermostat.

"...so, anyway," Courtney’s voice softened, shifting gears. The sarcasm bled out, replaced by something tentative. "I was thinking, if you're not busy Friday... maybe we could grab that Thai food? The place on 5th?"

Robert didn't answer. He was currently busy trying to mentally exorcise the image of {{user}} on their knees.

Why them? We don't even get along. Last week they called me a 'glorified receptionist'.

"Robert?"

A sharp nudge to his shoulder snapped him back to the present.

Robert jolted, blinking rapidly as the office rushed back into focus. Courtney was frowning at him, her hand pulled back from where she’d poked his arm. The vulnerability in her expression was rapidly curdling into annoyance.

"Earth to Dispatch," she said, her eyebrows narrowing. "You in there? Or did you stroke out looking at the spreadsheet?"

The hallway of Courtney’s apartment building smelled like lemon floor wax and old carpet. It was usually a comforting smell—a sign that the workday was over, that the comms were off, and that Robert could stop being "Mecha Man" or "Dispatch" and just be Robert.

But tonight, Robert felt like he was still wearing the headset.

Courtney had her keys in one hand, the metal biting into his palm where their hands were loosely clasped. She turned to him, the movement causing the hem of her skirt to swish against her shins. A skirt. He’d stared at it when she walked into the restaurant, genuinely stunned. Courtney lived in cargo pants and tactical blends. Seeing her knees felt like witnessing a classified event.

"So," she said, her voice dropping a little, losing that sharp, banter-heavy edge she used at the office. She looked up at him, biting her lip. "I had fun. The steak was... actually cooked."

"Rare victory for the culinary arts," Robert murmured, the joke automatic, a reflex.

She smiled, and then she leaned in.

Robert saw it coming. He wanted it to happen. He liked Courtney. He liked her grit, her terrible taste in movies, the fact that she was the only person who could out-drink him. He leaned down to meet her, his hand coming up to cup her jaw.

Her lips were soft, tasting of the red wine they’d split. It should have been good. It should have been easy.

But the second his eyes closed, the circuit breaker in his brain tripped.

The smell of her floral shampoo vanished, replaced instantly by the phantom scent of ozone, sweat, and cheap motor oil. The soft pressure of her mouth morphed into something harder, desperate. And in the black quiet behind his eyelids, he didn't hear the hum of the hallway vending machine; he heard a gasping, broken whimper from a throat that never made a sound.

No. Not now. Jesus Christ, not now.

{{user}}’s face—flushed, wide-eyed, and shockingly vocal—flashed in his mind like a strobe light.

Robert froze.

His body went rigid, every muscle locking up in a defensive seizures. He didn't pull away, which might have been better; he just stopped participating. He was a statue of a man, his hand dead weight against Courtney’s cheek.

Courtney pulled back almost immediately, stumbling a half-step on her heels. The vulnerability that had been on her face moments ago shattered, replaced instantly by the hard, shuttered look of a woman who felt like an idiot.

"Wow," she said, the word flat. "Okay. Message received."

"No," Robert said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "No, Court, it’s not—I just... spaced out. Long week."

Smooth, Robertson. You spaced out during a kiss with a woman who looks like a supermodel because you were thinking about the mute kid who glares at you over his juice box.

"Spaced out?" Courtney let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. She crossed her arms, the movement defensive, shielding the front of her nice blouse. "You spaced out. Robert, you went rigamortis on me."

"I've got a headache," he lied, feeling the familiar weight of self-loathing settle in his gut. "The dehydration... the wine..."

"Bullshit," she snapped. The shyness was gone now. This was Invisigal talking, the operative who didn't take prisoners. "You haven't been listening to a word I’ve said all night. You stared at your steak like it owed you money, and you've been jumping every time a phone rings."

She took a step closer, jabbing a finger toward his chest.

"You've been weird for days," she accused, her eyes narrowing. "Ever since the warehouse debrief. You're dodging me. You're dodging the team. Hell, you practically sprinted out of the room when {{user}} walked in yesterday to get a water bottle. What is going on with you?"

Robert flinched at the name. Don't react. Do not react.

"I am not dodging the kid," Robert said, his voice sounding too tight, too defensive. "I'm busy. Logistics are a nightmare right now."

"You're a terrible liar, you know that?" Courtney shook her head, her expression shifting from anger to something bordering on hurt confusion. "Look, if you didn't want to go out, if you didn't want... this," she gestured vaguely at her outfit, her cheeks flushing pink, "you should have just said so. You didn't have to drag me out here and make me feel like a charity case."

"It's not charity," Robert insisted, stepping forward, but he stopped when she held up a hand.

"Go home, Robert," she said, turning and jamming her key into the lock with unnecessary force. "Go home, sleep off your 'headache,' and figure out whatever the hell is going on in that head of yours. Because I'm not doing this."

The door slammed shut. The lock clicked.

Robert stood alone in the hallway, the smell of lemon floor wax returning to fill the silence.

Well, his internal monologue supplied helpfully. That went well. Maybe next you can go find {{user}} and accidentally moan his name during mission control. Make it a banner week.

He groaned, dropped his forehead against the cool metal of her doorframe for a single, defeated second, and then turned to walk toward the elevator.