Archive of Our Own

The console beeped six times before Robert registered it. The SDN dispatch floor was in a frenzy with phones ringing constantly and the main screen cycling through active incidents so fast he could barely keep up. Fires, robberies, structural collapses, and some kind of massive chemical spill spreading through the warehouse district. The Z-Team was already deployed on three separate calls, and both the A-Team and C-Team were tied up with what looked like coordinated attacks on the financial district. Every available hero in the city was stretched thin, and the board in front of Robert showed nothing but red alerts and yellow warnings, no green indicators anywhere to suggest backup was coming anytime soon.  

"Robert, we've got another one," Chase called from across the floor, his voice cutting through the ringing phones and frantic radio chatter.  

Robert's fingers were already moving across the keyboard before his brain had finished processing the image flickering across his monitor. He bypassed the primary feed, routing through the city's traffic camera network instead. The system was overloaded, but the municipal grid still had bandwidth. Three keystrokes brought up the intersection camera at Fifth and Broadway. Another two pulled the feed from the parking garage across the street. He kept going, pulling camera angles from every vantage point he could access while his other hand reached for the radio to confirm what he was already seeing.  

Blonde Blazer was airborne, her cape whipping behind her in a streak of yellow against the darkening sky as she dove toward a figure that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space. The magic-user—Robert didn't have a name for them yet, just a threat assessment that kept climbing higher with every passing second—stood in the middle of Fifth Street wreathed in energy that pulsed and writhed like something alive. Purple light bled outward in waves that made the camera feeds distort and pixelate at the edges, the digital sensors struggling to process input that violated every law of physics they were designed to record. Reality itself was coming apart at the seams in a three-block radius that expanded with each pulse, and Robert watched it happen across six different camera angles simultaneously, each one showing him a slightly different version of the same nightmare.  

"Who do we have available?" Robert asked, though he already knew the answer from the dispatch board glowing in front of him, every single status light burning red to indicate deployment.  

"No one." Chase said from his own station, one hand pressed to his earpiece as he listened to incoming reports. "Everyone's deployed. Phenomaman's dealing with that warehouse fire on the east side. Last I heard he was holding up a support beam to keep the building from collapsing on the workers still trapped inside. Golem's handling the structural collapse downtown, and the rest of the Z-Team is spread so thin across the city they might as well not exist for all the good they can do us right now."  

Robert watched Blazer take a direct hit that sent her careening backward through a storefront window, the glass exploding outward in a shower of glittering fragments that caught the afternoon sunlight as they fell. She recovered fast, launching herself back into the air within seconds, but the magic-user was powerful, far too powerful for one hero alone to handle, even someone as strong as Blazer. The energy signatures on Robert's monitor were spiking into dangerous territory, the kind of readings that SDN training protocols specifically flagged as indicating catastrophic structural damage if the situation was allowed to continue much longer.   

Reality itself was destabilizing in a three-block radius, and the affected area was expanding with each passing minute, the purple waves of energy pulsing outward in concentric circles that grew larger with every pulse. He could see Blazer trying desperately to get close enough to land a solid hit, trying to use her superior speed and enhanced strength to overwhelm the magic-user before they could finish whatever spell they were clearly building toward, but every time she managed to close the distance, another massive wave of purple energy blasted her back, sending her tumbling through the air in an uncontrolled spin before she could right herself and try again.  

"Fuck," Robert muttered, and his eyes went to the reinforced door on the far side of the dispatch floor, the one that most people didn't pay much attention to because it just looked like another maintenance access point.  

The door led down to SDN's basement levels, where the Mecha Man suit had been stored for the past six months while Royd slowly, painstakingly rebuilt it piece by piece in his workshop. The suit wasn't perfect, not even close to what it used to be back when Robert's father wore it, but it was functional enough for field deployment. Royd had been making real progress lately. Updating the internal systems bit by bit, reinforcing the damaged plating with new composite materials he'd managed to source from various suppliers, and rerouting the power distribution network to work around the sections they couldn't repair yet because the replacement parts were either too expensive to justify in the budget or too rare to source through normal channels.   

The left arm still had significantly reduced mobility where the shoulder joint had sustained heavy damage during Robert's last major fight, and the flight stabilizers were only running at roughly seventy percent of their designed capacity, but the suit would hold together under combat conditions. It had to hold together, because Robert had tested it three times over the past month, taking it out for short flights around the SDN building in the dead of night when no one else was around to see him or ask awkward questions and each time the suit had performed exactly as Royd had promised it would, handling the flight tests without any major system failures or structural concerns.  

Chase followed his gaze across the dispatch floor, and Robert heard the old man's sharp intake of breath as he realized what Robert was thinking. "Don't even think about it."  

"She needs backup," Robert pointed out, already moving toward the door at a quick walk that was just short of an outright run.  

"Then we call someone else in," Chase countered, his voice taking on the edge that Robert recognized from years of knowing the man, the tone he used when he was about to dig in his heels and refuse to budge on something. "We pull from another district. We get someone here who isn't you, someone who doesn't have a goddamn target painted on their back by Shroud."  

"There's no time for that." Robert reached the door and placed his hand on the keypad, ready to punch in the access code. "You saw the readings on the monitor. If we wait for backup from another district to arrive, half of Fifth Street is going to collapse into whatever dimensional hole that is in the process of opening, and Blazer's going to be in the middle of it when it happens."  

Chase moved faster than Robert had seen him move in months, his hand shooting out to grab Robert's wrist before Robert could finish entering the security code on the keypad. The old man's grip was surprisingly strong despite his aged appearance, his fingers wrapping around Robert's wrist with enough force to make his point clear.

"Robert, listen to me." Chase's voice dropped low, the kind of quiet that meant he was serious rather than just annoyed. "Shroud is still out there. He's still actively hunting for the astral pulse, and you know damn well he's not going to stop just because we've been keeping our heads down and staying quiet."

Chase's jaw tightened, and Robert watched something flicker across the old man's weathered face. Not quite anger, but something closer to exhaustion, the kind that came from having this same argument too many times with too many people who never listened. Chase shifted his weight, pulling Robert's arm back toward him with a small, insistent tug.

"The second you suit up and broadcast your location across every frequency and news helicopter in the city, you become a target again." Chase's free hand came up to point at the keypad, then dropped back to his side like he'd thought better of the gesture. "You go out there in that suit, and you're telling Shroud exactly where to find you and the pulse."

Robert met Chase's eyes and saw the fear there beneath the anger and frustration, saw the way the old man's hand trembled slightly where it gripped Robert's wrist with desperate strength. Chase had lost too many people already over his long career as a hero. Had watched his own body betray him year after year as his powers aged him decades beyond his actual chronological age until he looked like someone's elderly grandfather instead of the young, vibrant hero he'd been when he first started using his super-speed. Robert understood the fear completely, understood exactly why Chase was trying so hard to keep him safe and out of harm's way, but understanding the motivation behind Chase's concern didn't change the fundamental facts of the situation they were facing. Blazer was out there alone right now, fighting something that could very easily kill her if she didn't get backup soon, and there was literally no one else available to help her except Robert.  

"I know what I'm risking." Robert said quietly, keeping his voice calm and level despite the urgency thrumming through his veins. "I know exactly what happens if Shroud detects the pulse signature when I power up the suit. But if I don't go help her right now, Blazer might die, and I'm not going to let that happen just because I was too scared to take a risk."  

Chase's grip tightened for a long moment, then he released him with a heavy sigh. "You're as stubborn as your father was." He said, and there was something complicated and layered in his voice, grief and pride and resignation all tangled together. "And just as stupid when it comes to throwing yourself into danger."  

Robert punched in the access code and pulled the door open, revealing the stairwell that led down into the basement levels beneath the dispatch floor. The air from below carried the familiar smell of machine oil and ozone and the particular scent of Royd's workshop that Robert had come to associate with the engineer's work space over the past several months of watching the suit slowly come back together.  

"At least take your comm," Chase said, pulling a small earpiece from his pocket and pressing it into Robert's hand. "If you're going to do something this idiotic, I want to be able to yell at you while you're doing it."  

Robert took the earpiece, fitted it into his ear, and started down the stairs. His footsteps echoed in the enclosed space, a steady rhythm that matched the pounding of his hear. He could still back out, could turn around right now and call for backup from another district, wait for someone else to arrive and help Blazer. But the image of her being thrown through that storefront window was burned into his mind, and he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he stayed safe while she fought alone. The stairwell opened into a long hallway lined with storage rooms and old equipment, and at the far end, Robert could see the light spilling out from Royd's workshop. He walked faster, his shoes squeaking slightly on the polished floor, and pushed through the workshop door without bothering to knock.

Royd looked up from the workbench where he'd been hunched over some piece of machinery, his reading glasses perched on his nose and a welding torch in one hand. "Eh, brah!" he said cheerfully, pulling his safety goggles up onto his forehead. "What you doing down here? I thought you was busy upstairs with—" He stopped, his eyes going to something behind Robert, and his expression shifted. "Oh. You here for the suit."  

"I need it," Robert said. "Now."  

Royd set down the welding torch and straightened up, wiping his hands on a rag that was already so stained with grease it probably made things worse instead of better. "You sure about this? Because I gotta tell you, the suit's good, yeah, but it's not perfect. That left shoulder still giving me trouble, and the power distribution's not quite balanced the way I want it. And—" He hesitated, glancing past Robert toward the stairwell like he expected Chase to come charging down at any moment. "And you know Shroud still looking for that Pulse, yeah? You go out there, you put yourself on his radar again."  

"I know," Robert said. "But Blazer needs help, and there's no one else available. I'm not asking for permission, Royd. I'm telling you I'm taking the suit."  

Royd studied him for a long moment, then sighed and turned toward the back of the workshop, where the Mecha Man suit stood in its cradle. "Yeah, okay. I figured you was going say something like that. Your pops, he was the same way—stubborn as anything when somebody needed help." He walked over to the suit and started running through a quick diagnostic check. "Just promise me you going be careful ? This suit, she's strong, but she's not invincible. You take a bad hit in the wrong place, and I can't guarantee she going hold together."  

Robert crossed the workshop and stood in front of the suit, looking up at the familiar lines of it, the places where Royd had welded new plates over the damaged sections, the faint glow of the Astral Pulse visible through the chest housing. It looked smaller than he remembered, more battered, but it was still his suit, still the legacy his father and grandfather had left him. He reached out and touched the chestplate, feeling the cool metal under his palm, and felt something settle in him, some piece of himself clicking back into place after months of being adrift.  

"I'll be careful," he said, though they both knew it was a lie.  

Royd nodded and stepped back, gesturing toward the suit. "She's all yours, brah."  

Suiting up was muscle memory, his hands finding every clasp and seal and connection point without needing to think about it. The suit closed around him with a series of mechanical clicks and pneumatic hisses in a way that felt like coming home. The display screen flickered to life, bathing his vision in soft blue light as diagnostics ran automatically; scrolling past in a stream of green and amber text that confirmed most systems were operational. The left arm showed reduced mobility in the shoulder joint, just like Royd had warned, and the flight stabilizers were reading at seventy-two percent, but everything else was green. It was enough. It had to be enough.  

"Blazer, this is Dispatch," Robert said into the comms. "I'm en route to your location. ETA two minutes."  

There was a pause, filled with the sound of wind and distant explosions, and then Blazer's voice came through, breathless and strained. "Robert? What are you doing? You're supposed to be coordinating from base, not—" Another explosion cut her off, and Robert heard her grunt with effort. "Damn it, Robert, you can't be out here. Shroud is still looking for the pulse, and if he finds out you're using the suit again—"  

"Plans change," Robert said, and fired the thrusters.  

The suit launched him upward through the workshop's reinforced launch tube, a vertical shaft that Royd had installed specifically for this purpose, and then he was bursting out into open air, the city spreading out below him in a glittering sprawl of lights and movement. The wind hit him immediately, buffeting against the suit's exterior, and Robert adjusted his trajectory, banking hard toward downtown where the purple energy signatures were lighting up his screen like a beacon. He could see the destruction from here, the way reality was bending and warping, buildings leaning at impossible angles and streets folding in on themselves. Civilians were running in every direction, trying to escape the expanding radius of chaos, and Robert could see emergency vehicles converging on the area, their lights flashing uselessly as they tried to establish a perimeter.  

He found her a minute and a half later, grappling with the magic-user in the middle of the street. The villain was humanoid, barely, their body crackling with purple energy that distorted the air around them. Every time Blazer got a hit in, the magic seemed to absorb the impact, redistributing the force in unpredictable bursts. A car lifted off the ground and hurtled toward a group of fleeing civilians. Blazer broke off her attack to intercept it, catching the vehicle and setting it down hard.  

Robert didn't give the magic-user time to recover. He came in fast, thrusters screaming, and slammed into them at full speed. The impact sent them both crashing through the front of a shuttered electronics store with glass and metal exploding outward. Robert rolled to his feet, the suit's servos whining as he brought his fists up. The magic-user staggered upright, energy coiling around their hands, and Robert fired the wrist-mounted repulsors before they could cast. The blast caught them center mass, sending them stumbling backward into a display of old televisions.  

"You're late," Blazer said, landing beside him in a crouch. She looked roughed up, her suit scuffed and torn in places, but her eyes were sharp.  

"Traffic was hell," Robert said, and then the magic-user screamed.  

The energy exploded outward in a shockwave of raw magical force that blew out every window on the block in a cascading spray of glass. Robert's display screen lit up red across his entire field of view, warnings piling on top of warnings so fast he couldn't track them all, the suit's systems straining to compensate for the magical onslaught hammering into the armor plating. He got his arms up just in time, the reinforced metal absorbing most of the impact, but the force of it rattled through the entire frame hard enough that his teeth clicked together. Across the street, Blazer went tumbling backward across the asphalt in an uncontrolled roll before she caught herself mid-air and launched back toward the fight.  

They worked well together. Blazer drew the magic-user's attention with quick darting attacks that forced the villain to split their focus between tracking her movements and defending against Robert's covering fire. Robert hung back just enough to provide support, the suit's repulsors hammering out blast after blast every time the villain tried to build up energy for another big spell. It was working, slowly but surely wearing down their opponent. The purple energy crackling around the villain's body started flickering instead of burning steady, the movements getting slower and sloppier as exhaustion set in.  

Then they stopped attacking entirely. Both hands came forward at once, and the purple energy surged toward Robert in a solid wall of power. He tried to dodge, twisting the suit's thrusters to get clear, but the blast was too wide and moving too fast. It caught him dead center in the chest, and the astral pulse reacted immediately.  

The power core flared bright enough to wash out his vision for a second, unstable and wild, and Robert felt the suit lock up around him. Every joint froze mid-motion. The mech screen went completely haywire, error messages scrolling past faster than he could possibly read them, and the alarms started blaring so loud in his ears that he couldn't hear anything else. He couldn't move at all, couldn't even turn his head. And the magic kept pouring into the suit's systems, seeping into the circuitry and corrupting everything it touched. The Pulse tried to compensate by drawing more power to fight off the intrusion, but it was too much all at once. The energy feedback loop built higher and higher, and Robert knew with cold certainty that if it didn't stop right now, the suit was going to tear itself apart with him still inside it.  

"Mecha Man!" Blazer's voice cut through the noise, and then she was right there in front of him, her hands finding the chestplate. She ripped the manual release open without hesitation and the suit split apart down the middle. Robert fell forward before he could catch himself, and Blazer grabbed him, her arms solid and strong as she hauled him clear of the wreckage.

The suit crashed onto the ground below them, metal shrieking against pavement, and pieces of the suit snapping loose and skittering across the street. One of the shoulder plates bounced twice before spinning to a stop near a fire hydrant. Robert watched the astral pulse flicker wildly through the gap, strobing purple-white-purple before stabilizing into something dim and unsteady.

Five months.

Five months of Royd hunched over workbenches at two in the morning, muttering to himself while he soldered connections so fine Robert couldn't even see them with his regular eyesight. Five months of sourcing parts from suppliers who charged triple because they knew SDN had the funds to pay for them. Five months of Robert sitting cross-legged on the floor, handing Royd tools and listening to him explain exactly why the power distribution network needed to be rerouted through the secondary relays instead of the primary ones.The new composite plating Royd had fabricated by hand because the original manufacturer went out of business in 1987. The flight stabilizers they'd calibrated together over six separate test runs, adjusting thrust ratios by fractions of a percent until the suit handled almost as smoothly as it had when his father wore it. All of it lay crumpled on the sidewalk now, smoke curling from the joints, sparks spitting intermittently from exposed wiring.

Fantastic.

The magic-user was gone. Fled, teleported or just dissolved back into whatever dimensional hole they'd crawled out of. Robert couldn't tell and didn't particularly care at the moment because his ears were ringing so loud he could barely think, and his whole body felt like someone had put him through an industrial blender. Blazer was talking, he could see her mouth moving, but he couldn't make out a single word over the high-pitched whine still echoing inside his skull. He blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to focus properly, and realized with some distant part of his brain that she was holding him off the ground entirely, cradled against her like he weighed nothing at all.  

"I'm okay." The words came out rough and shaky, his voice not quite working right. "I'm fine."  

"You better be." Blazer's voice was shaking just as badly as his was. She set him down with obvious care, keeping one hand on his arm to steady him when his legs wobbled underneath him. Behind them, the mech suit looked like a disaster, the chestplate peeled back to expose the guts of the machine, wires hanging loose everywhere, the whole frame tilted at an angle that suggested it might just give up and collapse completely if anyone so much as breathed on it wrong.  

Robert stared at the wreckage. "Royd's going to kill me."  

Blazer let out a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been something closer to a sob. "Royd's going to have to get in line."  

They made it back to SDN an hour later, after the cleanup crews had finished cordoning off the entire affected area and Chase had sent out what few teams they still had available to handle the aftermath and secure the scene. Blazer carried the suit the whole way back, slinging the entire damaged frame over her shoulder like it was nothing more than an oversized gym bag, and Robert walked beside her on legs that still felt unsteady but mostly functional. His ribs ached with every breath, and his head was pounding hard enough that he was going to need painkillers soon, but nothing seemed actually broken. He'd take that as a win under the circumstances.  

Royd was waiting for them in the equipment bay with his arms crossed over his chest, and the expression on his face when he caught sight of them made Robert seriously consider turning around and walking straight back out the door. The engineer took one long look at the suit, then shifted his gaze to Robert, and let out a slow breath through his teeth that somehow managed to convey more disappointment than any words could have.  

"Brah." Royd's voice was carefully neutral. "What did you do!?"  

"It's not that bad." Robert tried, knowing even as he said it that it was a losing argument.  

Royd pointed at the chestplate, where the metal had been scorched completely black and half the internal components were visible through the ragged gap torn in the armor. "Not that bad? Rob, I can see the pulse from here, and it's not supposed to glow like that, yeah?"  

Robert rubbed the back of his neck, offering a sheepish grin. "Look, I know it's bad, but... maybe with some duct tape and optimism? We could buff it out?"  

"It will not buff out." Royd walked over to the damaged suit and poked at the warped plating with one finger, his expression growing more pained with every new detail he noticed. "This going take me weeks to fix. Maybe months. You know how hard it is to get parts for this thing? Your grandpa built it back in the seventies. They don't make this stuff anymore, and the suppliers I got, they charge me extra just for looking at the components."  

"I know." Robert felt the guilt settle in his stomach. "I'm sorry. I'll help with the repairs however I can."  

Royd sighed, but some of the tension went out of his shoulders. "Yeah, yeah. We figure it out, same as always. Just maybe next time, don't go flying straight into magic blasts, yeah? The suit, she strong, but she not invincible. You push her too hard, she going break for real."  

Robert nodded. "Noted."  

Blazer set the suit down carefully in its maintenance cradle, stepping back and brushing her hands off on her suit. "I'm going to file the incident report. You should go home, get some rest before you fall over."  

Robert nodded again, but neither of them moved right away. They stood there in the equipment bay with the wreckage of the suit between them, and Robert realized he didn't actually want to go home. Home was just him and Beef and an apartment that felt too empty and too quiet. Full of reminders of a life that didn't quite fit anymore. Here at SDN, at least there were people around. There was noise and movement and the sense that he was still part of something larger, even if he wasn't entirely sure what that something was these days or where exactly he fit into it.  

"Hey," he said before Blazer could turn to leave. "You want to grab dinner or something?"  

She turned back to look at him, one eyebrow going up. "Dinner?"  

"Yeah." He tried for a grin, though he was pretty sure he looked more exhausted than charming at this point, his ribs still aching from where the suit had locked up around him and his head still pounding from the feedback loop that had nearly fried his brain. "I mean, we just survived a wizard trying to blow us up with magic. Seems like a decent excuse to celebrate not being dead." He paused, watching her face for any sign of what she might be thinking, trying to gauge whether this was a terrible idea or just a mildly bad one. "Unless you've got other plans already."  

Blazer studied him for a long moment, long enough that Robert started to think maybe he'd misjudged this completely, and then something shifted in her expression. She let out a small breath and crossed her arms, but there was the faintest hint of amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Are you asking me out on a date, Robertson?"  

Robert leaned back against the equipment bay wall, going for casual confidence and hoping he was pulling it off. "Maybe I am. You worried you'll say yes?"  

Blazer didn't answer immediately. Her arms stayed crossed, but her weight shifted slightly, her hip leaning against a nearby workbench. When she looked at him, there was something careful in her expression, like she was still deciding what this conversation was. Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth curved upward. "You know, most people would be in a hospital bed right now. Or at least sitting down." She tilted her head, studying him with something caught between exasperation and genuine curiosity.

Robert pushed off the wall, taking a step closer, closing some of the space between them without crowding her. His hands stayed at his sides, loose, but his eyes didn't leave hers. "That wasn't a no."  

She gave him a look that might have been annoyance if not for the way her mouth kept trying to twitch upward. "Fine. Dinner. But you're buying, since you just cost the department several months of repair work and probably gave Royd at least three new gray hairs."  

Robert let the grin spread across his face, even though his ribs protested and his head still felt like someone had used it as a drum. "Deal."  

They ended up at a small Italian place a few blocks from SDN, tucked between a dry cleaner and a pawn shop. The hostess glanced at them once, seated them in a corner booth, and disappeared without fanfare. Blazer had powered down before they left, and now Mandy sat across from him.

They ordered wine and pasta and for the first half of the meal, they stuck to safe ground. Work. The stress of the day. The incident reports Robert would have to file, the repairs Royd was already complaining about over text message, each notification more aggrieved than the last. They talked about the magic-user, about the damage to Fifth Street, about how the cleanup crews were going to be dealing with warped reality for at least a week because that was just how magic worked when it destabilized an entire city block. It was easy, familiar, and Robert let himself relax into it.

But somewhere between dessert and the third pour, the conversation shifted. Mandy started talking about the Phoenix Program, about the early days when it was just her and a few ex-villains who didn't trust her and definitely didn't trust each other. She told him about the fights she'd had with the board. The compromises she'd made to get funding, the nights she'd sat in her office wondering if she was wasting everyone's time trying to rehabilitate people who didn't want to be rehabilitated. Her voice stayed even, but there was something underneath it. A kind of exhaustion that Robert recognized because he'd felt it himself more times than he could count. It was the particular weariness of caring too much about something that might be pointless, of putting everything you had into a project that could fail spectacularly and take you down with it.  

"You know what gets me, though?" Mandy set her glass down and leaned back in the booth, her hand drifting to her plate. "The Z-Team. I look at where they are now compared to when they first walked through the door, and it's... God, it's night and day."  

Robert watched her face as she talked, the way it softened when she mentioned the team, the pride there even though she was trying to keep it low-key and professional. She cared about them. Really cared, not in the abstract way that looked good in press releases but in the specific way that meant she knew exactly how far each of them had come and what it had cost them to get there. It was the kind of caring that showed up in details, in remembering Golem's dietary evolution and Flambae's incremental progress toward not being a walking arson charge.  

She paused, her fingers tracing the rim of her wine glass without actually picking it up. "Sometimes I forget how far they've come until I stop and actually think about it. And then I remember what they were like at the beginning, and I think... maybe I'm not wasting my time after all. Maybe this is working."  

Robert opened his mouth to respond, then stopped. Something on the wall behind Mandy had caught his attention. He'd noticed it earlier when they first sat down but hadn't really looked at it, just registered it as generic restaurant decoration and moved on. Now, though, he actually focused on it, and his brain processed what he was seeing.  

It was a wall of framed photos. Heroes, mostly. The kind of thing you saw in a lot of establishments in this city, a sort of informal shrine to the people who kept the place from falling apart on a weekly basis. But this one was... specific. Really specific. There were maybe thirty frames total, and at least twenty of them featured Blonde Blazer in various poses and situations. Blazer stopping a runaway bus. Blazer pulling someone out of a collapsed building. Blazer shaking hands with the governor. A few of the other frames showed different heroes, SDN personnel Robert vaguely recognized, but the overwhelming majority of the wall was dedicated to her.  

Mandy must have noticed his attention shift because she turned in her seat to follow his gaze. She went very still when she saw the wall. For a long moment, she just stared at it, her face unreadable.  

"That's..." She trailed off, then tried again. "That's a lot of me."  

"Yeah." Robert didn't know what else to say. It was objectively impressive. Definitely the kind of recognition most heroes would kill for, but something about Mandy's expression made him think she wasn't feeling particularly flattered right now.  

She turned back to face him, and there was something complicated in her eyes. Not embarrassment, exactly. Something deeper. "You know what's funny?" Her voice was quiet now, almost too quiet to hear over the ambient noise of the restaurant. "People love Blonde Blazer. They put her on walls and in newspapers and on those stupid commemorative mugs. She's everywhere. But Mandy?" She gestured at herself, small and dark-haired and decidedly not seven feet tall. "Nobody knows who Mandy is. Nobody cares."  

Robert frowned. "That's not true."  

"Isn't it?" She picked up her wine glass after all, took a small sip. "I could walk down the street right now and nobody would look twice at me. I could sit next to someone on the bus and they wouldn't have any idea that I'm the same person they were cheering for yesterday when Blazer stopped that chemical spill in the nuclear plant. Because Mandy isn't the hero. Blazer is. And sometimes I wonder if that's all I am to people. Just... the amulet. The powers. The image."  

She set the glass down again, harder than she probably meant to. "Sorry. That's... I shouldn't be dumping this on you. It's stupid."  

"It's not stupid." Robert leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "You're scared people only care about Blazer."  

Mandy let out a short, humorless laugh. "I'm not scared. I know they do. I've seen the way people react when I'm powered up versus when I'm not. The difference is pretty fucking clear."  

"I care about Mandy." The words came out before Robert could really think about them, but once they were out there, he didn't want to take them back. "I asked Mandy to dinner. Not Blazer."  

She looked at him for a long moment, something shifting in her face. Softening, maybe, or just... relaxing. Like she'd been holding herself tense and only just now realized she could let go. "Yeah?"  

"Yeah." Robert reached across the table and brushed his fingers against hers. Just a light touch, barely there, but she turned her hand over and let him take it. "I'm not here because you're a superhero. I'm here because you're you."  

Mandy's fingers curled around his. "You don't have to say that just to make me feel better."  

"I'm not." Robert squeezed her hand gently. "I mean it. You're... fuck, I don't know how to say this without sounding corny, but you're real when you're like this. When you're Mandy. Blazer's impressive, yeah, but she's also... I don't know. She's the job. You're the person."  

Something in Mandy's expression cracked, just a little. "I don't want to be the job forever," she said quietly. "I want... God, this is going to sound so fucking mundane, but I want normal things. A life that isn't just hero work and board meetings. I want someone who sees me, not the amulet. Someone who wants Mandy, not what Mandy can do when she transforms."  

Robert nodded slowly, his thumb tracing an absent pattern against the back of her hand where their fingers stayed intertwined on the table. "That makes sense." 

"Does it?" She was still holding his hand, her thumb brushing against his knuckles. The motion looked unconscious, like she wasn't even aware she was doing it. "Because sometimes I feel like I'm asking for something impossible. Like wanting to be chosen as myself instead of as Blazer is just... naive. Or selfish. Or both." 

"It's not." Robert leaned forward slightly, holding her gaze so she'd know he meant it. "It's not naive, and it's not selfish. It's just... wanting to be loved for who you are. That's pretty fucking reasonable, Mandy." 

She looked down at their joined hands, then back up at him, and the careful composure she usually maintained had cracked open just enough for him to see underneath it. The confidence, the leadership, the whole superhero thing. All of that had fallen away, and what was left was just Mandy, scared and hoping and trying not to show how much this mattered to her. He wanted to fix it for her somehow, wanted to say something that would make her believe him, but he'd never been good with words when they actually counted. 

"Thank you," she said quietly. 

Robert huffed out a short breath, amused. "For what? Having functional eyeballs? Being able to see what's right in front of me?" He squeezed her fingers where they were still intertwined with his. "Pretty low bar, Mandy." 

She laughed, the sound quiet but real, and some of the tension in her shoulders finally eased. "You know what I mean." 

"Yeah." He did. And he wasn't going to make her spell it out, wasn't going to force her to get more vulnerable than she'd already been tonight. "I know." 

They finished their wine, letting the conversation drift into easier territory like their favorite movies, terrible first jobs, and the most ridiculous calls Robert had handled at dispatch. He told her about the time Flambae had accidentally set a tree on fire while trying to impress a civilian. She told him about how during her first week trying to train the new heroes in the Phoenix Program, she'd accidentally destroyed three training dummies and a coffee maker in the same afternoon, and Robert found himself laughing harder than he had in months. When the check came, he grabbed it before Mandy could reach for her wallet, dropping his card on the tray without looking at the total because he really didn't want to know how much of his paycheck had just gone toward one dinner. Definitely worth it, though, based on the way Mandy noticed what he'd done and her whole face softened. 

Outside, the city had gone dark and cool, the streets lit by the orange glow of streetlamps and the occasional neon sign from late-night shops still open for business. They walked without a real destination, just moving through the city together, and Robert noticed how Mandy's shoulder almost brushed his but didn't quite and how their footsteps fell into sync without either of them trying to match the other's pace. The night air smelled like rain coming, that particular heaviness that meant a storm was building somewhere over the bay, and Robert breathed it in and let himself enjoy the simple fact of being here, walking next to someone who actually wanted to walk next to him. 

"Thanks," Mandy said after a while, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them. "For tonight. I needed this." 

"Yeah." Robert glanced over at her, catching the streetlight playing across her features, the way it caught the darker shade of her hair now that the amulet was off. She looked different like this. He liked it. "Me too." 

She stopped walking and turned to face him, the toes of her shoes nearly touching his on the sidewalk. "Robert, can I ask you something?" 

He waited, hands in his pockets, watching her gather whatever thought she was working through. A car passed on the street beside them, headlights sweeping across the pavement before disappearing around the corner, and in the quiet that followed Robert could hear his own breathing, could feel his pulse doing something complicated at the base of his throat. 

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked. "Taking the job instead of staying in the field?" 

Robert thought about it. Really thought about it, because she deserved an honest answer and not just the easy one. There were days when the answer was yes. Days when he missed the simplicity of being Mecha Man, the clear-cut battles with obvious villains, the feeling of making a visible difference in a way that was immediate and undeniable and didn't require sitting at a desk watching other people do the actual work. Those days sucked. But there were other days too, more of them lately, when he thought maybe this was where he was supposed to be. Maybe being the person who kept the team running, who made sure the Z-Team had what they needed to actually succeed, was just as important as being the one throwing punches. Maybe it was more important, even if it didn't come with photo walls in Italian restaurants or commemorative mugs or people recognizing him on the street. 

"No," he said finally. "I don't regret it." 

Mandy nodded, and the tension in her shoulders eased just slightly. "Good. Because I'm glad you're here." 

"Yeah?" Robert took a step closer, closing some of the distance between them. The night air was cool against his skin, but he barely noticed. "Why's that?" 

Mandy's expression shifted, something playful flickering across her face even as she stayed close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating off her skin in the cool night air. "Because you're here," she said, and her hand found his where it hung at his side, fingers threading through his like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Because when I'm Blazer, everyone sees the hero, but when I'm with you, I get to just be Mandy. And I really like being Mandy when you're around." 

"Plus," Mandy continued, stepping even closer until there was barely any space left between them, her free hand coming up to rest against his chest where his heart was doing something stupid and obvious beneath his ribs, "you look really good when you're not bleeding or concussed. Which is a nice change from the usual." 

Robert let out a surprised laugh, caught off-guard by the shift from serious to teasing in the span of two seconds. "Thanks. I think." 

"You're welcome." Mandy's mouth curved up at one corner, teasing, but then her expression changed. Her eyes went half-lidded as she looked at him, and her free hand came up to touch his jaw, fingers light against his skin. She had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze and Robert watched her lean closer, watched her eyes drop to his mouth and then back up again. She was asking. The question was obvious even without words, written in the angle of her body and the way her thumb brushed against his cheekbone and the slight parting of her lips. 

Robert closed the distance between them. 

Her mouth was soft and warm, and she tasted faintly like the wine they'd been drinking, and when he kissed her she made a small sound against his lips that went straight through him. He brought his free hand up to cup the back of her head, fingers sliding into her hair, and felt her press closer until they were standing chest to chest on the empty sidewalk with the city going on around them like it didn't matter at all. The kiss deepened, slower than he'd expected, both of them taking their time with it now that they'd started. Her hand slid from his jaw to the back of his neck, and Robert felt her fingers curl into the hair at his nape, and he forgot for a second that they were standing on a public street where anyone could see them. He pulled back just enough to breathe, and Mandy's eyes were dark when she looked at him, her lips slightly swollen from the kiss. 

"Come back to my place," she said quietly. 

Robert didn't need to be told twice. 

- - - - - -  

The apartment door swung shut behind them, and Robert's back met the wall before he could draw another breath. Mandy's mouth found his immediately, her hands already sliding up his chest to grip his shoulders. Even without the amulet's power coursing through her veins, her strength still surprised him. Her fingers dug into muscle, anchoring him in place while she kissed him like she'd been thinking about nothing else since they left the restaurant. He kissed back just as hard, one hand splaying across the small of her back to pull her flush against him while the other braced beside his head for balance. All that careful politeness from dinner dissolved between one heartbeat and the next, replaced by something rawer, more urgent. She still tasted like wine, and when her tongue swept against his, a low sound escaped him before he could stop it.  

Mandy pulled back just far enough to breathe. Her eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, and the way she looked at him made something hot coil low in his gut. "Bedroom."  

Robert managed a nod, letting her take his hand and tug him deeper into the apartment. They made it maybe three steps before she turned back to kiss him again, and he went willingly, his hands finding her waist as she walked backward down the short hallway. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, working them open one by one with more patience than he expected given how she'd just kissed him against the wall. He felt the fabric part under her touch, cool air hitting his skin as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders. He shrugged out of it without breaking the kiss, let it fall somewhere behind him, and then her hands were on his bare chest, her fingertips dragging light over his collarbones, down to his ribs, mapping him like she wanted to memorize every angle.  

He fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, his hands clumsy until he finally worked it off. Mandy stepped back enough to shimmy her leggings down her hips and let them pool at her feet before kicking them aside. She reached for his belt before he'd fully registered the sight of her standing there in just her bra and underwear, her hair mussed from his fingers, her mouth wet and plump from kissing, her eyes locked on him. He had to pause, had to breathe through the sudden rush of wanting her, and then his hands were moving, undoing his belt before she could because he didn't trust himself if she kept looking at him like that. He shoved his pants down along with his shoes in a graceless series of movements that involved too much hopping on one foot. Mandy laughed, the sound soft and warm.  

They made it to the bedroom still kissing, still touching, hands roaming over newly exposed skin. Robert's fingers traced the curve of her spine, the line of her shoulder, slid down to rest at the small of her back where he could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of her underwear. When they reached the bed, Robert didn't think about it, just bent and lifted her, his hands going under her thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist, arms looping around his neck, and he carried her the last few steps before setting her down on the mattress.  

Mandy scooted back on the bed, making room, and Robert followed. He climbed up to settle over her as she pulled him down into another kiss, this one slower, deeper, her tongue sliding against his in a rhythm that made his hips press forward without conscious thought. Her hands slid into his hair, nails scraping lightly against his scalp, and he made a sound he couldn't quite suppress, something between a groan and a sigh that she seemed to enjoy based on how her fingers tightened. He kissed her harder, let one hand slide down her side to her hip, then back up to cup her breast through the fabric of her bra. She arched into the touch, a soft noise escaping her that went straight to his cock, and Robert took that as permission to reach around and unhook the clasp.  

The bra came off easily, tossed somewhere to the side of the bed, and Robert pulled back just enough to look at her properly. Mandy let him, her breathing quick, her eyes watching his face, and then he leaned down to kiss her again, his mouth trailing from her lips to her jaw to the hollow of her throat. She tilted her head back, one hand still in his hair and the other gripping his shoulder hard enough that he could feel the press of her nails through his skin.  

Robert kissed his way down her chest, took his time exploring the curve of her breast with his mouth before closing his lips around one nipple and sucking gently. Mandy's back arched off the bed, her fingers tightening in his hair almost painfully, and he did it again, harder this time, flicking his tongue over the sensitive peak until she was making small, breathless sounds that he felt more than heard. He switched to the other side, gave it the same attention, and by the time he pulled back, she was breathing hard and looking at him with lust written all over her face.  

"Off," she said, tugging at the waistband of his underwear.  

Robert sat back on his heels to shove them down his thighs and kick them off entirely. Mandy's eyes tracked the movement, lingering on him in a way that made heat crawl up the back of his neck despite everything they'd already done, and then she hooked her thumbs into the sides of her own underwear.   

Robert stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "Let me."  

Mandy's mouth curved into a small smile as she let her hands fall back to the bed. Robert shifted lower, settling between her legs, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee just to see what she'd do. She watched him, lips parted, eyes dark, and he took that as encouragement. He kissed his way up her thigh, slow and purposeful, letting his breath ghost over her skin in a way that made her shift restlessly beneath him. When he reached the edge of her underwear, he paused, looked up at her to make sure this was still okay, and found her already nodding before he could ask.  

He hooked his teeth carefully into the fabric, tugging it down over her hips in a move that made Mandy's breath catch audibly. The delicate lace slid against her skin as he worked it lower, his mouth following the path of the fabric as it revealed more of her. She lifted her hips to help him, and he appreciated the cooperation even as he took his time with it, drawing out the moment because he could feel her anticipation building with every second that passed. He pulled them all the way off, taking care not to rush despite the urgency thrumming through his own veins.  

Then he returned his attention to her thighs, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive skin there, alternating between soft brushes of his lips and the sharp edge of his teeth. He worked his way up slowly, paying attention to the way her muscles tensed and relaxed under his touch, the way her breathing changed when he found a particularly responsive spot. When he nipped at the soft flesh of her inner thigh she made a frustrated sound low in her throat.  

"Robert." Her voice carried a note of demand now, breathless but firm.  

There was an edge to her voice that he liked, a hint of impatience that told him he was on the right track. He grinned against her thigh, pressed one more kiss there, then finally gave her what she wanted. Robert started slow, his tongue dragging through her folds in broad, slow strokes, learning the shape of her and the way she responded to different pressures and rhythms. He circled her clit with the tip of his tongue, then sealed his lips around it and sucked gently. Mandy gasped, her hand flying to his hair again, and he took that as approval. He did it again while bringing one hand up, sliding a finger inside her.  

"Fuck, just like that," Mandy said, her voice breathless and wrecked already. "Don't stop."  

She was wet, slick and warm around his finger, and the sound she made when he curled it upward was possibly the best thing he'd ever heard. He added a second finger, working them in and out in a steady rhythm while his mouth stayed focused on her clit. But then he pulled his fingers out, replaced them with his tongue, fucking into her with slow, filthy strokes while his face got wet from her. He licked into her like he was starving for it, like she was the only thing he wanted to taste, his tongue stroking deep and then pulling back to lave over her folds, catching every drop before diving back in. He alternated between fucking her with his tongue and dragging it flat over her clit, then back down to push inside her again, over and over until his jaw ached and his face was a mess and Mandy was rocking her hips against his mouth in time with his movements.  

"God, Robert, your mouth—fuck—" The words came out broken, punctuated by gasps, and Robert doubled down, sealing his lips around her clit and sucking while he slid two fingers back inside her, crooking them just right. Mandy's thighs trembled on either side of his head, her hand in his hair pulling him closer even as her breathing went ragged and uneven.  

When Robert flicked his tongue over her clit one more time while curling his fingers inside her, she broke.  

"Fuck, Robert, fuck—" Her whole body went taut, her hand in his hair pulling him closer as she came, her thighs shaking on either side of his head.  

Robert kept going, gentler now, letting her ride it out until she finally relaxed back against the bed with a shaky exhale. He sat back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he looked at her. Mandy's eyes were closed, her breathing still uneven, and she looked thoroughly undone.  

It took her a moment to recover, but when she did, she opened her eyes and fixed him with a look that was almost predatory, dark and intent in a way that made Robert's breath catch. "Your turn."  

Before Robert could formulate a response, she was sitting up and pushing him down onto his back with a firm hand on his chest. He went willingly, more than willingly, letting her arrange him exactly how she wanted while his heart hammered against his ribs. Then she was kissing her way down his chest, her mouth hot and soft against his skin, and her hands were already wrapping around his cock with a confidence that made his breath stutter in his lungs.  

She started with her mouth on his inner thigh instead of where he was already aching for her attention, pressing tender kisses to the sensitive skin there while her fingers traced idle, maddening patterns on his other leg. Robert's breathing picked up immediately when she moved higher, her lips dragging along the crease where his thigh met his hip, so close to where he desperately wanted her but not quite there yet, and the anticipation alone was enough to make him dizzy. She took her time with it, clearly in no rush whatsoever, switching sides to give his other thigh the same thorough attention, kissing and nipping at the tender flesh.  

When her breath finally ghosted across the head of his cock, feather-light and warm, Robert tensed, every muscle in his body coiling tight as he waited for her to take him in her mouth. But she didn't. Instead, she placed a single kiss there, so gentle it was almost chaste, then pulled back to blow cool air across the wet spot she'd left behind. He made a sound low in his throat, something caught between frustration and desperate need, and felt her smile against his skin.  

"Mandy, come on," he managed, his voice already rough and unsteady.  

Her tongue flicked out, just the very tip of it, catching the underside of his cock in a brief, teasing touch before withdrawing completely. Then again, a little higher this time, another small lick that went nowhere near being enough. Small licks, barely there, mapping him with infuriating thoroughness while Robert's knuckles went white against the pillow. Every single time he thought she might finally take him properly, might finally give him what he needed, she'd pull back, returning to kissing his thighs or tracing meaningless patterns with her tongue that went nowhere near where he desperately needed her to be.  

"Mandy, please—" The word came out closer to a whimper, raw and unfiltered.  

She hummed low in her throat, the vibration traveling through him and making his hips jerk involuntarily, and only then, only after she'd reduced him to begging, did she finally take him into her mouth properly. The sudden wet heat and pressure after all that teasing pulled a ragged, broken sound from deep in his chest; something he couldn't have held back if he'd tried. His head fell back hard against the pillow as she set a rhythm that was still torturously, agonizingly slow but finally, finally what he'd been aching for since she'd started this.  

Her mouth felt absolutely incredible, better than anything he could have imagined. She took him deeper than he'd expected, relaxing her throat, her tongue working constantly against the underside of his cock in a way that made his calves tense. She pulled back slowly until just the head rested on her tongue, letting him feel every second of the loss, then sank down again, setting a rhythm that had Robert's fingers gripping the sheets hard enough that his knuckles went white and stayed that way. Every single time she took him deep, she moaned, a low sound of genuine pleasure that vibrated through his entire body and made his hips twitch with the effort of keeping still. He had to actively focus on keeping still, on forcing himself to let her control the pace completely, because if he didn't, if he let himself move the way his body was screaming at him to, he was going to cum embarrassingly fast and ruin this.  

"Mandy, I'm—" He couldn't even finish the warning, his voice breaking on her name. Robert grabbed blindly for her shoulder, his fingers digging into muscle as he tried to ground himself. "Close. Really close."  

She pulled off with a wet, obscene sound that echoed in the quiet of the bedroom, looking up at him with a small, deeply satisfied smile that told him she knew exactly what she was doing to him. "Not yet. I'm not done with you."  

Then she was moving, shifting her weight to straddle him properly, positioning herself over his cock with one hand while the other braced firmly against his chest. Robert's hands immediately went to her waist as she lowered herself slowly, inch by absolutely torturous inch, until he was fully seated inside her and they were pressed together as closely as two people could possibly be. He forced his eyes to stay open despite how badly he wanted to let them fall shut, because he needed to watch her face as she adjusted to him, needed to see the way her expression shifted and her breath caught.  

Mandy started to move after a long moment, rolling her hips in a slow, grinding motion that had Robert's fingers automatically tightening on her waist in response. She took her time building up to anything approaching a faster rhythm, clearly in absolutely no hurry whatsoever to finish this. Every single time Robert thought he was getting close to that edge again, could feel the pleasure starting to crest toward something inevitable, she'd slow down or subtly change the angle, keeping him hovering right on the precipice without ever letting him tip over into release. It was torture in the absolute best possible way, exquisite and maddening in equal measure. And by the time she'd been doing it for what felt like actual hours but was probably only minutes, Robert was a complete mess beneath her, his hips trying desperately to thrust up to meet her movements even as she maintained total control of the pace.  

"Look at you," Mandy murmured, her voice low and warm as she leaned down to press a soft kiss to his jaw. "So good for me already. Being so patient."  

Robert made a sound that might have been an attempt at her name, might have been a wordless plea for mercy, he genuinely couldn't tell anymore. His hands slid from her waist to her hips in a restless movement, trying to guide her into moving faster, trying to take back even a shred of control, but she immediately batted them away with surprising firmness.  

"Uh-uh. I'm in charge right now," she said, her tone leaving absolutely no room for argument. "You just lie there and take what I give you."  

"Fuck." The word came out completely breathless, because that really shouldn't be as damn hot as it was, but hearing her say it in that voice, so confident and commanding and just a little bit smug about the state she'd reduced him to, made his cock twitch noticeably inside her.  

She picked up the pace slightly, just barely enough to make him think she might actually finally let him come this time, building his hope up, and then slowed down again just as he was starting to believe it. Robert let out a genuinely frustrated groan, his head falling back hard against the pillow, and Mandy had the absolute audacity to laugh softly at his obvious misery.  

"What's wrong, baby?" Her tone was syrupy sweet, almost mocking. "You want to cum? Is that what you need?"  

"Yes. God, yes, please, Mandy, I can't—" The words tumbled out in a desperate rush, his pride completely abandoned somewhere around the fifth time she'd edged him.  

"You will," she said with absolute certainty, her voice gentle despite the cruelty of what she was doing to him. "You're doing so well for me. Just hold on a little longer."  

Her nails dragged lightly down his chest, not hard enough to hurt but enough to leave tingling trails of sensation across his oversensitized skin, and Robert made a sound that was probably closer to an actual sob than anything else. He could feel tears pricking insistently at the corners of his eyes from the sheer intensity of it all, from how badly his entire body needed to let go and how she just kept drawing it out, keeping him suspended in this agonizing limbo. When one tear actually spilled over, tracking hot down his temple, Mandy leaned down immediately to wipe it away with her thumb, her touch unexpectedly tender.  

"That's it. Let me see you like this," she murmured, her voice softer now, almost reverent. "Don't hold back from me."  

Robert grabbed for her almost desperately, his hands finding her shoulders and pulling her down closer so he could reach her chest with his mouth. He sucked hard on one nipple while his hands gripped her ass firmly, finally helping to drive her movements now that she was actually letting him participate, letting him have this much at least.  

"Fuck, you feel so good," he gasped against her skin between kisses. "So fucking good, Mandy, I can't—I'm—"  

He couldn't finish the sentence, too completely overwhelmed by sensation and emotion and the desperate need that had been building for what felt like forever, and Mandy seemed to understand exactly what he couldn't articulate because she finally, finally sped up. She rode him hard and fast now, all pretense of teasing abandoned, moving in a driving rhythm that he could feel building toward something massive and inevitable. The sound of skin meeting skin filled the room, punctuated by their increasingly ragged breathing and the wet sounds of her moving on him, and Robert knew with absolute certainty that he wasn't going to last even another minute like this.  

"I need—please, I need—" He couldn't even form coherent words anymore.  

"I know exactly what you need," Mandy said, her own voice starting to break now as she got close. "Cum with me. Right now."  

Robert felt that was all it took. He came with a shout, his whole body as pleasure crashed over him in waves that seemed to go on forever, and somewhere in the middle of it he felt Mandy clench around him and heard her cry out his name as she followed him over. They clung to each other through it, movements growing sloppy and uncoordinated until they finally stilled, both of them breathing hard and trembling slightly from the intensity. Mandy collapsed against his chest, and Robert wrapped his arms around her, holding her close . His pulse was still pounding, his skin slick with sweat, and he felt wrung out in the best possible way. Mandy pressed a kiss to his collarbone, then his jaw, and finally his mouth, soft and sweet and so different from how she'd kissed him earlier.  

Robert's breathing hadn't evened out yet, his ribs still rising and falling too fast under Mandy's hand. "That was..." He couldn't finish. Didn't have the words, and his brain was too fried to search for them anyway. 

"Yeah." Mandy kissed his shoulder, her lips warm against his sweat-damp skin. 

Robert's hand found hers where it rested on his chest, fingers lacing together without him consciously deciding to reach for her. The ceiling fan spun lazy overhead, the only sound in the room beyond their breathing gradually slowing. Eventually, Mandy shifted beside him, rolling off to lie on her side, and Robert turned to face her without thinking about it. She was smiling at him—nothing big or bright, just this small, soft curve of her mouth that made something settle in him. He smiled back before he could stop himself. 

"Come here," Mandy said, tugging him closer by the hip until his back pressed against her front. Her arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him snug against her, and Robert went willingly because apparently his body had decided she was the most comfortable thing in the world and wasn't interested in arguing about it. 

Robert let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "I'm the little spoon?" 

Mandy's laugh vibrated through him where their bodies touched. "Yep, you're the little spoon. Got a problem with that?" 

"Not really. Because I get to do this." Robert shifted and turned until he could tuck his face against her breast, nuzzling into the soft warmth there and letting his eyes fall shut. The smell of her skin this close was intoxicating. Sweat and something sweet and just her. 

Mandy laughed again, quieter this time, her free hand coming up to card through his hair with gentle fingers that made his scalp tingle pleasantly. "Fair point." 

Robert felt Mandy's arm tighten around him slightly, pulling him even closer if that was possible, and her hand in his hair kept moving in those slow, steady strokes that were making him drowsy despite how awake he'd been thirty seconds ago. The room was warm, the sheets tangled around their legs somewhere down by their feet, and he was pretty sure he'd never felt this relaxed in his entire life. Her heartbeat was a steady rhythm against his cheek where his face pressed into her chest, and he found himself matching his breathing to it without meaning to. 

Robert's eyes were already drifting closed when Mandy spoke again, her words quiet enough that he almost missed them. "Stay tonight?" 

"Okay." The answer came easy, automatic, because leaving right now sounded like the worst idea anyone had ever had and his brain wasn't interested in entertaining it. "I'll stay." 

Mandy's fingers paused in his hair for just a second, then resumed their gentle movement, and Robert felt her press a kiss to the top of his head. He was already half-asleep, or close enough. The exhaustion was catching up to him fast now that the adrenaline had worn off, his muscles going loose and heavy against the mattress. He could feel the bruises starting to form along his ribs where the suit had locked up, could feel the dull ache in his shoulders from the impact, but none of it seemed urgent anymore. Not with Mandy's arm wrapped around him. Not with her breath warm and steady against his hair. The last coherent thought Robert had before everything went fuzzy was that he could get used to this. Waking up here. Being here. Being with her.

Not just tonight. Maybe not just this week.

Maybe something longer than that.