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Thursday. Two hours until quitting time. Every hero on Robert’s team is out in the field. Through his headset, their voices rise and trip and fall over one another in an absolute mess of sound. They are so overly loud and overlapping that Robert’s brain has to register their conversations like a transcript just to find any sense of the noise.
Sonar, hype: “So, what’s the play tonight, team? Rager at Crypto Night?”
Malevola: “Sonar, babe…”
Visi: “I think Dopple’s still pissed at us for last time.”
Prism: “And Flambae’s still banned!”
Flambae: “Shut up.”
Punch Up: “What about The Sardine?”
Visi, laughing: “They’re really pissed at us.”
Punch Up, with pride: “That brawl was legendary! If anything, they should be thanking us for clearing those Red Ring bastards outta there!”
Prism: “We did fuck up a lot of their clientele? Like, a lot of them.”
Coupé: “And now they are in prison.”
Golem: “Or dead. Ha.”
The team chatter continues as Robert sits at his desk and waits for a new mission request to come through. He sighs. He took this job voluntarily, he reminds himself. Yes, the decision may have been made under dire circumstances—namely the fear of starving and having nothing else to pawn to afford both heroing and a roof over his head—but it had been a decision he'd made.
And he happens to like these idiots. Most days being their dispatcher is akin to the impossible task of herding cats, but they’re his idiot cats to herd.
“Can we please clear the channel?” He watches their icons move about on his computer screen and, in their silence, imagines them rolling their eyes at him en masse. “Make your plans later, off comms.”
Flambae, like an asshole: “Get the stick out of your ass, Bobert.”
Malevola: “Here comes the pegging joke—”
Visi, his girlfriend, also like an asshole: “Oh, it's not a joke—”
Prism: “Visi, have you tapped that ass yet?”
“Hey,” Robert snaps, a little pink in the face and unwilling to hear Courtney talk about their sex life on a company line. SDN's mythical HR office may or may not be real, and this is not how he’d like to find out. “How many times do I need to tell you guys that every stupid thing you say here is recorded? Oh wait, I've been keeping track: sixteen times just this week. Seventeen, now. Congratulations.”
A chastened silence follows. This, Robert also counts: it lasts thirty-seven seconds.
“Sooo,” Sonar says. “Are we actually doing drinks tonight, though? It's Thirsty Thursday and this has been a week and a half. Robert, my man, come on. Live a little!”
While the Z-Team argues about which establishment they'd prefer to terrorize tonight, Robert switches over to Courtney's line for a bit of privacy. He leans back in his chair and says, quietly, “Hey, Visi. Private line. You going to drinks tonight?”
“Hey, handsome,” she says, a little out of breath. He likes hearing the smile in her voice; he likes that she lets him hear it. “I could be persuaded, if you promise to come and buy me a drink.”
“Deal.”
“That was easy.”
He pitches his voice low. “Did you want me to make you work for it?”
“Don't use that tone with me right now,” she grumbles. “You were the one on our asses about being recorded not thirty seconds ago. How about you write this down on your little tally, huh?”
Laughing, Robert takes a pen and does just that: one tally mark added to the Monitored Line Reminder post-it stuck to the wall of his cubicle.
The noise of the bullpen and the safe quiet on Courtney's line soothes his nerves. He relaxes back into his chair and finds her icon on the western side of the city map splayed out on his monitor. It’s been a relatively calm afternoon shift. Some internet influencer called SDN to request a hero to walk her dog while she took an emergency flight to NYC for a brand meeting or whateverthefuck. Invisigal wouldn't normally be Robert's first pick for this job, nor would she hesitate to give him a piece of her mind about sending her to deal with annoying micro-celebrities, but she'd just come off of a pretty harrowing hostage situation at a preschool that morning so he wanted to send her somewhere to catch her breath.
Not that it's helping. Beneath the brush of wind against her earpiece and the occasional dog barks, he can hear the rasp of air through her throat and the click of her inhaler.
Despite his worry, he aims for casual: “How's it going?”
“I'm fine, stop freaking out. Just running around at the park with Mr. Snuggle Butt.” Rustling and the muffled sounds of her sweet-talking come across the line: who’s the cutest, ugliest little dog at the dog park? You are! When she comes back, her voice takes on that unusually soft cadence of her sincerity. “I like dogs. They're easier than people. No pretense to ‘em. No second-guessing. Just slobber and pure emotion.”
“Ah, so that's why you like hanging out with me,” he says. “Free access to Beef.”
She snickers. “I do love your Beef.”
“My Beef loves you, too.”
Geoff from the Accounting department walks by and hears Robert talking about his meat. His lip curls. Robert smiles and waves.
Instead of throwing a pencil at the back of Geoff's stupid bald head as he hurries along, as the Z-Team would have him do, Robert sits up in his chair and turns back to his computer. “Come on,” he sighs. “We’d better switch back to the main channel before the team sets Torrance on fire.”
“Yeah, they’ll wanna hear the good news.”
“What good news? Visi?”
Malevola is speaking when he clicks back to his team. “—wouldn't doubt her.”
“Victory, bitches! I got Robert to come to after-work drinks!” Courtney crows. As the team cheers or boos in turn, she continues to brag, “And it wasn’t even that hard.”
Flambae scoffs. “I don’t imagine it ever is.”
“Dick jokes,” Robert drawls. “Original.”
Golem: “Girlfriend privileges.”
Prism: “Pay up! Y'all have my Venmo.”
Punch Up: “Does that mean you're buying drinks tonight, lass?”
Prism: “Hell no!”
Flambae: “Bobert, was she sexing you up over the comms to convince you? Be honest.”
Unsurprised but thoroughly exasperated, Robert drops his face into his palm. “Flambae, for HR reasons, I need you to say, out loud, that you're joking.”
Malevola: “Say it. Out loud.”
Sonar: “Say sike right now.”
“Oh, my god,” Courtney groans, “you memeing shitheads. Before Robert and I get fired: no, we weren't having phone sex on the office comms. Will someone please just pick a place already? Where are we going tonight? Crypto Night? The Sardine? Dusty Lanterns? The Chain Smoking Clown House? Oscar’s? The parking lot behind the liquor store on 41st? They’ve got lawn chairs now, actually. It’s not a bad spot.”
For the first time all afternoon, Waterboy speaks up. (Not for the first time, Robert wants to give him a hug about it.) “H-hi, everyone! I-if it's okay, I have an idea?”
*
“Hi, welcome to Chili’s!”
The Torrance Chili's is packed tonight. It was a struggle to even find parking. While the rest of the team left SDN as soon as their working hours were up, Mandy asked Robert and Courtney to hang back for a quick chat (which quickly turned to a long chat) and to gather Beef for her voluntary babysitting duties for the night, as Chase, she’d reported, was actually going on a date. Robert had thought about going home to change, to attend a social gathering in something other than his SDN shirt and work slacks for once, but Courtney was still in her Invisigal jeans and jacket and said he looked fine, so here they are.
As soon as Robert opens the front door to let Courtney step inside, he's hit with a wall of generic pop music, overlapping conversation, and the smell of sizzling fajitas. A frazzled host shouts a greeting as he gathers a group of about twenty people and escorts them all to their table. Courtney takes his hand and pulls him in her wake, guiding him through clusters of families standing together as they wait to be seated.
She’s been doing that a lot lately: reaching for him, holding his hand. He tries not to bring attention to it, afraid she’ll pull away, but it makes him smile every time.
“Hi there,” the hostess greets as they reach her station. She looks down at the mess of her table chart. “Table for two?”
A glass shatters somewhere behind her.
She glances back towards the bar section. There are a few small booths there, but the Z-Team has claimed the bar itself, perched upon stools and standing at the counter. The big, stupid lot of them seem to have made themselves at home in the hour head-start they’ve gotten, voices raised as they argue about something almost certainly asinine, yelling and jeering and laughing in a cacophonous jumble of sound. Someone has invited Phenomaman; he’s slouched in a booth and staring sadly into his glass of whiskey.
“Unfortunately, we’re with them,” Robert says, gesturing to the group with his free hand.
Behind the customer-service veneer, the hostess’s expression curdles. “Oh,” she says, her smile frozen, “Well, then, go on back! Enjoy!”
Courtney snorts. She pulls Robert across the room. “We make fans wherever we go, it seems.”
“Yeah, big fan. You could tell by the grimace and the dead eyes.”
“Visi! Bobert!” Sonar calls, throwing his hands in the air and wobbling on his stool. His tie is pulled loose. There’s a grenadine-red stain on the starched white of his dress shirt. He almost hits the teen in a Chili’s shirt trying to sweep up the broken glass. “You made it!”
Waterboy waves shyly from his seat on the floor next to Golem.
“Hey.” Malevola smirks around the rim of her margarita as she looks Robert up and down. “Did you have to re-convince him, Visi?”
He narrows his eyes at her; she sticks her tongue out and takes her leg off the single stool she'd apparently been saving for the two of them.
“Nah,” Courtney says, shifting her arms. She freezes for half a second, almost unnoticeable, as Robert reaches for the shoulders of her jacket to help her out of it. He hangs it over the back of the stool, pushes it in as she sits, and very diplomatically does not mention the pink rushing to her ears. “Mandy wanted to meet with us and talk about SDN's on-site therapist in case I needed one after the shit-show this morning.”
Malevola winces. “Yeaaah. You good?”
“I'm good,” Courtney says. “Maybe if things had gone tits-up, but… I got all those kids out safe and sound. Feels good.”
“She totally kicked ass,” Golem calls.
“Hell yeah, I did! Babe, go give Golem a fist bump for me.”
Robert shakes his head, but he can't help but smile. He could burst with pride for her. She had kicked ass today. “What,” he says, griping even as he walks across the room as commanded, “am I your delivery boy now?”
“Yes.”
A huge, earthy first awaits. He bumps it carefully with his own, trying not to scratch his knuckles. Golem gives him a craggy smirk. “She's got you by the balls already, huh?”
“Absolutely,” he says, sarcastic but for the fact that it is just a tiny bit true.
Fuck, is it true?
He dodges Flambae's stupid foot attempting to trip him as he returns to Courtney, leaning against the back of her stool and hooking his chin over her shoulder. He stares unseeing at the menu she holds open.
They've only been dating a few weeks now, and things have been… good. Really good. He would say great, even, but he's terrified of jinxing things. Besides Beef, he's never really been able to keep hold of anything so good, and Courtney is one of the best. She's strong as hell, more stubborn than him on his worst days, funny and clever and damn beautiful. And not-so-deep down, she’s kind of a sap.
Every time he does something kind for her, every time he opens the door or helps her out of her jacket or pushes in her seat, she tries to pretend like she doesn’t love it. The dramatic roll of her eyes does nothing to hide the blush on her cheeks or the tiny, pleased smile she tries to hide. Robert sees it. He sees her, unwillingly charmed by his every small gesture or sign of affection, and finds that he loves it. It’s a generous learning curve, with the both of them unaccustomed to healthy, functional relationships, but they're doing alright, stumbling through this thing together.
It's been a long while since he's been someone's boyfriend. He wants to do it well. So just because he likes doing things for her, it doesn't mean she's got him wrapped around her finger.
And if it does, well, maybe he likes it that way.
A sharp elbow jabs him in the gut. “Fucking ow,” he wheezes. “Why?”
“You were spacin’ out, Lieutenant Dan,” Courtney says, unapologetic. “You wanna share some apps?”
A cheer rings out further down the bar. It feels like the world filters back in.
Right. Appetizers. Drinks. Thirsty Thursday.
Punch-Up is standing on the bar, to the chagrin of the bartender, and is chugging a pitcher of beer. Not a drop is wasted. When he’s finished, he rears back and lets out a huge belch to the applause of Malevola and Sonar and some dudebros who are watching from the other end of the bar.
“Whew,” Punch Up exhales, dropping back onto his stool. “Hey, lovebirds—”
“More like horndogs,” Sonar calls.
“—you gonna order soon? We wanna do a toast!”
Robert waves the bartender down.
When their Triple Dipper and drinks arrive, the Z-Team holds their glasses up. A vote is held. To nobody’s surprise, Robert is unanimously elected to make a speech, despite his insistence that he’s off-duty and should therefore be free from speech-making. If there’s one thing the Z-Team consists of, however, it’s a bunch of stubborn jerks, so Robert sighs, holds up his beer, and says, “Fine, whatever. This Thirsty Thursday is brought to you by the power of friendship. Cheers.”
Both amused applause and booing answer his stupid nano-speech in equal measure, but everybody raises their glasses in celebration of friendship and then they all drink.
It’s a nice time. He stands at the bar and eats whatever fried food Courtney shoves in his mouth as he tries to listen to Sonar, who is talking at him about stocks and portfolios and whatever Vanderstenk's spouted on his recent TED Talk. Courtney coerces Phenomaman into joining them and somehow gets him talking about the function of the economy on Urgot-52dc. It’s… enlightening.
Robert makes the rounds, shoots the shit with everybody, threatens to burn Flambae’s eyebrows off again for old-time’s sake. Flambae and Prism argue about a celebrity gossip show on one of the big TV screens on the wall while, next to them, Coupé spins a dagger on the bar and makes comments sharper than her blade. She makes Prism laugh hard enough that she can’t breathe. Coupé tries to hide a shy, pleased smile in her margarita, but Robert catches it and nudges her shoulder with a grin. He shows Malevola entirely too many pictures of Beef. She loves each one. He arm-wrestles Punch-Up. He sits with Waterboy and Golem as they bond about music and introduce him to some new albums.
By the time he makes it back to Courtney, he feels like he’s missed her. It’s been an hour and a half at most. Since he’s driving tonight, he’s been nursing the same beer, so he knows it’s not booze fueling his emotion—he just… missed his girlfriend that’s sitting literally right within reach.
That’s pathetic, right?
He can absolutely never tell her; she’ll never let him live it down.
“Hey, I’m gonna go flirt with that hottie over there,” Malevola says, getting to her feet. She stretches her neck like she’s about to take down a group of goons. “Take my seat, Bob.”
Robert looks over his shoulder. The woman sitting at a booth by herself is giving Malevola the most obvious bedroom eyes. “I don’t think you need luck,” he says, “but have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Boring. I feel like that’s a long list.” She smacks his arm with her tail on the way by.
He sits. There's a new margarita and a basket of cheese fries on the bar; Courtney is picking at the bacon bits on top. She seems… pensive. Considering. Mischievous.
She takes a deliberate sip of her drink before turning to the side, resting her elbow on the bar, and leveling a look at him that triggers his fight-or-flight. “Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“A long list. All the things you wouldn’t do.”
As he considers how far he’s willing to take their flirtation in the middle of a Chili’s at seven-thirty on a Thursday evening, he watches Courtney lick the salt from the rim of her margarita, slow and goading.
He shifts in his seat, clears his throat. “Honestly, it’s a pretty short list, when it comes to you.”
Instead of returning his volley, Courtney looks around for… something. She leans, leans, leans—Robert grabs hold of her belt loop before she can slip and bust her face open on the floor—and takes a few pieces of candy from a bowl near the bartender’s register. Once her ass is safely back on her stool, she drops her find on the counter between them and unwraps a plastic-wrapped mint. She turns to him. “Open wide.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Does my breath stink o—mmph!”
Well, regardless of smell, his mouth certainly tastes better, fresh wintergreen overriding dry beer and greasy french fries covered in fake cheese. He almost chokes on the mint when Courtney pats his cheek and purrs, “Good boy.”
Oh.
Robert’s brain goes fuzzy.
It takes a moment to realize that she’s sliding off her stool and saying something to him. She laughs, pleased with herself, and whispers, “Meet me in the women’s bathroom in two minutes. Don’t be late. You did promise to come, after all.”
“Yeah.” He nods. He did promise that. “Yup. Won’t–won’t be late. Robert ‘Right On Time’ Robertson, that’s me.”
How easily she reduces his brain matter to mush—the way her hips move as she walks away, the curve of her ass in her jeans, the smirk she throws over her shoulder, as if she knows the effect she has on him.
Two minutes. Two minutes. Don’t be late.
Good boy, he thinks, downing the rest of his beer. What the fuck was that? Scratch that—what the fuck was his reaction?
He rolls the mint around in his mouth and tries not to be so fucking horny in public. She’s given him a damn half-chub with just two words. Punch-Up tries to get him involved in a round of shots, but Robert declines, gets quickly to his feet, and makes his excuses. “Yep, you're so right, gotta take a dump, Flambae,” he says, swerving the bastard’s reaching arm. “It might take a while, so don't miss me too much.”
“Fuck you! I'll never miss you!”
Robert finds the small hallway at the back of the restaurant. A bright yellow CAUTION: FLOOR IS WET sign sits in front of the door to the women’s restroom. There’s even a sign that says Closed for Maintenance! taped to the surface. He disregards both, stepping with purpose into the trap laid specifically for him. It's a typical chain restaurant bathroom: four open stalls and a few sinks in front of a wide mirror. The room is empty.
Rather: the room appears empty.
Someone grabs him as soon as he steps inside. His back hits the door. The lock clicks. An invisible body presses against his, grinds against the tent in his pants. Unseen hands grab at his pecs, his shoulders, his neck, restless in their exploration.
Robert doesn’t need to see Invisigal to know her. His hands instantly find the curve of her waist, small between his hands, solid as he squeezes hard. He leans down to kiss her, lips finding hers blind. She tastes of tequila and candy mints.
They stumble towards the sinks. Before he accidentally runs her into the counter, he peeks an eye open and sees her flickering in and out of visibility. “Up,” he says against her lips, groaning as she licks into his mouth and all but inhales the sound. “Up, up.”
She bites his bottom lip. “No.”
The word doesn't make sense with what he knows. His lust-fogged brain says, Girlfriend is like cat, likes being tall, and supplies him with examples: Courtney perched on all sorts of counters and desks and ledges as she kisses the breath from him, Courtney in the lab, sitting on the bent knee of his mech as she wipes grease from his forehead and presses her lips there, Courtney in his lap, looking down at him in the dark as she rides him long into the night.
A shiver runs down his spine. “No?”
“No,” she murmurs, hands sliding down his stomach to land at his belt. “My plan has me closer to the floor.”
The smirk on her face says she felt his dick twitch against her hand. She unclasps his belt buckle and pulls it open, unbuttons his pants, and pulls down his fly.
“Wanted to thank you,” she says, sinking to her knees, “for taking care of me today.”
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. “Court. Hey, stop. Come here.”
She groans. “Robert—”
“No, hey, this is important to me—”
“Getting your dick sucked isn't important?”
“Not as important as you.” He helps her back to her feet and takes her face in his hands. A sullen pout presses her lips up, made worse when he squeezes her cheeks. “Listen. You deserve nice things. Do you hear me? I like doing things for you. I don't do them with any expectations. You could never suck my dick again and I'd be perfectly happy just being with you.”
She raises an eyebrow. Before she can sass him, he kisses her pouty lips. “Nope. Shut up. My affection isn't a tool, or a weapon. It's not conditional. You don't need to do anything to deserve it and you don't have to pay me back. There's not—I'm not keeping track—”
“I am,” she says between smushed cheeks.
“I know. Knock it off.” He lets her cheeks go. A gentle kiss goes on her forehead, her scrunched nose, each of her red cheeks. “Let me be good to you.”
“Fine, alright, whatever,” she says quietly. She pushes him back against the counter and drops to her knees, busying herself between his legs. She fusses at him as she eases the elastic of his boxer briefs down around his balls and takes his cock in her hand. “Are you done being so emotionally literate now? You’ve been flirting with me all day and I’ve been trying to get you alone since breakfast. I had to sit there and watch you lick that damn Twinkie cream off your finger and then pretend like I wasn’t wet during the entire morning meeting. Jerk.”
Just the warmth of her breath on his cock has his flagging length perking back up. He exhales a breathy laugh. “Sorry. I don’t think I’m gonna last long,” he warns, not exactly eager to tell her that he's on a hair-trigger just watching her sink to her knees. He leans back against the counter and spreads his legs, gives her room to work.
“That's good.” Slow, deliberate, she drags her tongue up the underside of his cock. “Since you had to make your real Mecha Man Motivational Speech here instead of during your toast, we don't have much time.”
The moment slows, crystallizes. On her knees in a mostly-clean Chili's bathroom, Christ, but she still looks dangerous. It's beautiful. She is beautiful, hand wrapping tight around his cock, cheeks flushed, eyes glowing whiskey-gold in the overhead lights.
“Go on, then,” he says, hearing the gravel in his own voice. He runs a thumb along her bottom lip. Goading. “Open wide.”
For a second, Courtney looks like she might bite his dick off for the tease. There's got to be something wired wrong in his brain, that the little frisson of fear he feels is almost like arousal, that he likes the purposeful scrape of her teeth against his shaft as she takes him into her mouth. Unflinching, he takes hold of her head and runs his fingers through her hair, gentle, at odds with the fact that she’s glaring up at him.
Instead of biting down, she guides him down her throat.
They moan in unison.
Like this is somehow, impossibly, as good for her as it is for him. Like the weight of his cock against her tongue can compare to the velvet heat of her mouth. Like their unflinching, locked gaze isn’t searing her through the way it’s setting him on fire.
“Visi, Court—yes—”
She pulls back and swirls her tongue around the head, uses her hand to work the length of his shaft. Her eyes close as she focuses. She drags her other hand up his leg, squeezes his thigh hard enough to hurt. It drags a whimper from his throat.
No matter how many times they do this, it always amazes him, how well she knows his body. Every scrape and bruise and scar he’s taken on as Mecha Man seems to have been mapped, the way she knows exactly where she can dig her nails in, where she can squeeze, where to press to draw a hissed breath from him. She knows how slow to take him if she wants to draw things out, and how fast and wet and rough to get when she wants to finish him off quickly.
Fuck. Two minutes, he thinks, light-headed and goofy. Hurry.
There's a ruckus out in the hallway. Robert ignores it. The door is locked, and he is rapidly reaching his peak, his heart pounding loud in his chest.
“Visi,” he murmurs, watching her flicker in and out of visibility. He keeps his hands in her hair and shifts his hips. “Keep, ah—keep going. You’re so good, baby.”
The vibration of her drawn-out moan goes right to his gut. A tell-tale tingling starts in his toes, his fingers. He shifts his hips up again, careful not to choke her, needing to be close, close, closer.
The door rattles against the locked bolt.
A shrill voice rings muffled from the other side: “I'm not usin’ some damn non-gendered bathroom, Walter! I'm a woman, and I'm gonna use the women's restroom! Where's that manager? Walter, go get the manager! This is ridiculous!”
Little puffs of breath brush against his pelvis. He watches Courtney laugh even as she’s swallowing around him, spit shining on her chin, working him hard and fast with her hand. It’s ridiculous, the swell of affection he feels, feeling her giggle as she laves her tongue around his cock, sucking him down with the threat of discovery counting down the clock. He braces himself against the counter and fucks up into her fist. Almost there, almost there—
Someone pounds on the door. “This is management! Please open the door and present your maintenance credentials!”
Courtney can’t answer—too focused, eyes closed, tongue working the sensitive underside of his cock, right where he needs it the most. Summoning the focus from god knows where, he takes a breath and manages to call, “One sec!” Then, “Ohhh, fuck.”
“Sir,” the manager calls, “are you alright?”
“Ye-yeah.” Fucking incredible. He grips Courtney’s hair. She whimpers, sucks harder, squeezes. Oh god, oh fuck. “Court, I’m—”
She wraps her free hand around his thigh and pulls him into her: go on, then.
With a strangled, quiet groan, he comes down her throat. Pure heat blooms from his core, shoots euphoria up and down his every nerve ending. The short moment of orgasm feels like the only time he ever really goes mindless, the only time he allows it. For ten seconds, he closes his eyes and trusts himself to someone else—his body, his heart, his soul, all safe in Courtney’s hands as he shudders through his pleasure.
Their frenetic pace slows. She runs gentle hands up and down his thighs as he comes down, swallows as he pulls himself free from her mouth.
The knocking on the door continues. “Sir, if you don’t come out, we are going to ask Phenomaman to break down the door!”
“Alright! Alright. Just give me a second.”
He exhales and guides Courtney back with shaking hands, bends at his wobbly knees, and helps her to her feet. He feels… amazing, really. Floaty. Warm. A little guilty about the mess he’s made of her face, damp with slick at her mouth and tears in the corner of her eyes. Carefully he runs his thumbs beneath her eyes, swipes at her mouth with his sleeve. Dazed, she stares at him, then smiles as he cups her cheek and brings her in for a kiss. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“Still think it's weird for you to thank me for a blowjob,” she mutters, hoarse, pushing his face away. She tucks him back into his boxers and takes a step toward the sink when the bolt lock clicks and the door swings open.
A small, harried woman in an I LOVE CHILI'S t-shirt and extremely high-waisted trousers steps in. A ring of about thirty keys jangles in her hand. Her name tag reads: Janice! She looks at Robert, hastily zipping his pants and belt, and Courtney, wiping the lipstick from her face in the mirror, and draws the correct conclusion. She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Sir, ma’am, you can’t do that in here.”
“There was a leak,” Courtney says, waving towards one of the toilet stalls. “Didn't you see the maintenance sign? I was servicing a pipe–”
Robert snorts.
“Okay, ma'am,” Janice says, with a world-weariness that suggests she's caught entirely too many couples in her managerial career and been forced to listen to any number of inane excuses. She holds the restroom door open and motions for them to exit. “I'm going to have to ask the both you to leave the establishment immediately. Please follow me.”
“Walk of shame,” Robert murmurs, following Courtney down the hallway. He glances down to make sure his junk is safely tucked away before they're frog-matched through a packed family-friendly restaurant.
Grinning, Courtney glances back at him. “Fuck that. I'm not ashamed. Besides, what's she gonna do, announce to the whole restaurant that I sucked your dick in the bathroom? Oh no, my boyfriend’s fucking hot, sue me.”
The nearest table overhears—the elderly woman sitting there drops her fork and, he can't make this up, literally clutches her pearls. “Oh my heavens,” she gasps.
“No,” Robert says to Courtney, droll but unbearably affectionate, “but I think you are.”
“Please hurry,” Janice says.
They are rushed through the restaurant, past curious onlookers, past a frenetic kitchen, past the bar that is suspiciously empty of their friends. Or, Robert would be suspicious if he didn't see a huge man escorting his friends out the front door. Golem is carrying a shouting, enflamed Flambae on one shoulder and a guffawing, livestreaming Prism on the other. Trailing Phenomaman is Waterboy at the back of the line, dripping with apologies. A pink jacket is clutched between his wringing hands.
Janice the Manager sees them out. She stands in the doorway like a bulwark, like the Z-Team is about to rush her to regain access to the restaurant. The evening crowd outside waiting for seats turns to look at them all as they regroup on the sidewalk. It’s understandable—they’re definitely making a scene—but not ideal. The ghost of Mandy’s disapproving manager-voice warns him about rebranding failure and company optics.
Sonar is very upset about the situation. “But are we banned, though? Are we banned?”
“Let it go, bat boy,” Prism says, hooking her arm through his and pulling him towards the parking lot. Coupé has wordlessly taken his other arm. “Come on, before you Hulk out.”
“She can't just drop the banhammer! Hey, Ms. Manager! Legally you have to tell us if we're banned and why! Show me your bylaws! I was a pre-law undergrad at Harvard! You have to show me your bylaws!”
Waterboy approaches, head down. “Invisigal. Y-you left your—your jacket was left behind so I—I hope it’s okay? That I grabbed it for you? I, um, got it wet. Sorry.”
“Thanks, kid,” Courtney says, taking her jacket from him and tucking it over her arm. “You have a good night?”
“It was—I think I had fun. I’ve never been asked to leave a restaurant before.” He glances back. Janice has gone back inside. “I really hope I’m not banned. It’s my—I have a—my mom and I come here every other Sunday. It’s our thing that we do. I would be… sad, if we had to find a new place.”
A soft look flits across Courtney’s face. She pats him on the shoulder. “That’s fuckin’ sweet. Really.”
“I’ll make sure you’re not banned, Herm,” Robert offers, nodding his head to the side so that they follow the others to the parking lot. “We’ll have Blazer make a call, alright?”
Waterboy smiles. “T-thanks, Mecha Robert—Mecha Man, Robert. You’re a good friend.”
They rejoin the group. Everybody is talking up Mal’s skill at picking up ladies; apparently she left with Miss Bedroom Eyes before things started to go sideways. Robert follows in their wake. He feels happy. It’s a warm night. The moon rises bright in the sky, shines silver among the few stars that make it through the haze of light pollution. A hand brushes against his; he looks down to see Courtney’s fingers pushing between his and holding tight.
She smiles up at him, candy sweet.
“I can’t believe,” Flambae begins, obnoxiously loud, “that we got kicked out of Chili’s because Visi and Bobert were fucking in the bathroom.”
Phenomaman nods in sudden understanding. “Oh! Is that why that tiny, kind woman asked me to kick down the restroom door? I thought she merely had to urinate and wasn't strong enough to open the door, but it was because you two were engaging in public fornication!”
“Nice,” Golem says. He offers Courtney another fist-bump.
“We weren’t fornicating,” she corrects, leaning across Robert to fist-bump, “I was fellating—”
“And I think there were multiple extenuating factors,” Robert says loudly, interrupting her before she can describe the blowjob she gave him in detail to their friends. It was fantastic, alright, and he doesn’t care for them to know how quickly he came. “Including, but I am so fucking certain not limited to: Coupé playing darts with throwing knives on a painting, Flambae lighting the bartender on fire, Punch-Up drinking straight out of a full whiskey bottle, and Prism taking over the speaker system and blasting her new album on full volume.”
“Their music sucked,” Prism scoffs. “I was doing them a favor.”
“We’re at a Chili’s, not the fucking Sardine!”
“Bobert,” Flambae says, stopping next to Waterboy’s car. They must be carpooling. Poor Herm. “You are way too uptight for someone who just got their soul sucked out of their dick.”
“I’m worried I’m going to see my face on the news tomorrow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody knows who the fuck you are.”
Okay. It’s time to go home, Robert decides. It’s been twelve straight hours with these idiots—his patience is well and truly shot. Wordlessly he tugs Courtney away from the idiot squad and ignores their teasing goodbyes, hurrying her towards his car.
The stereo bluetooth syncs up to Courtney’s phone, queueing up her Emo Girl Playlist. A soft, mellow song plays uninterrupted as he drives them through downtown Torrance. Tail lights glow on the quiet contentment on her face. Robert reaches for her leg, unsure if it’s the post-orgasm sensitivity or new-boyfriend clinginess, but he wants to be close to her, to touch her, even if it’s just his hand on her thigh as he drives.
She seems to like it, whatever the cause. Idly she runs her fingers across the ridges of his knuckles, the veins on the back of his hand. She moves up to his wrist and the scar from his second year as Mecha Man, the skin thick and raised, a reminder of the accident that almost took his hand. The memory usually gives him chills, but her touch soothes the fear and eases him into gratefulness.
“Good night?” she asks, rolling her head against the headrest to look at him.
“Great night,” he says. He squeezes her thigh. “Thanks for getting kicked out of Chili’s with me.”
Her laugh warms him through. “Banned from Chili’s.”
“They never showed us the bylaws, so I don’t think they can ban us forever.”
“Fuck, I forgot the bylaws!”
“And that’s why you were banned.”
“I think I was banned because we were fornicating—”
“Fellating,” he corrects.
“—in the women’s bathroom.”
She squeezes his hand atop her thigh. A block goes by. It feels like Courtney’s chewing on a thought, so he gives her space to think about it as they nod along to the music. They’re almost to the street where they’ll have to make a choice, whether he’s dropping her off at her apartment or taking her along to his place, when she takes a deep breath.
“Thanks, for what you said earlier,” she says quietly, watching the streetlights. She's still playing with his fingers; he hopes it's grounding, having a connection even as her instincts try to shut down her vulnerability. He's glad she feels safe enough around him to try. “You've probably guessed, but I've never had someone like you stick around, someone not… transactional. Someone who shows up and means it. So. It means a lot. Ugh. God, this sucks. Nevermind.”
He fights a smile. “You're doing great. I'm proud of you. Thanks for telling me.”
“Ew.” She sniffles, then laughs. As they stop at the next red light, he looks over to find her swiping tears from her eyes. “How'd you get to be so emotionally literate, anyway, what with all your… everything.”
He pinches her thigh. “Rude. I guess just… thinking of what my father would say and then saying the exact opposite? Saying all the things I wish he'd say to me? Remembering my own shitty exes? Or maybe I just really like you and want to be a supportive partner, how's about that?”
“I hate it,” she says, smiling. “You better put your turn signal on if we're going back to yours.”
Something flutters in his chest. He clicks his turn signal. “You inviting yourself over now?”
“Don't I always?”
“What if I wanted a night alone?”
“Do you?”
The car behind him honks. The light's green. He smiles and turns right. “Not anymore.”
*