Chapter Text
“Sooo,” Visi says, tapping on her comm in the SDN breakroom and looking up from her totally (wink, nudge) legally obtained Switch she’d been using to kill time on today’s extra-slow shift.
The post-Shroud chaos had died down from frantic mayhem to resigned clean-up, which is nice for the team’s collective sleep debt but not so nice for her lame-ass brain’s tendency to start spiraling when it got bored. Lucky for her she’s got a dispatcher to affectionately bully and a lot of goodwill to cash in on after taking a bullet for him.
Robert preemptively sighs at her through the comms.
Visi bites back a laugh, then starts over, “Sooo, now that we’ve met like half the old group in person. Fuck, marry, kill – Brave Brigade.”
Robert post-emptively sighs at her, while Waterboy starts to sputter like an angry water fountain. Luckily, Moisture Man’s out getting some ‘combat experience’ with Coop and Punch Up, so he’s too busy third-wheeling to rain on Visi’s parade in person.
Deadpan, Robert answers, “Recusing myself for obvious reasons. Just try to get this one out of your system before Chase comes back to work.”
Slightly annoyed at the minimal reaction Visi makes a face. Maybe she should have waited to use this one once the old speedster was back. Setting off one of his rants was fun, and she got the feeling Robert found it just as funny as she did.
Unfortunately Chase was out today working on the ‘give Blazer back her amulet without sending his geriatric ass into cardiac arrest’ thing by calling in a favor with his old crew. His old crew which just happened to be one of the most famous super hero teams, like ever. Even if they were all literally old and retired now.
Visi and the rest of the team had come into the office last week to find an older, wispy (as in slightly see-through at the edges) lady in dark sunglasses hugging Robert so hard, she’d feared for his normie-spine. Nearby another old woman in a colorful scarf had been viciously chewing Chase out for not calling that Robert was okay after all of California saw Mecha Man Blue slugging it out with Shroud on the news, before switching to chewing out Robert for not calling to let them know that Chase wasn’t okay, no she didn’t care that he hadn’t had their numbers anymore, you could have gotten those from Chase.
Eventually Vitalia and Skyhawk had noticed the rest of them, and offered an awkward greeting and some tight forced smiles. Which was pretty par for the course for heroes-who-had-always-been-heroes coming face to face with the Z-team. At least the ones that were trying to be polite, the less polite ones just sneered or offered their unwanted thoughts on a bunch of former villains entering their profession. Visi assumed their tingly narc senses got triggered or something. Regardless, the two women had quickly left for a private meeting with Chase and Blazer in her office to set up Vitalia being on stand-by to heal Chase as he transferred the magic buff-and-blonde amulet back to Blazer.
“I gotta pass too, Visi.” Sonar answers, his voice at a slight echo as she hears it both in her comm and from where Sonar’s camped out across the breakroom from her fiddling with a tablet, “Not enough ladies on the team for me. Vitalia and Skyhawk looked, and look, fine – I’m not a man to say no to a cougar -, but that little pixie chick is more a literal snack than a metaphorical one when you’re part bat.”
Coop chimes in on comms, “Cowardice. True passion cares not for danger. Or size.” In the distance, they can hear Punch Up’s delighted, “Ya tell’em lass!”, mixed with the sounds of way too many knives and the screams of guys getting their balls punched back up from whence they came. Never let anyone tell you romance isn’t dead.
“Third pass. All of the guys are ugly." Flambae agrees. He’s also out of office, dispatched with Prism to some PR thing. Presumably to be her taxi, though Visi’s mostly guessing because Robert is unfortunately still too sane to dispatch her to anything requiring tact, even just as back-up, so she has no real idea what they do at PR things.
“Sure Shroud’s going to cry himself to sleep in supermax tonight knowing you think so.” Robet drawls. Flambae makes an irritated, ‘I’m flipping you off, even if you can’t see it’ sound.
Prism snickers slightly at his agitation. She gets away with it too because her secondary superpower is being the only person who can insult Flambae without risking a fireball launched at their head (not that this stops Visi, she’s just gotten good at dodging).
“Sorry, I’m out too. I think I had a lunchbox with Skyhawk’s face on it in elementary school. Not sure I can wanna fuck someone after their face was on my lunch-box. That’s like the second least sexy type of merch.”
“What’s the first?” Sonar wonders aloud.
“White-washed Funko Pops.” Prism answers without missing a beat.
As her shitty reality television show goes to commercial break, Malevola stretches out on the couch next to Visi, “Hhhmm, well I’m not a coward, and they didn’t have Brave Brigade lunchboxes where I grew up, -”
She does not specify if means Australia or Hell.
“So, I’m game to play. First, obviously, I’d kill that fucker Shroud.”
“That one’s a gimmee” Visi scoffs to the general sounds of agreement on the comms. Though she also reaches over to offer brief fist-pump to Malevola’s tail, because even if it was obvious yeah, fuck that guy (not literally).
“Second, fuck Vitalia. It’s not often you meet another sorceress. Could really make some magic together if you know what I’m saying.”
Sonar lets out a helpful wolf-whistle to illustrate. A true wing-man, through and through.
“Third,” Malevola grins devilishly, “Marry Mecha Man Dos, mostly just so that our Rob has to call me Mommy.”
Visi breaks into a series of snickers echoed back on the comms by several of her teammates. Smile still on her lips, she holds out her hand for another fist-pump with Malevola’s tail.
Robert sighs again, though his voice has the slightest hint of amusement (like maybe he would have played along if they were off the clock), “Alright now that everyone but Golem and Waterboy have been banned from any future Brave Brigade reunions -”
“Boo." Visi calls out, “Wetman favoritism.”
“I’ve got the perfect mission for Visi and Golem. We got a call about some streakers out near the stadi-”
Suddenly with a hissing series of crackles and a loud pop, the lights and comms go out.
“Aww fuck, my season finale.” Malevola says, pushing the remote’s power button fruitlessly.
“Nooo, my stocks!” Sonar moans dramatically, shaking his tablet in the air like it would somehow summon back the power and wifi on the black screen.
Visi frowns down at her Switch, which hasn’t so much as flickered when she’d tried pressing the power button. She has the sudden desire to throw the thing at the wall and watch it explode into a million pieces – not like she’d bought the piece of shit anyway.
Somewhat nauseated by the old impulse (by the darkness casting the familiar breakroom into new shadows), Visi sets her game system down gently on the coffee table.
Golem’s lumbering, gentle voice grabs her attention, “Man, why’d my tunes have to go? My Ipod was at like, 70 percent?” Squinting in the dim light of early evening filtering through the breakroom window, Visi watches as Golem pulls the little ear buds out of his head.
Why would a power-outage effect shit that was battery powered like their tablets, game systems, and retro-ass music players? Worse, their comms?
Visi can’t think of a single not fucked situation. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she repeats the question out loud to the team.
Sonar tilts his head and twitches his ears, “That is weird actually. Even if the back-up generators are still out of commission, another power outage while they’re fixing up the grid shouldn’t have hit our battery powered devices.”
He pauses in obvious contemplation, thinking hard now that Visi’s reminded him that his dumb-ass had an over-educated but otherwise decent brain between his fuzzy ears. “It’s not really my area of specialty, but I guess an EMP could do that sort of thing?”
Visi gets up from the couch trying not to bump her shins and still squinting as she tries to force her eyes to adjust more quickly to the dark room. She resists the urge to hold her breath and disappear and instead asks,”That sounds like some real serious shit. Where would you even get something like that?”, even though deep in her twisting gut she can already guess at an answer.
Sonar makes a chittering noise of agitation just barely in the range of hearing, “I don’t know, I was a finance major, man.” Sonar’s barely visible form shifts back and forth, like he’s shuffling his feet, “But I’m pretty sure it’s not the kinda shit you can just build in your garage after an illicit google search unless you’re like Royd, or maybe Robert, or-”
Sonar trails off slightly, so Visi finishes for him. “Or fucking Shroud.” Him or his cronies executing a back-up plan, cause just when you thought you’d escaped his ugly-ass, fucked him over and cut loose, that was when you realized it was all just a part of his plans, a factor he’d calculated, hooked under your skin -
A ghastly roar interrupts Visi’s thoughts. She pops back into visibility with a gasp of breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.
“Gesundheit.” Sonar says.
Turning, her eyes slightly adjusted to the dark now, Visi sees Malevola rubbing her nose sheepishly, “Ughh. Sorry, I think it’s the cold front.”
An Invisibitch from not that many months ago would have said, ‘Sure it’s not the coke?’, but Visi’s clawing her way towards something hero-adjacent these days, and heroes probably don’t rag on their coworkers for addictions they’re trying to kick, so instead she says, “Fuck you sneeze like a Balrog taking it up the ass.”
Malevola laughs, knocking their shoulders together before she vaults over cleanly over the back of the couch (fucking half demons that can see in the dark and fuck shit up in stiletto heels), “Think Coop’s got some literature on the subject if that’s what you’re into.”
“Anyway, like Sonar said, chances are Royd came into work and started fucking around with some confiscated villain shit in the basement, or something.” She smiles, the whites of her teeth and the slight glow of her yellow eyes easily visible even in the dark, but not reassuring enough for Visi to forget the other possibility she’d failed to mention.
“Now, think I should cut a portal down to the nerd cave or to the bullpen?”
“Dispatch.” Visi says automatically. Robert would probably try to troubleshoot shit at his desk first, so he’s likely still there trying to fix up the comms in the dark, by himself, and equipped with all the survival instincts of a kamikaze Tasmanian devil only released from the hospital from the whole torture, epic boss fight, beat a man half to death while half dead himself thing two weeks ago.
(Sometimes, just sometimes, Visi can empathize with Chase.)
“Righto.” Mal says, though before she can cut the portal, Sonar stops her.
“Probably better to walk. If they’ve got the power back on in the bullpen, magic might fritz the dispatchers’ computers. Used to happen all the time at home before I demon-proofed my setup.”
“Until I demon-proofed your set-up, babes.” Mal corrects, though without much of a fuss.
Golem groans, “Ughh, just don’t let me step on anyone in the dark. Hard enough not to do that with the lights on.”
“Demon night vision.” Mal reminds him with a wink. “I got’cha.”
“Then enough chatter, let’s get this shit over with and the power back on.” Visi says, feeling her way out from behind the couch, as her fingers trace the shape of her recuse inhaler in her jacket pocket.
Technically speaking, SDN heroes aren’t allowed in the bullpen during their shifts so that they don’t distract their dispatchers from important shit like, say, a fire at the ‘Super Loveable Orphanage and Puppy Shop Combo’ with water cooler gossip about the latest celebrity fuck-ups and inter-office drama. This was more or less enforced with the same diligence as the, ‘no hard liquor in the coffee’ rule, a kinda-sorta just don’t let Blazer catch you sort of thing. After all, celebrity hook-ups and Lauren from finance’s affair weren’t going to discuss themselves.
Literally speaking, the Z-team was under threat of suspension or worse if they fucked around in the dispatch room while their dispatcher was working.
Pre-Robert they’d also been getting incrementally banned from talking with their dispatcher during breaks (Punch Up had given the dude a ‘friendly’ nut-shot), before work (Prism sent that lady to the emergency ophthalmologist), after work (Coop hadn’t actually stabbed the guy but that didn’t un-piss a man’s pants), or even meeting in person (which hadn’t stopped Visi from figuring out the dickbag's face looked like, but had given Flambae some plausible deniability when he’d set the guy’s car on fire one tip-off later).
Still, while Blazer might play soft with them most of the time, what with you know letting actual felons whose personalities were largely composed of various flavors of attitude problem into the Phoenix Program instead of just guys like Royd who’d non-violently walked out of a Radio Shack and then let himself be shop-talked into non-violently walking into a jail cell, and with not sending their asses to – or back to – prison the first, second, or third time they’d sent their dispatchers running to first the ER and then to HR, she did have hard limits.
(1) No killing or permanently maiming civilians or coworkers, even if they were really, really annoying.
(2) Actually go on your assigned calls. Yes, even the stupid ones.
(3) Do not harass your dispatcher in person during their shift.
Since Blazer was technically their parole officer and could kick any of their asses to the moon and back (literally, which was pretty hot), the Z-team had more or less complied. The varying appeal of getting your ass beat by a hot woman aside, none of them wanted to go to prison.
Post-Robert, and post-revelation that they all cared about his skinny, passively-suicidal ass enough that seeing him pass out two beers into their 'holy-shit we lived and kicked the Red Ring’s ass' rager had led to a minor panic and about half the team needing to by physically restrained from finishing Shroud off when Coop mentioned the whole strung up and beat like a pinata deal, -
(though it was pretty hot that Mandy could still put Visi in a pin even without her magical girl amulet power-up),
-, anyway, given the Z-team’s new found good intentions, Visi’s not too worried about Blazer coming down hard on them for breaking this rule. So creeping along the dark hallways of the SDN office (again) is mostly just nerve-wracking for the regular probably got EMP’ed by the Red Ring remnants reasons.
Also because Sonar’s loud-ass echolocation screeches, interspersed with Malevola’s occasional Balrog-taking-it-up-the-ass sneezes, keep jump-scaring her.
“Fucking hell, Sonar!” Visi hisses nearly hitting Golem as she jerks backwards in surprise, “Just follow Malevola like the rest of of us!’
“Can’t help it, dude, it’s like an impulse, instinct?, or whatever whenever I can’t see.” Sonar whines back.
“It’s bat shit.” Malevola agrees.
“Though admittedly it also drives people batshit.” Sonar jokes. The two grin at each other. Appearing literal seconds away from pausing their mission so that they can stop to braid each other’s hair and trade friendship bracelets, or whatever the fuck.
Visi resists the urge to punch at least one of them, just barely. Golem’s nearly subsonic sigh of annoyance behind her helps.
What helps her nerves even more is the familiar, even, not-so subtly glad to see them, kinda-sexy if she’s being honest voice of Robert from just ahead in the darkness.
“Reason you two are never sent out on stealth missions.”
“Robert!”
“Robo-my man!”
“Babes!”
Robert rounds the corner still barely visible in the dim light. Though with her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, Visi can make out the movement of his slight wave hello and the glint of his teeth in a half-smile. Probably just as relieved to see them as they are to see him. The death-grip she’s had on her rescue inhaler relaxes.
Visi’s fluttery relieved exhale is cut short when another figure emerges from the darkness. They are a barely visible shadow of movement that she’s only certain isn’t the darkness playing tricks on her eyes when she hears the familiar wet thunk of a knife hitting flesh and Robert’s grunt of pain.
The figure stays still as he goes down in front of them, and even in her paralyzed horror Visi easily recognizes Coop’s macabre grin in the familiar red glow of her old enhancements from Shroud.