It would be mathematically incorrect to say that he’s 100% sure this won’t end with Robbie’s son dead on the floor of this disgusting dive-bar. That said, Elliot (well, Shroud, he’s Shroud tonight) has run the permutations a few dozen times now. He ran them while he sat, working down his drink—whiskey, neat—watching Robert Robertson the Third race to the bottom of half a dozen greasy shot glasses at the other end of the bar.
He’s sure within a 4% margin for error this group won’t kill Mecha Man outright.
The operatives he’s brought with him tonight are… deliberate individuals. The math swings in Robert’s favor in that half the meta humans present don’t identify as men. (Ten percent of this crew doesn’t even conceptualize gender as part of their identity at all.) Which is to say, when Coupé steps up behind Robbie’s son and cracks a roundhouse across the side of his skull, Shroud is sure they won’t tear his unconscious body apart for the base deficiency of being pretty.
He must get it from his mother, Shroud thinks and Robert hits the floor under the bar with a dead-weight thud.
There is a beat. A fallen shot glass rolls through a puddle of spilled bourbon on the bar top; it drops with a thud and continues rolling out of sight somewhere on the floor by Robert’s body. From the way Coupé stands there, staring down, her bright hawk-like eyes fixed on a single point, Robert’s been knocked completely unconscious by her blow and isn’t moving.
Silence as Shroud picks up and inspects a bottle from the bar.
He pours a fresh glass.
TBC on AO3
peatbogpirate:
this one’s from last year but I just started my rotk reread and this scene makes me giggle every time
There is a reason that most dispatchers don’t survive more than a week managing the Z-Team.
Robert can admit that part of his continued commitment to SDN employment is rooted in a sheer, bull-headed, nihilism-adjacent spite and the notion that he’s not going to let a gaggle of morally challenged dipshits get the better of him. Robert has been Mecha Man for a decade and a half. He’s done insane shit. He’s been blown up, shot, tortured, kidnapped, mocked, gassed, burned, blown up (it’s worth repeating), and one time he did a Hot Ones interview where the interviewer asked him about TikTok thirst trap edits.
He is so fucking good at pain.
The point is, in a contest of sheer fucking will, The Dipshits aren’t going to win.
“Rob. Rob. Hey, Robbie—”
“Sonar, get the fuck off teamwide. I’m trying to—”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Sonar goes on, almost philosophical. “What’s your deal? You know, biblically? You seem tense. Like a man who needs to get railed. I worry if you don’t unclench soon, nothing’s ever gonna, you know, unclench ever.”
“Sonar, I swear to fuck—”
“So, what’s your poison? Men? Women? Eldritch hotties from beyond the veil? I can recommend you some choice spots to get whatever you need, buddy. I’ve got you.”
Robert picks up a pen and scribbles on the notepad labeled HR VIOLATIONS yet another tally for sexual harassment under Sonar’s name. Sonar mostly racks up violations for substance abuse and trying to hack Robert’s personnel files. (Sonar is good, but he’s not better than Robert at literally his specialty.) But he also excels in talking about tentacle porn and strip clubs too casually in the break room.
As expected, Invisigal immediately comes off mute and says, gleefully, “Robert strikes me as a man who’d cry if pegged and whimper throughout, regardless of the gender of the pegger. Equal opportunity pegee. Team poll. Agree or agree?”
The entire team chimes in with overlapping agreements except Golem who rumbles, fondly, “You’re fucked up for that, Vizi.” and Phenomaman who says, “What is this ‘pegging’?” Silver linings: This immediately draws the team’s attention like piranha to chum. They all rush to speak at once and wildly misinform their off-worlder teammate and forget entirely they were bullying their dispatch officer.
Robert marks down a tally for Invisigal (her crimes are so expansive, he keeps a separate notepad for her) and sets a reminder to tell Phenomaman to just Google things and never believe The Dipshits about anything sex related. Then he wonders where the fuck the HR Department in this building even is. He wonders whether ninety percent of that person’s job is Z-Team nonsense. He wonders if they just hung themselves in their office and no one noticed.
TBC on AO3
snowkissedmonsters:
I think people no longer understand that “viewer discretion is advised” does not mean “vaguely bad content ahead,” it means View At Your Own Discretion. As in, if you see the content going in a direction that is unsuitable for you in any way, it is your responsibility to stop viewing. Don’t blame creators for your failure to listen to your own warning signs. Nobody is forcing you to finish the episode, the chapter, the sentence. That’s all you.
