Can I talk for a second about how weird Flambae is about caring for people? Specifically about Robert partially into the game. Z Team will be mentioned but mostly as comparison points. He's known them for much longer so he's slightly less of a posturing asshole when it comes to them. When it comes to Robert, however, the posturing comes in full force.
With the team, especially Prism, Flambae isn't too obtuse about caring for them. There are multiple instances of him hyping them up or being protective. When Prism says she lost her first talent show, Flambae immediately responds with "Shit must've been rigged," because to him no one is better at singing than her. If you send him to rescue Sonar during the Red Ring attack, he says "If there's even a hair missing on Sonar's head, I'll fucking burn this shit to the ground." But then you get to Robert.
On Robert's first day, while everyone is laughing at his name Flambae says this: "You stuttering bitch? You can't be this shook on your first day, come on." Now, clearly he's joining in the hazing, but in a weird way he's also telling Robert to be calm. He's saying that its Robert's first day and he shouldn't be too nervous about in a very roundabout way. While he is making fun of his name, Flambae is also trying to give him some reassurance.
However, the main example of this is the entire gym sequence. When he finds Robert struggling to get out from under the bench press, he calls him an idiot for not using proper safety measures then helps him out of it. Yes, he repeatedly calls him weak then shows off how strong he is with the squat rack and saying how strong he is. However, I do think, in his own posturing asshole way, he was trying to reassure Robert. I know I might sound a little crazy with this but hear me out.
Flambae is not wrong in calling Robert weak physically. I know the timeline of Dispatch is supposed to take place over several months but that still isn't enough time to recover from the muscular atrophy that would come from a 3-4 month coma. The gym scene takes place in episode 5, halfway through the game and likely halfway through the timeline. Robert was doing something extremely stupid for being freshly out of a coma. He was pushing himself way too hard by trying to lift too much weight at the end of his work out, which is in itself stupid! Flambae was right to call him an idiot for lifting without a spot.
But that’s the thing, he clocks that Robert was pushing himself far beyond what he was ready for and he knows that there’s a reason for it. Robert is visibly skinny, lacking excess fat and most muscle mass. From the interactions he’s had with him, Flambae knows that he’s someone who used to be able to throw down with people stronger than him (throwing a chair at Golem and then lecturing him casually is not something normies just do) and he’s someone that has had “the burden of potential” placed on him. He’s smart enough to figure out (and yes he is more observant than he acts) that Robert is dangerously pushing himself because he has this expectation of himself to be what he was before, even so fresh into recovering from whatever got him like this. He’s not just calling Robert weak to insult him, he’s pointing out a fact that Robert doesn’t want to accept.
Then there’s how Flambae shows off his own power. Him using the squat rack was posturing but it wasn’t showing off in a way that was meant to make Robert feel lesser. If he wanted to do that, he would’ve added more weight to the bench press, kicked Robert off of it, then easily benched the weight while talking about how strong he is. Instead, he went to a machine (?) that requires stability to use and showed off how strong he was. He was showing Robert that he was someone stable enough to take on burdens because he knows Robert is too stubborn for just words and insults to work. He’s witnessed the same show-don’t-tell, matching-energy in him that the entire Z Team has.
After showing off, Flambae patronizingly tells Robert that he “can’t get injured cause we need you behind that desk to help the real heroes.” He is admitting that the team needs him and they need him safe. Robert pushing himself like this is dangerous and will end with him hurt or worse like it almost did. That’s why he told him “No more hero stuff without supervision,” and “It’s time for you to accept that you don’t got it anymore. And pretending you still do is bumming people the fuck out.” He’s not just making fun of him, he’s trying to dissuade him from doing something stupid like that again.
If he wants to work out, fine, but have someone there with him so he doesn’t push too far. Because the team needs him behind that desk and him doing this to the point of almost injuring himself will make them worry. Maybe he just cares because Robert is the first good dispatcher the team has had. Maybe he just likes that he’s making the lives of his friends easier. Either way, he cares about Robert and knows that, by this point, the rest of the team does too.
Now, why wouldn’t Flambae just say any of this? Well, they were at work and he has an image to maintain. Flambae is the posturing asshole at the top of the Z Team ranking. He is the manly brute that is so strong and full of himself. It’s the image he’s built for and he never knows when someone else is watching. He has to maintain it at all times at work when he’s not in the field.
On coms, when it’s just him and the team, he talks about his niece and making potpourri (basically fragrant, dried flowers) with Golem. He has casual conversations about what normie jobs they would have and office rumors. He doesn’t have to put up a front with them, but in person he runs the risk of people outside of the team seeing him. He can’t be nice or soft around random people at work. He has to be an asshole in the gym because he doesn’t know if anyone is gonna walk in on him trying to reassure Robert. It would go against everything he had built up.
All of this to say that I do think that Flambae cares about Robert even though he’s such an asshole about it. He has an image to keep up. As much as he would like to tell Robert that he doesn’t need to push himself to dangerous extremes for some vague potential reaching, he can’t just be caring in public. He has to be the posturing asshole who can’t give a compliment or show care to save his life. He has to be obtuse about it and talk around the fact that the entire team needs Robert and that they care at all.
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