echo
sonar x ex-villian!dispatcher!fem!reader
summary: blonde blazer recruited you for the phoenix programming as a dispatcher a while after you first got arrested after being busted for running a phone scam. you actually enjoyed your new 9 to 5, if only you could get that bat out of your head.
a/n: GUYS I THINK THIS FIC GOT ME OUT OF MY WRITING RUT
tags: lowercase, second person, ex-villains, friends to lovers, fluff, office crush, yearning? yearning, language, canon type violence, alcohol, i make jokes about the game mechanics (lovingly), you’re lowkey in denial about liking him, kissing, no editing we die like men
ao3 version
when you first wore a headset, you were convincing people that their loved ones were being held hostage until they coughed up a hefty chunk of ransom money or convincing old people to buy snake oil drugs from their “friends” that were basically just sugar pills. you went by echo, with the power to mimic anyone’s voice that you’ve heard before. it was fun for a while and made you a shit ton of money, until you were caught of course.
now, you were dispatching ex-villains like yourself in the phoenix program to take care of the public. the pay was decent and no one said anything if you took more breaks than usual, so you stuck to the office job. you liked bossing people around and your team trusted you to guide them, especially since you used to be one of them. plus, you were right across from chase, who would laugh in his endearing old man way when you intimidated robert’s voice to say stupid shit like “where’s my chlamydia cream?”
and of course it was always nice to see son- victor in the office. he told you his real name a few weeks ago but you were so used to calling him by his hero name, it was still a little hard to adjust to. he always seemed to perk up a bit when you said victor instead of sonar, but you rationalized it as him just recognizing his real name.
definitely not because he loves it when you say his name.
your team and the z team were surprisingly close, so you saw all of them around the office more often than not. especially victor.
not that you manually facilitated that by always taking your breaks at the same time as him or anything. that would be something a crazy person would do! you liked hearing his voice, whether he was talking about crypto or making a vaguely inappropriate joke that you probably would’ve reported if you weren’t head over heels for him. his little squeaks (that everyone else considers LOUD screeches) are endearing to you and you don’t even mind when he eats rodents or mice! you hoped it didn’t leave a long residue in his mouth, especially when you fantasized about kissing him, rat guys would not be preferred.
he always made you laugh, that’s probably when you started to get that fuzzy feeling in your stomach whenever he was around. all you could imagine when he was around was running your hands through his fur, wondering if he would make happy little chirps like a real bat would.
you quickly shook your head, hoping your mind would clear like one of those old etchasketch toys. sometimes, when you would be feeling really paranoid, you would worry that his sensitive ears could actually hear your thoughts. it’s definitely some sort of anxiety that you didn’t feel like addressing, so you tried to keep your thoughts of how far his fur went down his chest to a minimum.
your team was doing surprisingly well today with minimal disruptions and only one or two menially strange tasks.
near the end of your shift, your phone lit up with a call.
it was victor.
strange, he should be on call right now or maybe already dispatched into the field with the rest of his team. you slipped your headset down to rest around your neck and quickly held the phone up to your ear.
“hello?”
“hey sweets, it’s me. i gotta panel here that needs voice authentication. mind helping me out?”
you ignored the warmth on your cheeks at the pet name. it’s not like it’s the first time he’s used a sweet nickname for you but it still gave you butterflies.
“at your service manbat, what and who do you need?”
“i need the mayor saying, uh- what was it again?” he asked someone in the room he was in. “got it, sprinkle sundae unicorn.”
“…you’re fucking with me.”
“i really wish i was, but i need you to say it now before a missle launches.”
“what???”
“now!”
“FUCK- SPRINKLE SUNDAE UNICORN,” you practically yelled into the phone, your throat glowing a soft pink as you activated your powers. now, in any other office setting, hearing a grown woman with the voice of the mayor screaming about what sounded like a little girls ice cream order would’ve been weird. but working in the phoenix program department, no one batted an eye.
you heard a loud beep on the other side of the line and a loud hiss of air. victor let out a sigh of relief.
“thanks a lot sweetheart, i owe you one,”’ he said in a way that you hear his grin in it.
“oh yeah? how about a drink tonight where you tell me why the fuck i just said that.”
“deal.”
“-so somehow he managed to press all 3 buttons at the same time to trigger the thing and i was the only one in the area.”
you and victor sat side by side at the bar, both of you with a cheap beer in your hand. the rest of the phoenix squads were scattered about, most already tipsy at this point in the night. you were definitely getting there.
“how the hell did he manage to do that?”
“fuck if i know, but he hit his head on the desk and knocked himself out right after that. the beeping for the timer was loud enough to alert the offices nearby and someone scrambled for the sdn line. i was the closest person in the area and luckily, i knew the right person to help,” he recounted with a smirk at the end, taking a sip of his now lukewarm beer once he finished.
“god, you are so lucky to know me,” you said in a jokingly cocky way, a proud grin on your lips before you drained your glass.
“yeah, i am,” he said in a surprisingly serious voice, his white eyes locking onto yours.
you searched his face for something, anything to give you some semblance of what he was thinking when he said that. was he actually being serious? or was it just the alcohol? he would off handedly say similar shit sometimes, but you figured he was like that with everyone.
boy were you wrong.
“why are you looking at me like that?” you blurted out, your tongue loose with curiosity as your inhibitions were lowered.
“like what?” he countered, his body unconsciously leaning closer to you.
your narrowed your eyes in frustration and slightly pursed your lips, “i don’t know, like you like me.”
“i do like you.”
“you know what i mean.”
“do i?”
you flicked his forehead and continued glaring at him, “cmon, a harvard graduate should be able to give me better answers than that!”
“ow!” he exclaimed over dramatically and covered the hurt spot. “okay okay, you got me. look, i-”
BOOM.
an explosion went off near by that sounded way too close for comfort and in the blink of an eye, both phoenix squad teams in the bar abandoned their drinks to go investigate.
the cool night air was thankfully pretty sobering, especially seeing the small mushroom cloud erupting only a few blocks away.
robert called out a basic, but cautious infiltration plan for the heros to follow before taking off towards the sdn, calling after you to join him. as much as you wanted to join the others to investigate, you knew you would be more useful getting all angles from the cameras.
your eyes darted around, looking for victor. once you found him, he was already transformed with his bright red eyes already on you. he let out a screech and nodded his head towards robert’s direction. he looked antsy, as if he couldn’t fly until he knew that you were safe. you nodded back to him, taking a few steps backwards with your eyes not leaving his. victor did the same, preparing to take off. both of you knew the risks of the job, but you couldn’t help the nervous tightening of your throat.
you turned away first, breaking out in a dead sprint to the sdn building and fumbling with your purse to yank out your id card. the loud swoops of victor’s wings slowly faded away and before you knew it, you were shoving your keycard against the front door sensor and running up to your desk. you logged in and immediately started to look for cameras in the area, not finding any that didn’t need a passcode. cursing under your breath, you started working on hacking the cameras with robert.
when you first started the job, you would not have guessed that a lot of hacking cameras involved a dodecahedron. but life is full of surprises.
once you finally got into the cameras, the whole thing was a shitshow. half a building was gone and the lower half was on the verge of collapse, there were red ring henchmen all over the place, and there was some kind of blue acid all over the place.
you and robert directed your teams as best as you could, mostly keeping an eye on their backs to warn them of people in their blind spots. robert shouted something about a chain reaction, adding to the chaos as you tried to help both teams.
“on your left electra. prism you’ve got two coming up behind you. damn it- coil, if you can get to the vent behind the staircase you should be able to find the kill switch.”
your eyes flicked from screen to screen, looking for victor. where the hell was he?
across the screen of camera 4, you saw a black blur go by and followed it to camera 5 that showed victor and the other flying heros with licenses evacuating the remaining citizens in the bottom half of the building. you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, slightly relaxing your posture while still keeping an eye on your teams.
he’s safe. he’s okay. he’s-
BOOM.
another explosion went off and the comms were flooded with both teams checking on each other. everyone responded, except victor.
“does anyone have eyes on sonar?” you hastily asked, frantically checking all of the cameras you had access to. people were scrambling and all you could hear was the blood rushing in your ears, your heart beating out of your chest.
a thump hit the window outside of the office and the top part swung open, a dark figure crawling into the office leaving a trail of ever darker liquid behind it.
it was sonar.
“victor!” you threw off your headset and ran to him, kneeling beside his full bat form and lightly putting pressure on his shoulders to stop him from crawling. he looked dazed, head still wildly looking around.
“hey hey, look at me,” you whispered and cupped the sticky blood soaked fur on his cheeks, tilting his head down to look at you.
“it’s okay,” you reassured him, rubbing your thumbs against his cheekbones. his ears still flickered, but his eyes were zeroed in on you. suddenly, his arms wrapped around you, pulling you in tight against his body as his leathery wings engulfed you. you buried your face in his chest as the rise and fall of his chest slowly evened out, you could feel his snout bury itself into your hair.
after you don’t know how long, the fur you laid your head against transformer back into a suit and you were left with victor’s arms still wrapped around you. you timidly lifted your head and studied his face, swallowing down the dry rock of anxiety that settled in your chest.
“you scared the shit out of me dumbass,” you scolded, weakly pushing at his shoulder. he chuckled and smoothed out the hair on the top of your head.
“hey, you know us harvard graduates are hard to kill,” he teased.
you groaned and rolled your eyes, about to take a step back to give him space but his arms stayed firmly around your waist.
“victor?”
he took a deep breath and looked down into your eyes, “listen, i know we joke around and all, but goddamn it r/n i cant stop thinking about you and i want to be with you.” he paused. “please?”
you let out a small laugh at his small formality, but you couldn’t wipe the smile off your face.
“well, since you asked so nicely.”
victor picked you up by your waist and spun you around, barely setting you back down on the ground before he pressed his lips against yours. you melted in his embrace, your arms wrapped around his neck and your hands desperately grasping at his fur to bring him impossibly closer to you.
of course the moment was interrupted by the loving z team.
“alright everyone pay up!” malevola shouted victoriously as the rest of the team grumbled, still looking a little worse for wear after the battle, but threw bills her way.
the two of you looked at the team in surprise before looking back at each other with a smile.
“mal you’re sharing that with us right?” victor said half jokingly, a grin tugging at his lips.
a/b: finished this in an airplane bathroom sorry for the grammar mistakes