Hold me and never leave me | Z-Team x Robert
Nobody in the Z-Team could pinpoint the exact moment Robert’s way of looking at them changed. There had been no dramatic turning point, no speech, no single act that neatly divided before from after. If the shift happened at all, it must have been gradual, hiding behind the things Robert stopped saying, or the things he finally started doing. Eating more, for example. Or leaving his lair to come drink with them.
It wasn’t anything grand or life-altering. But that didn’t make it any less meaningful to them. The Z-Team had long since learned to measure progress in smaller units than most people would bother with: a pause, a remark that wasn’t quite as dismissive, a moment where Robert stayed with them after hours instead of walking away.
Maybe none of it meant anything.
Maybe they were reading too much into things that had never been meant for them at all.
Maybe Robert simply felt confident enough to treat them differently. It didn’t mean he cared about them. Not the way they wanted him to, anyway.
But hope, once it found a place to settle, had a way of digging in its heels. And if the Z-Team had grown good at anything over the years, it was clinging to the smallest flecks of it.
They didn't know when Robert had stopped looking at them like a bunch of rowdies, but Prism was the first one to notice.
Prism powers weren’t easy to handle: she refracted light into brilliant weaponized beams, but it also meant she experienced the world at a sensory intensity the others rarely understood. She didn’t simply reflect light; she could see every color of the spectrum. Every nuance. Every hue human eyes weren’t meant to catch. She could see them, comprehend them, yet sometimes her brain acted up, and splotches of colors and gray invaded her vision, refracting right behind her irises.
“Fuckin’ glasses! Shit!” The sunglasses weren’t helping. The light of the break room was too much all at once. Even the natural light coming through the window was proving to be a pain in the ass. Even the reflection bouncing against the vending machine was offending her.
“Prism,” Robert’s voice cut through her earpiece, startling her. You gotta be fucking kidding me!
“Cut it, Boberto!” she screeched, already scrambling out of the room.
Prism shoved past the break room door with her shoulder, one hand pressed against the side of her head as if she could physically hold the colors in place. The world smeared into overlapping prisms; reds bleeding into violet, green splitting into harsh spectral bands that jittered with every step she took.
The hallway hit her like a floodlight. Too much white. Too many reflections jumping off polished tiles and monitors. Every surface caught the overhead fluorescents and fractured them into stabbing splinters that crawled across her vision.
Her sunglasses were doing shit. Fucking useless!
Janitor’s closet. Closet. Closet.
That was the only thought that stayed stable enough to hold onto. Behind her, Robert was already standing, zoning on her from his desk.
But she was gone before her name finished leaving his mouth. He paused only long enough to set the headset down on the counter. Just a brief look toward her direction, and then he exhaled. Flambae was already whining, demanding to know what was happening.
“Chase, take over, please,” Robert said, without explaining, then he gave chase. Ahead of him, Prism stumbled around the corner.
If Prism had been able to pay more attention to her surroundings, she could have noticed him running after her. She didn’t hear him, no matter how loud and heavy his steps were; she didn’t notice, too focused on not giving in to the idea of taking her eyes out.
Her head. God, this migraine was gonna kill her! She was sure of it!
Prism’s focus had collapsed to a narrow tunnel: the dark rectangle of the janitor’s closet door halfway down the hall. Her vision kept fracturing, colors stuttering and doubling until the walls themselves seemed to ripple.
“Fuckin’ glasses! Shit-” She shoved the sunglasses harder against her face like that might force them to work. Meanwhile, Robert closed the distance by half without her noticing, and slowed as he got closer.
Prism finally reached the closet door and yanked it open with more force than necessary. The hinges protested with a sharp squeal. She slipped inside and slammed it shut behind her. The closet was quiet, disturbed only by a long breath being forced through clenched teeth. She goes limp against the wall, showing the glasses away from her and pressing her palms against her eyes.
After a few seconds, the door clicked open again. There were footsteps, then someone dropped beside her.
“Too bright?” Robert asked, and the sound of his voice made Prism still. Why was he here? Was he going to force her out of there? Report her?
Anyway, Prism nodded weakly. Her breathing was shallow now, ragged. “I can’t shut it off,” Prism whispered.
Robert was quiet for a moment. Then he gently took her right hand and squeezed.
Prism stiffened instantly, but didn’t pull away. Robert pressed his thumb slowly across her palm, tracing a steady line back and forth.
The repetitive pressure drew Prism’s attention away from the chaos of light still flickering behind her eyes. Breathing came easier, lighter. Behind her closed eyes, the darkness seeping through her eyelids was reassuring, calming. She could focus on giving her pain a shape and imagined tossing it around to get rid of it.
“Focus on this,” Robert murmured. His other free hand slid up to cup her cheek, the tip of his fingers brushing against her lower lid, swiping away a few tears. Instinctively, she pressed harder against his palm.
Prism’s breathing gradually lengthened, slowing down to a comfortable pace.
“…that helps,” she admitted, mumbling.
This was ...new. Robert had never been that prone to touching; quite the opposite. Oftentimes, he shied away from casual touches as if it physically scorched him; when people walked past him, accidentally brushing against him, it was enough to make him flinch. He never allowed any member of the Z-Team to put their hands on him for more than a couple of seconds, and even then, he’d grimace like the act disgusted him deeply.
This. Whatever this was, it was new. Not unwelcome. Never unwelcome, not to Prism.
Curious, she opened her left eye: Robert was going on with his ministration; the slow motion grounded her until the tension in her shoulders finally dropped. The man wasn’t looking at her, focusing his gaze on her hand while the one on her cheek merely rested there.
The pain was still there, pounding. She wasn’t naive enough to believe whatever Robert was doing would magically fix her migraine, but… to say it wasn’t helping at all would be a lie. At the very least, she didn’t want to rip her eyes out anymore…
“What about the team?” She murmured. Surely, he had better things to do than hold hands with her. Like, doing his job and preventing Flambae from starting fires just to piss Chase off.
“You’re part of the team,” he said, as a matter of fact.
“I didn’t know babysitting us was in your job description,” she snorted.
“I am not babysitting you,” Robert corrected her, looking up from her hand to meet her gaze with his. God, were his eyelashes always so long and perfect? And the eyes? God! Sure! They were just brown eyes, but with his features? And the proportions? Robert was probably in his late twenties - early thirties at most - but something about the way his features came together gave him a youthful, almost cute vibe.
He wasn’t so bad to look at.
“Then…” she cleared her voice, putting her other hand on top of Robert’s on her cheek, “what are you doing?”
Her heart somersaulted when Robert looked up at her, and the tenderness behind those eyes managed to hush the throbbing pain of her migraine for a moment. If it wasn’t for her ass being on the floor already, she wasn’t sure her legs would sustain her for how weak they had become.
“I am taking care of you,” he responded, “…but you should probably stop by the medical bay anyway. I can call Flambae, if you’d like.”
“Oh, god, Flambae!” She gasped, taking the earpiece from her pocket for updates. She forgot about warning him! Once she placed it in her ear, it was pure chaos. They were so used to having Robert as their dispatcher that now, those few times he wasn’t available, the whole team got seriously anxious.
Once it became clear their dispatcher was a magnet for villains and torture, it didn’t take much for the team to start fearing the worst.
“Where the fuck is Bob-Bob?” her bestie growled, talking over Chase’s threats. “Where’s Prism?”
Prism chuckled; the sound had Robert lift an eyebrow. She forgot he couldn’t hear Flambae without his headset on.
“Relax, bae! I am good,” she cooed, winking at Robert even though the bare movement of her eyelid made her eye twitch in pain. “Mr. Dispatcher is taking good care of me.”
Comms went quiet for a moment. Even Chase didn’t know what to say.
“Are you showing him your boobs?” Sonar chimed in, his voice dropping on the last word.
“… you said I had dibs,” Flambae murmured, probably pouting like a child.
“I saw him first, matchstick,” Visi groaned.
“Not like that!” She rolled her eyes, immediately regretting it. A spike of pain tore through her skull. Robert squeezed her cheek gently.
“Fuck - migraine. I’ve got a migraine. He’s just… helping me with it. Bae, I’m going to need you to drag me to the medical bay during lunch.”
“Okay, Bae is coming.” She told Robert. But Robert wasn’t letting her go. No. The man was glued to her still, soothing and looking at her like she was a fragile thing and her heart - oh! She was sure her heart was going to burst out of her chest if he kept looking at her with those eyes.
“Roberto, unless you’re planning to make a mess, keep those doe eyes under control.”
Robert blinked once. Twice. Ops. Too much? Was he going to report her to HR? She was almost on the verge of taking the comment back, to say that she was just joking, but then his lips curved into a gentle smile. His eyes wrinkled slightly as his cheek rose, and there it was again, that missing beat in her chest.
“Wow,” he snorted. “Never heard that one before. Guess I should get going, then. Let me know how it goes.”
With that, he cradled her head in both hands and pressed a rough kiss to her forehead. His lips were dry -he could really use some chapstick- but that hardly seemed important.
For a second, she just stared at him.
That… hadn’t been on the list of things she expected Robert to do today. Or ever.
Her hand came up slowly, fingertips brushing the spot he’d kissed as if confirming it had actually happened. Robert had already stepped back, looking perfectly normal about it, which somehow made it worse.
“…Okay,” she said faintly. He gave her a small shrug, like kissing her forehead was the most practical solution in the world.
“Medical bay,” he reminded her.
Robert lingered for half a second longer, those stupid soft eyes flicking over her face, then turned and headed for the door.
She watched him go, still touching her forehead.
The migraine was very much still there, but she had to admit… she didn't mind. Not if it meant being locked up in the janitor's closet with Robert.
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