Chapter Text
‘Flowers were nice,’ Chase thought to himself as he stared down at the golden hourglass shaped vase sitting neat and pretty towards the left corner of his work booth, filled with daffodils, purple and blue hyacinths, marigolds and a singular red rose smack dab in the middle.
Usually, flowers had a whole ass language hidden behind them, if you gave enough of a shit to care about them like that. Instead and at this very moment there was the more pressing matter of what purpose or message was behind their presence in his vicinity.
On his desk.
Most times, Chase gets flowers from his coworkers as a get well soon gift when he has to take time off of work due to health reasons and they’re always some random bullshit stems thrown together into some random bullshit bouquet. It's whatever. Flowers is flowers. Other times (more rarely but also more typically), he gets them as a birthday gift with a neat lil hand written card alongside them wishing him good luck and a healthy (hah!) rest of the year. And they're always yellow roses. And if thats the case then theyre also always from fuckin’ Mandy. Which is sweet and always leaves him a lil flustered but it's nice she cares so much.
So yeah, that's fine. He likes them, can usually sparse the meanings behind them pretty well if there was any effort put into them at all and likes the sentiment of them enough to be civil about it before he tells everyone to fuck off afterwards and leave him alone and then they all have a good chuckle about it all thereafter.
That's fine. That's the routine.
And so whilst they're always, always, nice to get, Chase at least, y’know, actually fuckin’ knows who the fuckin’ culprit was for all of those vases of flowers on his desk over the years.
It's basically the default by now actually; to get flowers from someone at SDN. He's just that illusive enough of a prick apparently that nobody knows what else to fuckin’ get the weird old guy gifts wise and of course after he mentioned maybe wanting to try gardening just one fucking time to somebody offhandedly, obviously thats all he fucking wants to get as gifts- right-?
Whatever. That's the jist of it all anyway. He understands the when and why and most importantly the who. It feels safe, even. Predictable.
So that's obviously why this new golden vase of flowers on his desk thats bouncing light off the overhead LED's directly into his fuckin’ eyeballs is so objectively fuckin’ not nice. It's a random goddamn Tuesday godsdamnit. There's currently nothing going on and he's not currently dying -everyone say thank you Mandy- and he's definitely not celebrating his birthday. Current- fucking- ly.
So what the fuck?!
Chase knows he's been standing there, arms crossed and silently turning cogs in his head, for far too long when he hears a creak of a chair to his left and Robert peaks his head around the divider to raise an eyebrow at him in question.
“It's not a bomb, just so you know,” The cheeky bastard smirks as he pushes his chair back a few feet for a better look at him.
“I’d know, I checked them myself before sitting down.”
Chase ignores him and continues to stare at the offending vase like it owes him lunch money. Seconds tick by uneventfully and Robert in turn ends up standing next to him after a grunt that sounds way too old to be coming outta a mouth that young to linger by his shoulder like a goddamn kid on Christmas; hands in his pockets, smile wide and devious as it accentuates his dimples.
As if he'd put it there. The fucker. Chase knows he wouldn't have though; he's not soppy enough for that shit yet. Hopefully. Blegh- he is not looking forward to the time of his life when Robert fucking Robertson the Third starts buying him flowers.
Save it for his grave or something, goddamn.
Finally, Chase shifts his weight and settles down on the floor from where he'd been hovering a little bit anxiously previously. When the leaves and stems of the flowers don't actually end up springing to life and start chopping people's arms off in front of him. Or exploding. He relaxes a little bit more. But not fully. He's had enough of explosions now, thanks.
“You’re acting like you've never seen flowers before, man. You good? Dementia finally settling in up there or something?” Robert continues, deadpan voice trying and failing to hide the very obvious enjoyment he’s getting out of Chase’s current mid-shift crisis.
A sigh and then the usual-
“Oh, fuck off.”
Has Robert laughing.
Chase makes a swing for his head.
Robert dodges and pushes him away, retreating back to his cubicle and the safety of Beef's darling little face popping up to see what all the commotion is, tongue sticking out as if in concentration. Fucking adorable.
Gods Chase would die for that dog. Anyway-
He shakes his head and continues crossing his arms with a sigh.
“Yeah, that's right, coward. Run back to your precious boy whilst you still can. I’ll fuckin’ getchu eventually.”
With another small shake of his head, he leans down to find his glasses set aside on his desk and slips them on, taking another sweeping look over the beautifully -but he’d never admit that out loud- arranged sentimental bouquet, wondering if it had a greetings card hidden somewhere.
“You ever learn to read this shit?” He asks, confident he knows the answer before he’s even been given it. “Y’know, flower languages? Or whatever people be calling it.”
Robert makes a noncommittal noise for a second before the sound of his quick typing breaks the pause,
“Mmh, kind of? Coupé’s been teaching me a little bit. Just the basics, like, 'love' and shit. Though the purple hyacinths are a bit… concerning. You piss someone off or something? Must have been bad if they got you a whole fucking mantle piece decoration over it.”
Chase blinks once owlishly, frowns. Shifts slightly.
Well shit, fuck him then, nevermind.
Giving the divider a look, Chase can almost feel Robert staring right back at him the exact same way despite not even seeing his bitchass face. Brotherly instinct he supposes. He’d been so used to having a sixth sense for Robert doing stupid shit when he was only a room over when he was a kid after the whole robot almost shooting him to death thing that it's practically ingrained in him now to have an ear out in case something goes tits up.
Or in this particular case when Robert is trying to match his vibe to gauge an answer he just knows he ain't gonna get verbally. The little shit knew exactly how to push all his buttons from experience.
Fucker.
“Right, well now I wish I hadn’t of asked ya’ ‘bout that- gonna make me nervous- but whatever- here’s a real question for ya,” He pops back up to standing and floats just the tiniest bit more so that he's really looking down at the boy now through his glasses.
Stern eyes, arms crossed, the whole shebang. If looks could kill etcetera etcetera…
“Who brought ‘em in?”
Robert stops typing suddenly at the firm tone and stares at his screen for a moment, expression blank. When he turns to Chase, neck adjusting for the new height gap, he simply blinks and says nothing more. There’s no expression change, no twitch of the fingers, nothing-
And then he raises a singular eyebrow. Slowly.
“You don’t know who brought them?” He answers the question with a question, the corner of his mouth twitching for just a moment in amusement. “Well now that's a surprise.”
“Sonofa-” He’d been played by his own damn game- Chase quickly attempts to wrangle the conversation back to his own lead. ”No, I don't know who brought them in!” Chase half yells, arms thrown up in exasperation and turning a few heads in the office that he decidedly does not give a fuck about. “‘Swhy I’m asking you- you secret keeping, slimy lil shit-”
“Woah woah hey now-” Robert cuts off, one of his hands coming up to hide the growing grin behind whilst the other is held out in front as if to placate Chase from further accusations. “I swear, on Beef’s life-”
“Don’t you dare bring Beefy into this-” Chase interjects, fingers pointing imaginary lasers into Robert's forehead in warning.
“On Beef’s adorable, wonderful, innocent, little life, I do solemnly swear,” Robert continues anyway, voice filled with mirth as he places one hand on his heart and raises the other as if taking an oath, “that I know absolutely jack fucking shit about your mystery flower delivery guy, okay?”
Huffing in disbelief, Chase lowers himself once more to the ground to instead lean his arms atop the divider separating them. He keeps a stink eye on Robert though, in between glancing lovingly at Beef’s pillow digging escapades, just in case he can see any of the bullshit leak through.
Robert simply lowers his head the tiniest amount, staring at him up through his stupidly long as fuck eyelashes before wiggling the fingers of his raised hand in emphasis.
“Okay?” He reiterates.
“Fuck- fuck okay- fine,” Chase finally relents feeling his shoulders drop a little in disappointment. “Now we both stupid and not knowing shit then. Fine. So then who the fuck-”
He waves a hand carelessly behind himself and clips one of the daffodils with his pinky finger, twisting his head quickly to make sure he hasn’t accidentally knocked the whole thing over; he finds himself faltering at that one flower in particular.
“-sent me this- this…”
Chase lets himself shut up awkwardly and grimaces at the… message… oh so obviously spelt out beside him; sitting so pretty and dangerous near his hip.
He stares at them. Bites his lip. Looks at Robert- who has now gone back to typing but is shooting him glances out of the corner of his eye every so often at Chases now very obvious worry (god fucking damnit)- looks back at the flowers- looks at Beef.
Beef is circling his pillow looking for a good napping spot.
Gods he needs a nap too right about now actually. Mother fucking mystery flowers-
“So, what's it say?” Robert asks calmly, patiently, without a hint of force.
Such a sweet boy when he wants to be, too good for this world. Goddamnit.
Chase grumbles under his breath in that way Robert always calls him old over and feels his ears heat up a little in embarrassment. Fuck he hates being embaressed. God fucking shit damnit-
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Unc,” Robert interjects before Chase can rile himself up anymore. “I’m just asking in case I need to, like, I dunno,” He makes a noncommittal shrug with his shoulders then stares right into Chase’s soul.
“Threaten someone.”
Now THAT has him finally breaking.
With a choking wheeze of a laugh, Chase waves his hands out to fan the air around him as he's suddenly overrun with giggles.
“Nah, man, it’s not like-” He breaks off into a snort and finally removes his glasses to let them hang around his neck, just above Mandy’s amulet. “It’s nothing bad just, ah… Fuck I ain’t good with this shit, kid.”
“What shit?” Robert asks anyway, because of course he does.
Sighing, Chase sinks against the divider again.
“Feelings shit, y’know. The mushy crap- I ain’t-” He sighs again, feeling too damn old to be sighing this much. “I ain’t exactly getting any younger even with this amulet so, fuckin’ y’know-” he waves awkwardly at himself, the whole of himself even if Robert isnt even fully looking at him.
And then he spots the exact moment the lightbulb clicks on in Robert's head about what he’s talking about.
“Oh, no way-”
“No way what-?”
“No fucking way- Chase-” Robert flicks his head between the man in question with wide, unbelieving eyes and then his computer screen. “-Fuck, I’m so stupid- there’s literally a red rose- and- I- I need to look something up- hold on-”
“Goddamnit, kid. Fine. When’s your break up, anyhow? You eaten yet?” He can’t help but ask, time sensitivity and caring too much about Robert always making him a little bit anxious on if his nephews like, actually okay and not dying of starvation.
Mix that with the anxiety of this whole situation in general and Chase is feeling a bit a lot of shit right now actually. Like, probably more than Robert is for a change.
“Fine, thanks. Ends in twenty minutes and for your information I had two whole hams sandwiches as well as the usual twinkies. Aren’t you so proud of me?” Robert answers truthfully with a small sarcastic grin and fingers finally stilling on his keyboard.
Chase simply rolls his eyes, “Yuh- huh. Good job, kiddo. Real A for effort on that-”
“Ohhh my god-” He suddenly cuts in, face beaming at his screen before he turns to him with a cheeky conspiratory grin (the Z-team had definitely been rubbing off on him damn-), “Chase you sly fucking dog- there something you wanna tell me for real this time?”
Lifting his glasses back up to squint at Roberts screen, Chase quickly but carefully reads through the article he's pulled up on his computer and-
‘Daffodil— Unequalled love, You’re the only one for me, The sun is always shining when I’m with you.’
And off to the side on another tab-
‘Rose: Red— Love, I love you.’
(As if he even needed to search up that one- fucking whatever.)
But Yup.
He’s fucking in it now.
He’s so fucked.
“Ah.”
Fuuuuuck.
“‘Ah.’ Really? That's all you’ve got? You’ve got someone out here pining for you- and telling you they're sorry for some reason- but you're also like the love of their life or some shit and all you can say is- wait.” Robert stops himself suddenly, another realisation forcing him backwards into his chair hard enough he bounces a little bit, expression flat.
“Wait- you don’t know who sent them- you don’t know whose-”
With a very audible snap of his neck Robert is now very intensely staring at Chase, staring at him as if he’s just realised the actual drama of it all.
Because there's flowers that spell out ‘I love you, I want to be with you, I’m sorry-’ sitting on his desk,
Because hes absolutely fucking godawful dogshit terrible at feelings and thats so fucking embaressing,
Because Chase feels like he wants to rip the amulet off his chest and collapse back into an infirmary bed just so he doesn’t have to deal with any of it at all,
Because he has no fucking clue who theyre from.
Like-
What year is this? How old is he? (Wait, do they know his real age isn’t actually his body’s age?) Has he been transported back in time to fucking highschool? Who the fuck even sends annonymous flowers that spell out something so goddamn sentimental but only if you happened to know how to even read the fucking things in the first place, these days?
Is he reading too much into it? Are they not actually for him and were put on the wrong desk?
What the fuck are they even apologising for? For liking him?
Why would they be apologising about that, though?
Fuck he’s gotta be overthinking this too much. He needs to shut his brain the fuck up and stop caring so damn much about it.
But it's the first time he’s been actively flirted with in over a goddamn decade-
Realising he’s been staring at Robert with a crazed look without blinking for probably a few minutes straight now, Chase lets his head thunk onto the divider wall and hears Robert let out a sympathetic whistle in turn.
“Shit, Chase. Looks like you’re the newest star of ‘SDN Torrence's office romance sitcom’. Or would it be more of a soap? A detective mystery?”
“The fuck did you start caring about the semantics of fuckin’, straight to DVD ass love story ass plots allaasudden?” Chase mumbles between lightly banging his head into the divider wall, hoping to become one with it so he could disappear forever. “This is my life now, Robbie. Have some fucking sympathy at least. I’m dyin’ over here. My brain is fucking melting trying to figure out why this is happenin’ to me.”
Chase hears Robert shrug in his chair, the joints squeaking slightly at his movement.
“Coupé, again.” He answers easily, a hint of fondness in his tone. “You know how she is when it comes to love stories.”
Dragging his head up slowly, Chase levels Robert with a flat, unimpressed look and lets his chin sit on the divider for now; feeling where a slight mark had started to form on his forehead where he’d smushed his skin into it a bit too hard.
“You start spouting cheesy one-liners at me from those weird ass books she reads to you to be some kinda inspiration to me and my current situation or some shit and we gonna have a capital ‘P’ problem on our hands.” He deadpans, body barely moving as he talks until he throws a thumb up over his shoulder to point behind him. “I’m throwing your whole ass, chair and all, straight out that fucking window back there if you start tryin’a be my wingman. I swear.”
Robert, for his part, throws his hands up in an ‘okay I get it’ motion and closes his mouth for a bit; waiting for Chase to gather his thoughts instead. He swings himself back and forth in his chair using his foot in a way thats endearingly reminiscent of how he’d sit and fidget in swivel chairs as a kid and the motion is comforting enough for Chase to focus on for his brain to finally cool the fuck down and reboot.
“Okay. I’m fine now.” Chase says after another few minutes of silence. His eyes flicker to the clock on the wall.
“About ten minutes of break left.” Robert supplies helpfully and patiently, completely judgementless.
Still swinging in his chair.
Sweet helpful boy.
Chase realizes he probably hasn’t been up to stretch much this break considering he’s been helping his stupid ass Unc figure out he has a stupid ass mystery lover over some stupid ass flowers that hadn’t meant much until he’d really started getting his stupid ass thoughts out in the open about them.
Maybe flowers weren’t nice anymore, actually. Maybe they sucked and were made specifically to torment him when he least expected it.
When the fuck had he even learnt about the language of flowers?
Fucking stupid waste of his slowly decreasing brain power is what it was. He should just forget about it all. Throw the bouquet, vase and all in the trash and let someone else take them home so he wouldn’t have to be burdened with awful, awful knowledge about what someone could or could not be admitting to him and downright advertising to the entirety of the SDN bullpen.
Chase’s eyes flicker back to the vase against his will and catch on the last set of flowers, the only set of flowers he doesn't remember the meaning of in the last few years he's been getting gifted them;
marigolds.
They’re absolutely gorgeous. The slightly yellow orange hue matching the yellow of the daffodils and contrasting surprisingly well with the hyacinths all surrounding the singular stark red-
Chase blinks. Squints. Leans in and then out again, Puts his glasses on. Takes them off.
“Chase?” Robert questions, a hint of mirth in his voice.
The colours click together in his brain as something instantly recognisable- albeit slightly off but if you squint just right- and he lets out a dramatic sigh when he realises theyre the colours of his fucking suit.
His Star Blazer super suit.
That he's currently wearing.
And the red rose symbolises the amulet smack dab in the middle.
Motherfucker.
These are one hundred percent for him. Or more specifically they're one hundred percent for the superhero Star Blazer. Whether his mystery admirer had been here before the incident that had gotten him temporary ownership of the amulet or not is another story altogether though.
On the one hand, the admirer could already know who his identity was pre-Shroud thus making things a little bit more awkward but on the other they could simply only know him as he is now which would make things slightly less awkward, especially now that he's at least feeling more like himself physically, even if he doesn’t look it, thanks to the amulet.
But then also he doesn’t know which is worse and he doesn’t want to break it to some like, 80 year old dispatcher than he's actually only half that age in reality and-
“Seven minutes left.” Robert interrupts suddenly.
Oh fuck right-
“Ah shit- sorry- I keep-” Chase waves a hand near his forehead vaguely and gives Robert a guilty smile in apology, “-you get it.”
Robert simply nods, pushing his foot out steadily into the carpet to stop his momentum and making an effort to get back into a more professional sitting position against his computer.
Chase hadn’t even noticed he’d pulled one of his legs up whilst he’d been spinning. There was no way in hell that was at all comfortable for his fucked up legs. Fuckin’ idiot.
“Yeah I do and I’ve already told you a thousand times how scatterbrained being able to use your powers again has made you. I get it. That being said, you want help figuring anything else out before shit hits the fan and I gotta lock in for the rest of the afternoon? Or you content to wallow in misery over finally getting some game?”
“Man, fuck you ‘aight, gimmie some slack- I thought I’d die before I’d get a chance like this again. Goddamn-”
“Fiiiive minutes~” Robert interjects, half sing-song, half patronising.
“Fuck. Fuckin’. Okay. It’s something I could prolly just look up myself but like- you’re here, we’re talking this all out- we might as well-”
Robert gives him another look and poises his hands over the keyboard, promptly shutting Chase up without even saying anything as the speedster sets his jaw tight to shut himself the fuck up and get to the point.
“Marigolds.”
With a nod and slight determination set in his brow, Robert types in the search bar ‘marigold flower language meaning’, almost as quickly as Chase can run, and clicks the first search option that pops up. Chase reapplies his glasses and finds himself squinting down at the screen as Robert begins to read aloud an excerpt from the page as he scrolls.
“‘Kay… ‘Means a lot more than you might think’…’Pest deterrent’… Yada yada- oh.”
Chase squints harder at the glare of the screen and tenses slightly at Roberts tone of voice.
“The fucks ‘oh’ for-”
“‘Loss of love’ is uh… The first option.” He continues, flashing Chase a small glance out the corner of his eye and watching as his face scrunches up in confusion. “Then we got… ‘Winning the affections of someone through hard work’ alongside ‘Creativity and the drive to succeed’-”
“Those sound a bit more normal.” Chase finds himself interjecting.
“-’Cruelty and coldness due to jealousy’-? Okay that's definitely off the table. Three minutes by the way-”
“Keep goin’.”
“‘Kay, uhhh…. Hm.” Robert stops flat and pushes out his lips as if pouting, his head tilting to the side like a dog as he thinks about something before he not so subtly attempts to hide the words with the palm of his hand against the screen.
Chase huffs and quickly floats around the divider to perch just behind Roberts shoulder for a look himself, getting impatient with his slow ass scribing and cryptic hiding.
“What? Gonna make me sit here and guess? Move fucker.”
“I don't think any of these sound right in context other than like, the second two-”
Chase carefully nudges his bigass head and tinyass hand out of the way and leans against his shoulder to get a better look at the screen, his eyes quickly skimming through what Roberts already read to find his way down the list of possible meanings until he's met with-
‘Remembering and celebrating the dead’
Huh.
“Well shit, that's morbid as hell.”
“Yeah. Also kind of-? Fucked up? If we take that as an actual possible linked meaning considering you were… y'know." Robert continues on with Chase’s exact train of thought, turning to him to speak again just as an alarm goes off on his phone that he quickly whips out a hand to slap down on and turn it off when it makes him jump in his seat.
Chase rubs absentmindedly where Roberts shoulder bumped his chin and scoots back half a step, giving the kid some space, his face sitting neutral despite all they’ve learned.
“Times up?”
“Times up.”
Chase just sighs, slumps his way fully out of his kid brother's space and slaps him goodheartedly once between the shoulder blades for the hell of it and also as thanks for putting up with his god awful bullshit he’d been forced into the past half an hour.
“Well, shit, thanks for listening to me spew bullshit for half an hour-”
“It was twenty minutes, tops, still not your record though-”
“-But I feel like we’ve hit a dead end, anyway.” Chase levels him with a small grimace, watching as Robert twists towards him in his chair, his lips pursed in thought. “We got the meanings but no obvious sender and I am not going on a wild goose chase round the fuckin’ office to see who or who might not fancy my old as fuck ass. That’s just embaressin’.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.” Robert responds calmly. “You never know?” A small, sympathetic smile making his eyes do that annoying lil puppy dog thing Chase absolutely hates considering how effective it is. “They could be super hot.”
Chase pushes his shoulder in retaliation and rolls his eyes when Robert just smiles wider at him.
“Yeah right. Fuckin’-” He sighs (how many times has he sighed in the past hour goddamn-) and rolls his shoulders to try and relieve the tension and anxiety trying to tear apart his insides. “See you later kid, hope your shift goes fine.”
“Thanks, you too. Try not to get too up in your head about it,” Robert quips before carefully slipping his headset back on and fiddling with the microphone. “We’ll figure it out.”
Chase grumbles under his breath and bends to scritch Beef behind the ears a little, the dog's soft fur calming his nerves before he stands and begins to float off to his next destination, his thoughts an awkward jumble behind his furrowed eyebrows.
Love, Sorrow and Apologies, all neatly sat displayed in a vase of gold and possibly hand delivered to his work desk, without anyone thinking the wiser. They must work here in the building and they have to know him- must know Robert knows him- because how else would they have been able to sneak it in without either of them being the wiser?
They know Star Blazer sits at this desk and they're sorry for liking him. Or sorry for loving him? Sorry for what he’s been through? His almost death? But they still like him, want to be with him, despite it all.
Maybe? Possibly?
Unless they’re just looking too much into it and the person who bought the damn things just thought the colour combination looked fun?
Fuck he hates not knowing shit. Makes him feel like a fucking moron.
Whatever.
Huffing, Chase continues down the corridor a few feet, making sure there’s nobody or nothing delicate within his immediate vicinity before he charges full speed out of the building to get ready to leave for his second shift of the day, ears perked and ready for a call to come in for him to race down to wherever he may be needed.
‘We’ll figure it out.’ Replays in his head as he waits. ‘We’ not ‘You’ We. Meaning Roberts fully ready to help him track down whoevers pulled this stunt with him. It makes him feel all fluttery inside, knowing his kid brothers got his back even if it makes him look like some kind of fucking schoolboy with a crush all over again.
‘Yeah. We funkin’ better.’ He thinks.
Having feelings like this again after so long of thinking he’d never get another shot at love is incredibly fucking distracting and not a healthy work life balance to be having right now. He’s supposed to be professional right now, even if he's one of the least professional heroes on the block but he's got a standard to live up to now he’s finally back in the game and able to help people out with the help of the amulet.
But all he wants to think about right now is if he should be looking behind his shoulder whenever he walks through the office to keep a look out for anyone who might be into him.
Or is actually his type.
God this fuckin’ sucks ass.