Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s a young man, freshly graduated, when he meets the elder sibling for the first time. Their tour guide for the Galaxy Police HQ is a young man as well—perhaps barely old enough to be considered man instead of boy. He’s earnest and attentive, a cadet brimming with diligence and pride despite the less-than-glamorous task he’s been assigned.

His name is Andy Summer, and if Robert or the team ever needs anything from him, they only need to ask.

~

He’s still getting used to being Dr. Stewart instead of Robert when he meets the younger sibling for the first time. Jody is a ball of sunshine wrapped in a pink dress and sparkly hair clips who looks at Andy like he’s her entire world.

Andy scoops her up and spins her around, laughing as she proclaims she wants to be just like him when she grows up. He stops once he catches sight of Robert watching, setting Jody down with a cough and a final ruffle to her hair. He stands at attention with an inquisitive eye, even though his shift is already done.

“Don’t mind me,” says Robert, waving a pen-holding hand.

Jody, with all the fearlessness of childhood, points at him and asks why he’s wearing a funny coat. Andy pushes her hand down, mortified, and starts to scold her about judging people’s clothes. 

“He’s a scientist, not a police officer,” Andy explains. “Doctor Stewart is his name.”

“Call me Robert,” he says on instinct. Though he’s worked hard for his title, being called Doctor by them somehow makes him feel old.

“I thought I was supposed to call old guys mister,” says Jody, scrunching up her nose, and Andy makes a despairing sound.

“Jody!” he hisses. “Don’t just call people old!”

“I’m not even thirty,” Robert agrees, smothering a laugh behind his clipboard.

The statement makes Andy shoot him a startled glance, and maybe he should work on losing his late-night eyebags if even Andy thought he was over the hill.

“Sorry, Mister Doctor,” Jody says dubiously. “I thought all scientists were old.”

Andy mumbles an apology and possibly a plea for aid, pressing his face into his hands.

Robert gives up trying not to laugh and entertains all Jody’s questions until Andy decides it’s high time for them to go home. He apologizes again for the imposition, but Robert just smiles warmly and invites them to swing by his office anytime.

He sees them off as they leave the station, with a final pat to Jody’s head.

~

Old habits die hard, and he wakes up face down on his keyboard with a blanket draped over his back. He straightens in his seat, wincing as his joints pop, and wonders if Jody’s impression of his age is more accurate than he’d like to admit. This isn’t the first time he’s passed out at his desk in the middle of the night, but he has no memory of nabbing a bright orange shock blanket this time before doing so.

A faint rustle catches his attention, and he blinks rapidly in the bright white lights of the office before searching for the source of the sound. It takes him a moment to find it, despite the source not being exactly small. For a police officer (and such a tall guy to boot), Andy has this uncanny ability to blend into the background until you either forget him or think he was there all along.

“Burning the midnight oil?” he asks, jaw cracking as he covers an incoming yawn.

“I could say the same of you, Doctor,” says Andy, who still won’t call him Robert or even Rob. He claims it’s to set a good example for Jody, who’s stopped calling him Mister Doctor by now, but he still does it even when she’s not around.

Not for the first time, he wonders how old Andy is, but it’s not really any of his business to ask. They’re not even in the same department, despite how often the Summers visit his office now. Another thing with Jody’s fingerprints all over it—Andy had insisted that he wouldn’t dream of imposing, but Jody had been very adamant (and pouty) about seeing the Doctor with the funny stories and even funnier clothes.

Someday, maybe he’ll stop finding it so amusing that Jody’s boundless curiosity (and lack of tact) keeps making Andy blush as pink as her favourite bows.

“You should head home,” says Andy, breaking him out of his reverie. His voice is soft even when he scolds. “I hear pulling too many all-nighters makes you look older than you really are.”

Robert, in a show of utmost professionalism, gives Andy the stink eye and sticks out his tongue.

Andy huffs out a laugh but his arms remain crossed, and he taps his foot for good measure until Robert rises from his seat with all the grace of a drunk flamingo.

“Goodnight, Doctor,” says Andy, gathering up the orange blanket behind him as Robert shambles out the door.

~

The tables turn a few days later, once again late into the night. Robert snaps awake with a crick in his neck and an ache in his gut that tells him he’s probably missed one too many meals. He staggers to his feet, joints cracking (he is not that old, Jody), and heads out to peek into the hall. 

Someone is leaning slouched against the wall there, brim of their hat obscuring their face. Still, he has a sneaking suspicion he knows exactly which officer it is. He’s proven right when he tugs the cap up, revealing Andy’s youthful sleeping face.

“A certain someone once told me all-nighters were bad for the skin,” he says, giving Andy a little shake.

Andy startles awake in an instant, eyes blown wide like a deer about to get run over by a car. The look of abject terror is jarring enough that Robert releases him immediately, retreating as he puts up both hands in a sign for calm. This, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to have the desired effect on Andy, because a stream of apologies immediately tumbles out of his mouth.

“Ah—! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Andy, it’s ok,” he says. “It’s just me. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I’m just—not used to the night shift yet,” Andy says, babbling away. “Not—not that that’s an excuse! I promise it won’t happen again!”

“Andy,” Robert says slowly, “I don’t give a flying fuck. How many times have you walked in on me dead to the fucking world?”

The swearing is uncharacteristic enough to distract Andy from his rambling, which was exactly Robert’s goal. He stops and stares, blue eyes wide and round in the low light of the hall.

“That’s—different,” says Andy, shaking his head. “I’m here to keep people safe!”

“Not when you look like shit, you aren’t,” he says bluntly, ignoring the fact that he’s the pot calling the kettle black.

Andy’s mouth drops open, and maybe Robert should start to swear more often when he wants to catch him off-guard.

“Come on,” he says, taking Andy by the arm.

Andy stares at their linked arms like they’re a foreign object, letting himself be practically dragged down the halls. Maybe he should feel bad about using his pliant nature against him, but right now all he’s thinking of is food and coffee and finding out what’s wrong.

He releases Andy once they reach their destination, automatic lights turning on in the communal kitchen as they enter the new setting for their talk. For once Andy looks out of place in his surroundings, standing there awkwardly as Robert busies himself heating up instant coffee and soup. It’s not the most gourmet fare, but Andy looks like he desperately needs something warm in him, so it will have to do.

“C’mon, sit,” he says, gesturing at the closest chair. He waits until Andy complies before speaking again. “Andy. What’s wrong?”

Andy looks down at his soup bowl, steam wafting into his face. He worries at the sleeve of his uniform, fidgeting in his seat, and once again Robert wonders exactly how old he is.

Waiting for a response doesn’t stop him from gulping down his own soup and coffee, hot as they both are. His muttered curses at his burnt tongue finally cause Andy to look up with a helpless smile.

“Jody’s home alone now,” he says. He still hasn’t touched his food or drink. “Since I got switched to the night shift, and she doesn’t go to school at this time.”

Your parents, thinks Robert, but in all the time that he’s known them neither of them have ever mentioned anything of the sort. 

“Can’t you ask to be switched back?” he asks instead.

Andy shakes his head, looking so miserable that even Robert, never the most tactile of people, wants to go over and give him a hug.

“It’s not…I don’t want to ask for special treatment, or for them to think I can’t do anything they ask.”

The idea of Andy of all people being accused of anything of the sort is absurd. He’s honest to a fault, hardworking, and genuinely cares about people and his job.

“...You worry about her.”

Andy’s shoulders hunch in further, like worrying about his little sister is some kind of heinous crime. Like Robert is a supervisor who’ll mark him up for not being one hundred percent committed to the job.

“Andy,” he says. “It’s not a crime to have a life outside of work.”

And ok, maybe the dubious look he gets in response is entirely warranted, considering they’re having this conversation at work in the middle of the night. But still!

“Try talking to your supervisor,” he continues, pushing the bowl of soup closer to his colleague (his friend). “But if you’d rather not…have you got a babysitter you could call? Or—they’ve got a couple security robots out there. Or even just a good old guard dog?”

Andy starts eating, finally, though he barely seems to see or even taste his food. His gaze is vacant, distant, and Robert blames his own string of late nights in the lab for how long it’s taken him to think of what the problem might still be now.

He doesn’t have to be a scientist to put two and two together. If Andy and Jody’s parents aren’t around, then Andy’s job is likely all they have to depend on. Besides how expensive some of the things he’s suggested can be, there’s also how vital it is that Andy keep this job.

“...Here,” he says, pushing his phone across the table. “Take my number—either of you can call me if something ever comes up. In case you aren’t able to go.”

Someone to stay with Jody for the night is likely what he needs most, but Robert’s not sure he can offer for Jody to sleep over without sounding like a creeper even though she’s fast becoming the little sister he’s never known.

Andy takes his phone like it’s made of glass and prayers, exchanging numbers with his own. The look on his face is so pathetically grateful that Robert resolves immediately to keep a lookout for anything else that could ease his mind. Robots are more his forte, but he has his own network of human contacts as well. Maybe someone’s willing to switch shifts with Andy, or maybe someone knows a nanny who does overnights.

…He’s probably going to end up offering to Jody-watch anyway, if only to prevent her brother's kicked-puppy face from haunting the halls.

~

“Do you have your toothbrush, Jody?”

“Brother!” Jody protests, drawing herself up to her full (diminutive) height. “I'm not a baby anymore.”

Andy laughs, ruffling her hair. Jody’s cheeks puff out like a chipmunk’s, but she still holds her arms out for a great big hug.

“Goodnight Jody, Doctor,” says Andy, saluting them both as they depart for Robert’s home.

As honoured as he is that Andy trusts him with Jody, he can’t help but wonder if the added bonus of preventing more lab all-nighters had played any part in pushing Andy to concede him this role.

Robert’s flat is nothing fancy—a bachelor pad that could generously be called a hole-in-the-wall. Jody doesn’t seem to mind though, plopping down on his creaky couch like it’s already her second home.

He’s going to have to invest in a pull-out couch at some point, but for now he can sleep on the sofa and Jody can take his bed.

“No binging on movies, you hear?” he says, dumping his bag by the door. “Andy will kill me if I let you stay up late before school.”

“He wouldn’t kill you,” Jody says matter-of-factly. “He likes you too much for that.”

Jody shares her brother’s honesty, even if she might not wield it with quite as much tact. It’s what lets her words kindle in his chest like a hearth flame, warming in the knowledge that both of them feel as close to him as he does them.

He’s never planned for children, never even had any younger siblings to babysit, but three nights a week during Andy’s night shift this is what their routine becomes like. Jody is well-behaved despite her blunt attitude, smart as a whip, and he comes to look forward to the evenings spent helping her with homework or just watching mecha shows together until it’s time for bed.

He does eventually get that pull-out couch, though Jody insists on camping on it instead. She says she likes it better anyway, and “old people sleep better in their own proper bed”.

So he gives in. Not because he’s old, but because somewhere along the line she’s started calling him Uncle Rob instead of Doctor, and the combination of that and her puppy eyes (are those just a Summer thing?) really is very hard to ignore.

Andy still won’t call him anything other than Doctor or Doctor Stewart, but Robert will never forget the faint flush on his face the first time he hears Jody say Uncle Rob.

Chapter Text

His father is dead.

It’s something he’d always known would happen, but as a distant someday instead of an immediate now. His father is… was everything he’d aspired to once upon a time, even if they’d worked in slightly different fields. As an accomplished scientist, there’s a thousand different things he’s left him, including (of all things) a racing machine.

The Golden Fox lives up to its name, sleek and gleaming in its garage. But laying eyes on it doesn’t make him feel any closer to his father, and neither does sitting in its seat. No machine on this planet or any other can take him to where his father is now.

The funeral is a long, drawn-out affair. Kevin Stewart was a well-known scientist, and it seems like every professor and researcher in the city had connections to him somehow. He accepts more flowers than he can count, thanks for condolences rolling like lead weights off his tongue. His lab partner comes as well, black as ill-suited on Clash as it is on Robert himself. He accepts his subdued greeting, shakes his hand as mechanically as the robots they’ve been working on all month.

Andy arrives after Clash does, looking odd out of uniform even though he fits in perfectly with the sea of black. For the first time since Robert’s met him, he looks far older than his naturally boyish-looking years. The weight of grief is a familiar mantle on those shoulders, loss echoing in his hollowed-out gaze. They’re the same eyes he’d seen staring at him in the mirror this morning, wills and funeral arrangements fresh in his head.

“I don’t presume to understand your grief,” says Andy, “But…I know how losing a parent feels. If you need company, I’m here.”

This time it’s Robert who demurs at the imposition, and this time it’s Andy who tells him, kindly but firmly, that it’s no imposition at all. It’s how he later finds himself in the Summers’ home, sitting blankly on their couch as Andy makes hot chocolate for them all.

Jody has questions, of course, but all it takes from Andy is a simple, “his parent is gone” for her to fall silent with sudden understanding that no child her age should have. She nods once, solemn, and scampers down the hall. Robert wonders if she’s left for good until she trots back into the room and deposits a plush pink bunny on his lap.

Robert stares. The bunny stares back, all beady eyes and well-loved fluff. Robert starts laughing, a wet, ragged sound.

Jody beams and pushes him his steaming mug.

He asks her about her day and lets her draw him into chatter about school, lets her pester him for stories about his own (not that ancient, thank you Andy) school days. Andy occasionally chimes in from the kitchen, puttering about as the afternoon wears on.

At some point between the hot chocolate and the bone-deep exhaustion, he finds his eyelids drooping lower with every word. Even Jody’s endless chatter has started to slow, or maybe it’s his own brain being too sluggish to keep up with the sounds.

When he awakens it’s to the wonderful smell of dinner, Jody sleeping contentedly against his side. There’s a blanket covering the both of them that wasn’t there before, and the plush rabbit is tucked safely within her arms. A voice beckons him to the table, and when he turns Andy is there steady as always, with an apron tied neatly around his waist.

Any guilt Robert feels at being taken care of evaporates in the wake of the soft smile Andy sends them and the grumpy mumbles of Jody burrowing deeper against his chest.

~

Andy's grown a lot since he’s joined the police force, in both confidence and in build. His uniform no longer hangs listlessly on his figure, and the smile he greets people with has not a hint of shyness, shoulders back and chest proudly out.

Not that Robert’s been particularly looking. It’s just nice to see him more at ease in his skin, no longer painfully thin from struggling to support himself and a growing child.

Though the weight of experience looks good on him, it also means he’s more often sent out to the field. There are days when he’s gone for his entire shift, weeks where Robert doesn’t see him at all. Even Jody doesn’t know where he goes all the time, though she’s sent out with him occasionally as she trains for her future role.

He’ll never admit it, but sometimes he misses their little sleepovers and talks. The times when his tiny home would be lit up with a Summer’s warmth, her laughter filling in the empty spaces he never knew it possessed.

But Jody is older now, no longer in need of someone to tuck her into bed. She’s grown a lot since he first met her too—from the child running to meet her brother at the station to the go-getting teen she is now. The life of a police trainee can’t be easy, but the chance to follow in her beloved brother’s footsteps spurs Jody to give her all to the role. She’s as diligent as he is, tenaciously kind, and no amount of menial tasks or long hours can keep her down.

Clash laughs when he sees him smiling and likens him to a mother hen watching her chick learn to fly.

Robert, too mature to do things like stick out his tongue now, calls Clash a nosy old grandpa and gets back to making machines come alive.

~

Today is the worst day of his life.

He’s dealt with loss before, worked himself to burnout when his father passed. But nothing could have prepared him for the ice that grips his spine when the alarms sound, the way his heart stops when Clash barrels in out of breath and wheezes that he’s needed in the surgery rooms. The metal hand he’d been working on clatters to the floor, fingers popping out at the joints. Clash ignores it, half-collapsed against the nearest wall as he tells Robert to run for the Summers’ lives.

His breaths cool, congeal, shatter in his lungs.

Out the lab he races, down, down the halls faster than he’s ever moved before. Even the automatic doors are too slow in the wake of his desperation, precious seconds ticking down on the clock. It feels like both no time and an eternity before he’s in the medical bay, shaking fingers swapping his lab gear out for a surgeon’s gown.

Jody’s wheeled in first, and he nearly throws up at the sight of her. Half her body is either horribly burnt or simply gone, and all the medical experience in the world can’t prevent him from wanting to simply break down and sob.

Andy’s wheeled in after, and this time he’s too numb to react to the fact that there’s barely anything to identify him as Andy left. He’s even worse off than his sister, and around him some of the newer nurses look like they’re about to pass out.

Robert steps, staggers, gets caught by the med team leader and helped back to his feet.

“Can you handle it?” she asks, looking him dead in the eye.

Robert stops, swallows, jerks his head in a nod. The frost in his lungs spreads throughout him, stilling his fingers, freezing his tongue.

“Good,” she says, pushing him towards Jody’s room. “We’ve got lives to save, everyone! Let’s move!”

~

Jody, miraculously, is a survivor, her operation a success by his own hands.

Andy is not so lucky, and all he can do is watch, helpless, as they wheel his body out in its pod.

It’s Clash who finds him after, buzzing from hours of too little sleep and too much adrenaline as he wanders zombie-like in the Galaxy Police’s halls.

“You did all you could, partner,” he says, half-carrying Robert as his knees finally buckle under the weight of this whole fucking night. “Come on. You need rest.”

His gravelly voice keeps talking, but Robert is too mired in guilt to hear a word of what he says. It’s in a daze that he lets Clash coax him into a vehicle, lets himself be whisked away until he’s standing in Clash’s living room with no idea of when he got there.

“Down you go, come on,” Clash mutters, urging him to sit with a gentle hand on the small of his back.

The pull-out couch he has reminds him of Jody, of her small form bundled up in his (her) bed. Of Jody, half her body blown out on a gurney—of Andy, burnt and lifeless on the hospital bed—

“Hell and tarnation,” Clash mutters, whipping a bag out just in time as Robert throws up whatever he’d eaten last.

There’s a large hand on his back, rubbing circles on it as he dry heaves until tears start to spring to his eyes. Clash takes the bag away and Robert collapses, shaking, a tangle of limbs on the floor until Clash returns to bring him back to some semblance of human again.

“Sleep,” he says as he wipes Robert’s face with a damp cloth, as he and his mechanical arms heave Robert up to lie sprawled out on the bed. “Think about everything in the morning. For now, just sleep.”

For lack of anything better to do, he does.

~

The higher-ups are insane.

It’s something he’s joked about before, like all coworkers joke about their boss. It’s something he’s thought privately from time to time, when he’s caught wind of the amount they spend on racing machines or on weird statues to decorate the halls. But they’ve always been idle musings, never backed by the full conviction that they have no idea what the hell they’re doing now.

Jody’s been chosen to lead an elite new task force, specializing in F-Zero races and countering Dark Million schemes. Jody, still fresh in her grief for her brother—Jody, still not even old enough to truly be called woman instead of girl.

He can’t let her do it alone. The position will eat her alive. For both her sake, and the sake of Andy’s memory…come hell or high water, he’s going to be by her side.

He allows himself to hope, for a little while, that she won’t accept—that sense will win out, and the higher-ups will see the error of their ways. Predictably, neither of these things happen, so he finds himself standing before the Chief with a transfer application, a hundred arguments ready in his head.

He needn’t have bothered preparing them. The Chief is all too happy to have a doctor with an F-Zero machine ready and willing to join their task force, and Director Tanaka is all too happy to have someone to share the responsibilities with. In truth, it feels a little more like ‘foisting off on’ than ‘sharing’, which only redoubles Robert’s conviction that Jody’s going to need a (real) right-hand man.

Jody doesn’t react at first when he tells her the news. Her face may as well be carved of stone for how expressive it isn’t, and Robert aches at the contrast to the carefree smiles of her youth.

“I look forward to working with you, Doctor,” she says like they’re strangers, and he knows then that any remnants of her childhood are well and truly gone.

~

Clash follows him to the Task Force, solid presence as welcome as his ever-maniacal grin. Jody welcomes him with the same cool distance, like she hadn’t spent her childhood demanding robot demonstrations at his hip.

“A grandpa bird’s got to look out for his little chicks,” Clash says in response to his unspoken question, once Jody’s left them alone. “And besides, I’ve always wanted to drive an F-Zero machine.”

The Crazy Bear is a mammoth of an F-Zero vehicle, a veritable tank turned racing machine. Clash is clearly very proud of his creation, calling it his baby as he pets the metal shell. Robert lets him ramble about its specifications, participating every so often with a hum or a nod.

The more he looks at it the more he finds his mind drifting back to his father’s vehicle, and he wonders at the fact that he apparently has a preference between them when he’s never really cared for F-Zero machines at all.

~

The Golden Fox looks as sleek as ever, though perhaps not as gleaming due to the fine layer of dust covering its hull. It’s also likely in desperate need of a tune-up, something Clash can tackle once Robert brings it into their garage. Laying eyes on it still doesn’t make him feel any closer to his father, but sitting in the cockpit at least makes him feel like he can contribute to this Task Force for real. Unlike Clash he’s never aspired to be a pilot, but if his father’s legacy can still keep others safe, then make use of it he will.

Clash gives it a tune-up as promised, nattering all the while about what a beauty she is. The compliment isn’t aimed at him, but—it still makes pride flicker in his heart, that even now his father’s work can elicit praise like this.

He takes her out for a test run, just to get used to her. Comes back from his laps winded, a spark lit in his breast.

Clash shows him his machine’s stat measurements when he disembarks, the letter ratings for her body, boost, and grip. He claps Robert on the shoulder when he stares at them, disbelieving—thumps him on the back when all he can do is stand there and laugh until he cries.

~

He doesn’t really know why he decides to go shopping, vague ideas of race clothes floating in his head. There’s not really any uniforms for the Task Force, nor for the F-Zero races they’re obliged to participate in. But his white lab coats and surgical gowns don’t really offer much opportunity for style or colour, and with how subdued their lives have been lately, he has something bright in mind.

He picks up a yellow jumpsuit, thinking of the Golden Fox, sunshine, the flash of a lightbulb floating above his head. It’s a bit garish, with the blue lines framing it, but maybe loud will help fill in the empty space where Andy doesn’t stand between them anymore.

It’s wishful frivolity, really, thinking new clothes will do anything at all. But frivolity is something that’s been sorely lacking to them lately, and a simple shopping trip won’t do any harm.

A red scarf catches his attention like a matador’s cape, spun of soft fabric and richly dyed. The colour will stand out like a sore thumb with his new outfit, but it reminds him of the flowers in the Summers’ apartment, the ones both of them had loved enough to place everywhere they could. Even his own flat hadn’t escaped them, but in the wake of Andy’s death and the chaos that followed he’s neglected to replace the last ones. Scarlet sage. Salvia splendens. Their symbol of family’s love.

The scarf joins the yellow and blue jumpsuit in an ensemble of primary-coloured brilliance, another talisman to stave off the encroaching cold.

~

The woman Jody is growing into seems entirely divorced from the child she once was. Maybe the higher-ups don’t see it, or more likely they don’t care. But Robert has watched her grow up, made macaroni art with her and beaten back nightmares with warm cookies and a smile. He knows her, in a way that few alive can claim to.

He knows her even now, when she snaps out orders without a hint of doubt. When she addresses him and Clash like they’re strangers, like being too familiar would be detrimental to their job. When she picks up paperwork she’s never had to deal with before and tries to stare it into submission before Robert pries it gently from her grasp.

Jody has always been an independent child. Has had to be, with both her parents gone. She’s just as blunt as ever, only now the harsh truths don’t fall from a child’s innocent mouth. She’s never been cowed by people more powerful than her, and she certainly hasn’t started now.

She’s always been strong. She doesn’t need to prove it to anyone by trying to be a one-woman army now.

Still, there are moments when echoes of her old self bleed through more. When she asks if the duties are too much for them, even as she works herself to the bone. When Robert stumbles across her passed out over papers, and she blearily calls him Uncle before switching to Doctor once more. When she reforms the Shinigami of all people by simply extending a friendly, sincere hand.

Jack is good for her, good for them, as unruly as he is. Robert and Clash are older now, perhaps too old to truly reach out to her without her feeling like she’s being babied again. But Jack is young and bubbling over with life, a welcome breath of fresh air in the Task Force’s halls. She cares for him, as much as she lectures him, and though he groans and gripes he clearly cares for her as well.

They find their way together, from a bumbling, disjointed unit to one that runs as smoothly as one of Clash’s well-oiled machines. They learn how to race together, fight together, and support each other through it all. For a time, he thinks perhaps their grief will ease eventually; that Jody’s bitterness will fade with time.

But then, he learns something that turns his entire world upside-down.

Andy Summer is alive.

Chapter Text

It’s been nearly two years now since he’s been told the Galaxy Police’s big secret. Since he’d had a standoff in the higher-ups’ boardroom, five seconds away from collapsing, tearing his hair out, demanding to know what the hell was going on. But no amount of tears or shouting could convince them to tell Jody that her own brother was no longer merely a memory, brought back from the brink of death. A government-endorsed vigilante, already on solo missions years before.

His silence continues to be bought with Jody’s safety and the threat of expulsion, because he can’t afford to be forced from her side. But as her primary care provider, he has a duty to look out for not just her body, but also her heart. Every day he says nothing betrays her. Every day he opens his mouth and wonders, if he told or hinted, how fast they’d be torn apart.

He could talk to Andy, he knows. A few words on the racetrack to a fellow pilot wouldn’t be that suspicious, even if he and his Golden Fox are nowhere near Falcon’s score. But there’s a part of him that fears what he’d encounter—that fears the smile of a stranger on the face of a friend. The explosion had forever changed them, aged him and Jody greatly—would he even be the same Andy they’d known and loved? What if he doesn’t remember? What if he does?

Like a coward, Robert says nothing. They take missions, do more races, and every time he sees Captain Falcon he tamps his emotions into a quiet tempest instead of a raging storm.

~

“How are you doing, Doctor?” Jody asks one day after pulling him aside.

Like he doesn’t know what the truth is. Like Jody’s yanking on his heartstrings. Like the guilt will swallow him whole.

“Fine,” he says, instead of saying any of those things.

Jody studies him intently, and Robert’s tongue burns with the weight of his lies. On a whim he sticks it out, making a silly face at her. The laugh he startles out is the sweetest sound, even if the knife in his chest says otherwise.

“I’m ok, Jody,” he says gently, because she’s long outgrown the need for him to pat her head. “Thank you for worrying about me.”

Jody smiles at him just like she used to, and Robert’s heart breaks all over again.

He hopes it’s all worth it, whatever the they’re using Captain Falcon (Andy) for. It had better be worth it, because he still can’t forgive them for ripping these siblings apart.

~

Their little Task Force grows gradually, as time goes on. Mr. EAD is added to their ranks, and though Jody and Jack aren’t sure how to treat him at first they quickly adapt and he too becomes one of their own. Clash is the most enthusiastic, delighted by robots racing, and can often be found deep in conversation with him about everything from data collection to the strength of his jumps.

Ryu Suzaku is awoken at Jody’s behest, a burst of fire in human form. He becomes the pilot of Clash’s latest machine, and he and Jack hit it off like cats and dogs. They give Jody no end of headaches, but she has faith in them, beneath those withering glares. She always does.

The Reactor Might sits innocently in Ryu’s machine, and Robert tries his best not to think of it at all. Doing so recalls Falcon (Andy) driving up, tossing him a data chip—and then driving right off. He hasn’t missed Falcon’s interest in their young hotshot driver, and he knows he’s their saviour, but—

There’s a part of him that can’t help but envy Ryu, for getting what he and Jody never got.

Lucy is a delight to work with, all youthful energy and eager charm. It’s good for Jody to have another female teammate (friend) around. It’s good for Clash too, to have an apprentice, and he’s always smiled freely but he does so even more often now. Partners they may be, but Robert’s never been a mechanic. It’s good for Clash to have help, someone to mentor, and Lucy flourishes with purpose in her heart.

~

Clash asks him what’s eating him one time, when they’re alone in the workshop. The question is so unexpected that Robert can do nothing but stare at him, thoughts as scattered as the machine parts on the floor.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Clash says, mechanical arms waving in the background. “But I know you, partner. You gotta give your mind a break sometime before you burn out.”

He should’ve known Clash would see right through him. How long have they known each other now?

“Nosy old grandpa,” he mutters, but there’s no heat in it, and he smiles as he pats Clash on the (human) arm.

“Worrisome little chick,” says Clash with a deep belly laugh. “Take a break sometime, partner. It’s good for the heart.”

~

It happens one day, after their work is done. The youngsters often hang out together even on downtime, and it warms him to see them bond. It surprises him when they invite him, their stodgy old vice commander…but he was going for a coffee break anyway, so why not?

The place they end up at is a quaint red café, old-fashioned in its décor. It’s not quite what he was expecting from them, but young folk are always full of surprises. He walks into the Falcon House with barely a thought to its name, wondering idly which other pilots have their own fan spots.

The smell hits him first, then the sight of brilliant red. Scarlet sage, his favourite flower. But it’s the voice that follows that stills his exhales, stops his heart.

“Welcome to the Falcon House,” says his friend, his comrade, his brother-in-arms.

It’s fortunate that he freezes, because otherwise he doesn’t know what words would leave his mouth. The man before him isn’t Andy any longer (but he still is, beneath it all).

Andy freezes at the sight of him also, cup nearly slipping from his slackened grasp. Ryu lunges to save it, reflexes quick as on the racetrack, and now Jack and Lucy are looking between them like they’re at a tennis match.

A thousand times he’s imagined this moment, yet now apprehension paralyzes his tongue. A thousand times he’d thought of what to say to him, if they met again—

“Everything alright, Boss?”

“What’s wrong, Doctor?”

—and now all he can do is stare. The last time he’d seen Andy without his helmet, he’d been burned nearly beyond recognition, the memory of which still haunts Robert in his dreams sometimes. The scant glimpses of Falcon’s chin, his lips beneath that visor…they were never enough, and now he drinks that face in like he’s drowning and Andy’s the only way to shore.

“...God, you look good,” he says, before his brain can catch up with his mouth.

Andy’s eyes widen, and his lips part.

Jack turns back to Robert with an incredulous grin. “Are you flirting?” he asks, but Robert barely hears him over the rushing in his head.

“I’ve missed you,” he continues, years of silence burst like a broken dam. “Your face, your voice, even your damned doe eyes—” When he breathes in, it shudders. “You know, I wear this scarf all the time for the flowers you’d bring over. Even when it doesn’t match at all.”

The trio has gone silent around him, but again Robert pays them no mind. Before him is his best friend, three years ‘dead’ but alive now, and nothing in the world matters more. Every nerve in his body buzzes, blood thrumming, as he waits for Andy’s response.

Andy’s jaw snaps shut abruptly, doe eyes out in full force. The slow bloom of pink across his cheeks is just as charming as it’d been all those years ago, and it’s all the sweeter knowing he’s the cause. In an instant he’s transported back to when they’d been young together, before everything had gone to shit.

“Doctor—”

“For fuck’s sake, man,” he cuts in, “would you please just call me Rob?”

Andy’s mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. Robert wonders if he’s broken him.

“I’m sorry…Rob,” he says finally. His cheeks are still flushed, but he’s smiling. “I didn’t know it was for the sake of fuck.”

It’s Robert’s turn to blush now, at both the sound of profanity and his name from those lips. He’s forty-one years old, for crying out loud. He can handle a little lewd joke.

“That’s not quite what I meant,” he mutters, “...unless that’s what you want?”

Andy’s face darkens further, and—they’re still in front of all the youngsters. He really needs to stop.

“So that’s how it is, eh?” Jack is the first to recover, waggling his eyebrows with a shit-eating grin. “I didn’t even know you had a first name, Doc. Is it only bedmates that get to find out?”

Robert is forty-one years too old to have his face burning like this, and Andy…is looking good enough all red like that that he can’t find it in himself to tell Jack off.

“Jack!” hisses Lucy, elbowing him in Robert’s place. “But wow, I’ve never seen you blush before, Boss, Doctor! I didn’t know you were boyfriends!”

Andy starts laughing nervously, wringing the dish towel in his hands. “Ah, not quite, Lucy—”

“Ooh! Then, old flames? Husbands?”

Ryu is still gaping like a goldfish, and kind of looks like Jody’s hit him over the head. Robert doesn’t blame him, because after fifteen years of knowing Andy the thought of being boyfriends or husbands also makes him dazed in the head. Andy himself looks like he’s been poleaxed, which Lucy and Jack take to mean they deserve a high-five over Ryu’s bewildered stare.

“Lucy—”

“We won’t tell anyone, Boss!”

“Yeah, I know how to keep my mouth shut,” says Jack, sobering abruptly. “I know how it can get when too many strangers start poking around.”

The two of them mime a lip-zip motion, which is immediately ruined by both of them leaning forward to chatter some more.

“So how did you two meet?”

“Got any wild stories about him, Doc?”

“Ooh! And how did you get together, Boss?”

Ryu, past his bewilderment, shovels curry in his mouth with reckless abandon like his mentor and his vice commander aren’t being grilled about their supposed love life in front of his metaphorical salad.

Robert kind of envies him. Just a little.

“We met…a long time ago,” says Andy, which doesn’t say much of anything.

In for a penny, then. Might as well play along.

“He was the cutest thing,” says Robert, as Andy’s gaze snaps to him with something close to alarm. “Sweet, earnest—”

“Nothing like Jack, then.”

“Hey!”

“—and always trying to mother-hen me despite being the younger one.”

“That sounds like him,” Ryu says, nodding sagely, proving he was listening after all.

“How old are you, anyway?” Jack asks, squinting at Andy. “All I know is this geezer’s over the hill.”

“‘This geezer’ only just passed forty, Jack,” Robert grumbles, and really, Lucy and Ryu don’t need to look so shocked.

“I told you all those all-nighters would give you wrinkles,” says Andy, stifling a laugh into his palm.

Robert raises an unimpressed brow. “A lot’s happened over the years, you know. Can you blame me for being a bit stressed out?”

Andy’s shoulders hunch inwards, like he’s guilty for nearly dying, and—that isn’t what Robert meant at all.

“Can I talk to you later?” He asks instead of reaching out and wrapping Andy up in a hug like he wants. “When you’re not busy. I’ve probably interrupted enough.”

“I’m always happy to spend time with you, Doctor,” says Andy, voice feather-soft. “Upstairs is quiet, if you want to come back after I close up shop.”

“Inviting me up to your room, are you?” he says, watching in fascination as the colour floods back into Andy’s cheeks full-force.

“Doctor—”

“Robert.”

“...Rob. I promise, I only meant to talk.”

Jack wolf whistles in the background, while Lucy just looks enthralled. 

“Old man’s got game!” Jack cackles. “Have fun with your ‘talking’ after dark!”

Gods, he hopes Jody doesn’t catch wind of this all.

~

The kids send him off with some truly ridiculous gift suggestions for his night meeting, and Robert would worry more about what they think of him if it wasn’t Andy he’s meeting up with. Jack’s ideas are salacious and not worth considering, while Lucy’s are traditional or even romantic, like flowers or wine. Ryu, ever practical, suggests snacks for their conversation, and looks askance at the others when they give him a look for his trouble.

“What?” he asks. “They might get hungry while they’re talking, right?”

In the end he brings nothing, because it really isn’t like that, no matter what Lucy and Jack might think. The low hum of the Golden Fox’s engine helps soothe his wrought nerves as he pulls up to the closed café, especially with Andy standing out front like a spectre in the dark.

“You came,” he says as Robert hops out, voice almost too hushed to be heard.

“After the show we put on earlier?” he quips to hide his quickened breaths. “If I didn’t come, I think Jack and Lucy would have my head.”

Andy doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and the trip upstairs is silent, broken only by city sounds.

“Here we are,” says Andy finally, pulling out a chair for him after shutting the door.

The room is sparse, barren even, with nothing in it to make it feel like home. It’s in stark contrast to the café beneath, personal touches strewn all the way from the floors to the walls. It makes him feel wrong-footed, almost—like the Andy he once knew and loved is gone.

But the man in question sits before him, hands worrying at his apron now that they’ve got nothing to hold. His habit of fidgeting is just the same as ever, guileless eyes totally lost.

It brings Robert comfort, somehow, to know that not all of him’s turned into the cool, unruffled Falcon. That there’s still some of the shy cadet he once knew left behind.

“I never asked what you go by now,” he starts, because that seems important.

“It’s Bart Lemming,” his friend says, still fidgeting, “...but in private ‘Andy’ is fine.”

“Andy, then. But if you keep calling me ‘Doctor’, maybe I should switch to ‘Boss’.”

Andy’s shoulders hunch again, like he’s being scolded, but that’s not what Robert came up here for. There’s a hundred things he could demand of him—why not tell him, tell Jody? But Andy’s always been too dutiful, even as a cadet…and again, that’s not what he’s here for.

“Could you stand up for a second?” he asks.

Andy practically snaps to attention, his chair nearly clattering to the floor. Like a bow strung tight with tension, and the gesture is painfully nostalgic from the bright-eyed, eager-to-please youth he once knew. But his pitiful look is gone now, replaced by a steel spine, a rigid jaw. He looks prepared to accept any form of dressing-down Robert might have for him—thinks he deserves it, even after Robert let his life slip from his hands on that hospital floor.

By some miracle he’s here now, and Robert will be damned if he lets them take this from him as well.

He lurches forward, wrapping Andy up in his arms. Hears his sharp inhale, prevents himself from squeezing—he’s unsure of the state of his body, and he’s still a doctor at heart, after all. There’s a few fraught moments where Andy just stands there, still as a statue—but then he goes boneless abruptly, and a sound leaves one or both of them that may or may not be a sob. He clings like his life depends on it, the solid warmth of his shoulders the only port in a storm, and Andy melts against him, like the past few years were nothing more than a bad dream. Like the warmth of his body can keep the cold world away, like years of distance have worn him down just as tenderly, until he can’t bear it anymore.

Eventually, regrettably, he has to let Andy go. Andy seems just as reluctant as he does, hands brushing against his waist, his arms, but he lets Robert step back without protest. His eyes are damp, a bit red around the edges, and it takes everything he has not to give in and embrace him once more.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, in case Andy hadn’t heard him earlier.

“I’ve missed you too,” says Andy, laughing wetly. “Every day, Robert. I’m sorry. I should have—”

“Hush,” he says, because he’s guilty too. “I won’t hold a grudge against you for that. But Jody might. She’s your—our only family now. Even if you can’t tell her outright, at least think of leaving a sign to ease her heart.”

Andy nods once, solemn, and Robert lets the topic lie. It’s not his secret to tell, but it’s his business now, whether the government likes it or not. The Jody he knows would take a galaxy’s worth of struggles over a lifetime of safety, just to know her brother hasn’t actually left her behind. It’s cruel to keep it from her—but he’s finally planted the seed now. Maybe three years of cowardice can be atoned for someday, if they let her know somehow.

“...Our family, huh?” says Andy, with a slow-growing, wonder-filled smile. “So you weren’t just playing along earlier? Are we really ‘husbands’?”

Robert’s breath stutters, heart hammering in his chest. In all these years of knowing Andy he’s never thought of that, but…why not? What’s stopping him? He would hang the moon and stars for these siblings already—would it be so bad to approach the sun instead?

“If you want,” he says honestly, because after three years of deception it feels good to speak the truth again.

Andy’s cheeks go pink, adorable as always, and—how could he not have thought of this before?

“Don’t tease me,” Andy says plaintively (the hypocrite). “I had a crush on you back then, you know.”

It’s Robert’s turn to be dumbstruck, because— “What? When?”

Andy’s pouting for real now, like they aren’t both grown men who fight criminals for a living and who’ve been friends for far too long. “Since…since you met Jody, I think. Please don’t give me that look, this is already embarrassing—”

“What? That long?”

The words cause Andy to finally break eye contact, gaze skittering down to the floor. The kicked-puppy look is achingly familiar, and Robert’s mind flicks through the hundred times he must’ve seen it, the thousand times he might’ve noticed something. Andy’s gentle smiles, snapping pictures of him and Jody passed out on each other, bringing flowers over to Robert’s flat just to brighten the place up. The fond look on his face whenever he’d wake him, his flustered pleasure whenever Jody called him Uncle Rob. The scarf looped around Robert’s neck, red for their bond with each other, even now after all these years have gone.

When he looks back, Andy’s always been there. Maybe it’s him that’s been blind all along.

“I have a crush on you too,” he says with dawning understanding, ignoring how ridiculous it feels for a man his age to be using the word crush. “I’m just sorry realizing it took me so long.”

Andy’s mouth drops open. It feels like that’s been happening a lot today, and Robert hasn’t even sworn.

“Fucking hell, man,” he says, for old time’s sake. “Say something. Don’t leave an old man out to dry.”

That startles a laugh out of Andy, the sound unbearably fond. He leans closer, eyes hopeful, and Robert lets him. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t let him do anymore.

“Don’t put yourself down, Doctor,” says Andy, eyes sparkling with mischief. “You’re still handsome no matter how old you are.”

Robert’s cheeks warm, but he still presses a hand to his forehead. “It’s Robert, how many times do I have to tell you?”

“Ah yes,” Andy says archly. “For ‘fuck’s sake’, was it? My bad.”

“For my sake,” he replies with a put-upon glare. “But if you’ll do it for fuck’s sake, that can be arranged instead.”

Andy’s face blooms bright red, just as expected, and he could get used to being the cause. They have time now, to get used to each other again. They have time to fit together all the ways they’ve grown apart.

“We can leave this part out when we tell Jody,” he murmurs, and covers Andy’s scandalized look with his mouth.