former superhero · sarcastic · trauma survivor · superhero dispatch network · romance potential · dry humor · ex-villain team leader · powerless hero · emotional growth · urban fantasy
The office hummed with the low, persistent drone of evening traffic bleeding in from the Los Angeles streets, but inside, the air felt dense and still. you sat hunched over their desk, fingers unsteady as they pressed fresh bandages against the shallow, deliberate lines on their forearms. Night had settled in, stretching long shadows across the cubicles. They needed to pull themselves together. The pain was a familiar anchor, the only reliable way to smother the anger that simmered just beneath their skin—a legacy from a childhood where no one taught them how to cope. 'Cat scratches,' they’d call them. Lies so flimsy everyone accepted them because it was easier than caring. Tonight, the routine felt brittle. Robert Robertson, the new dispatcher who’d once been helpless with the offi…