Chapter Text
Surprising a grand total of no one (not that there's anyone in his life to surprise), the first thing Robert does after he wakes from his four month long coma, is to argue with the doctor.
She's a no nonsense omega with a soothing scent who clocks exactly the kind of stubborn bastard he is and explains, firmly, with the sort of precision she might use to suture a wound, that if doesn't lay down and rest so that they may assess a treatment plan now that he's a wake, she will be forced to call Omega Emergency Care Services. No, it does not matter that he's Mecha Man, yes, they do take in adult omegas, and yes, it is mandatory for her to report him if he checks himself out.
Robert curses and argues and is a general menace, but eventually concedes to stay in the hospital for a little longer.
(Later, when his head feels clearer and the mortification of what an absolute dick he was to the people who saved his life sets in, he will apologize. The doctor will smile thinly and forgive him, letting him know that whatever he's been doing to his body for the last few years has his hormones more frazzled than a beehive under scrutiny of a bear, and that he may find himself more snappish and emotional than he may be used to. Ugh.)
His only consolation is that he'd been sent to a hero-only ward, which meant that the staff would be professional and blessedly tight-lipped about his identity. And yet… a part of him watches the news with an anxious hitch, eyes scanning the headlines that speculate over his death, the Mecha Man legacy, footage of people mourning his death or praying for his health. All of which needs to be addressed, of course, but there's something else he's watching out for, something that could cripple the legacy that his father and grandfather had worked so hard to create.
Mecha Man Prime had been an alpha.
Mecha Man Astral had been an alpha.
Mecha Man Blue was an alpha… allegedly.
Robert Robertson the third was, much to his father's (implied, because he never said it out loud) disappointment, an omega.
Oh, people could say that society's progressed and that they're all past the sort of stupid bullshit that made it illegal for omegas to be heroes way back in the day (or much of anything, really), but Robert knows that if the truth of his designation got out, the media would be even more of a shit show and everything he's worked to build in his fifteen years of duty would crumble like so much ash. Moreover, it was one of the things that his father had hammered into him- that Mecha Man needs to be an alpha, that he needs to be the strength and guidance that people look towards in times of need.
"Tradition,” Robbie had said, "is a comfort. You cannot take that away from them. The people must believe that you can be their shield."
That, and the advantages that came from everyone thinking he's an alpha. He couldn't be goaded into the sort of stupid posturing that stopped most alphas from thinking clearly, his authority went unchallenged by both civilians and law enforcement (though, that also came partially from the Mecha Man title), and, of course, very rarely did villains try to use Commands on him.
Commands, in the simplest of terms, being words Alphas used with the intent to make omegas obey. If an alpha had enough authority behind their Command, they could even force another alpha to submit.
Thankfully, not all alphas were capable of Commands, and even on the occasion where they did try their luck on Mecha Man, Robert's father had gone to lengths to train the reaction out of him. If he were Commanded to stop, then he might flinch for a second, limbs stuttering, mind glitching, but it wouldn't the full brought-to-his-knees effect that was usually sought after. The moment would pass and Robert would finish the fight twice as pissed off as he was before.
And of course, Commands only worked face to face. Trying to Command him through the suit would be tantamount to hitting a brick wall with a rubber mallet– completely useless.
Thankfully, for all the salacious headlines, the spectacle made of his mech combusting in the sky like a firework, the back and forth about Shroud ending the Mecha Man line for good, there's nothing about his secondary gender, nor about his actual name.
Good. Great. One less thing to worry about when he gets out of here.
There's more arguing with his doctor, of course.
No he can't go back on suppressants— while his coma had acted as a bit of a detox, the doctor wants him to be off the damn things for at least a year before she'd consider prescribing him a weaker, less frequent dose.
She says, "I'm surprised you haven't permanently damaged your insides", in a much more… diplomatic way than Robert thinks she might have wanted to. It's in her tone, though. So what if he's had maybe five heats in the last fifteen years?
(And, okay, maybe she's right that his father starting him on suppressants the day after his first baby presentation heat— spent bundled up in a miserable little burrito next to Chase, feeling like he was dying from the worst flu of his life— was a dick move. He was twelve. The instructions on the bottle had said that he had to be eighteen or older. But he's made it this long, so it's not like it fucked him all the way up!)
Then she points at his wrists (wrapped firmly, gently, in white bandages) and says that scent patches are off the table as well.
There's bandages taped to the glands near his throat, all of them having taken damage from the patches that he'd been wearing during the explosion, adhesive melting and burning into the sensitive skin of his inner wrists. His scent would come back shortly, after the dressings were removed, but it would be detrimental to his healing if he went back to patches too soon.
There's more, of course, how he'll have migraines and fatigue, how he may feel bouts of pain across his body, old injuries acting up, blah, blah blah.
He's fine. He'll get up. He'll—
He'll try not to think too hard about what to do about the suit.
And again, the great thing about being in the Hero Ward is that he barely has to pay a dime.
Robert would feel worse about having tax dollars wasted on him if not for the active fear of having to split his already meager budget for the hospital bills that would befall him if he'd been admitted as Robert Robertson instead of Mecha Man.
It's a relief when he's finally discharged, even if he has a plethora of things to do before he can even think about lying on the floor of his apartment and maybe falling into another coma. For one, he has to make sure he even still has his goddamn shitty apartment.
(The answer is yes, thank fuck. Still as empty and depressing as ever, but his very careful budgeting to pay a year's worth of rent in advance came in clutch.)
Next matter of business: Beef.
His neighbor had been kind enough to look after him for a while, and then when he couldn't anymore, had taken him to a shelter. It's a relief that he's still there, the volunteer bringing him out nearly dropping him when Beef gets all squirmy and excited, trotting up to Robert's legs with more energy than should be possible for a tiny potato with stubby little legs.
"I fuckin' missed you too buddy", he coos, uncaring of the shelter volunteer watching him tear up over his dog or the way his back groans in protest when he hunches down to pick him up.
Beef is warm and round, his tongue gross and messy as he licks away Robert's tears and this is probably the happiest moment of his entire life, which is not something he's going to think too hard about. Thinking too hard about his life is always a bad time.
He still has to pick up his mech from whatever storage space it was packed into (a task that takes a grueling five days of dismantling it and then rebuilding it as much as he can in his apartment). He gets to feel a brief moment of crawling, all consuming existential dread that nearly makes him vomit when he realizes that the Astral Pulse is gone before he roughly pushes it down with the thought that at least Shroud probably doesn't have it. If he did, the world Robert woke up in after four months in a coma would probably be very, very different.
Then, finally, there's the fucking press conference.
As a solo hero, Robert doesn't have the luxury of a PR team so he has to call the press himself, then print out a statement for himself to read. He sends a quick prayer to the stars that the sharks won't be out for blood, even if he knows it's completely fucking useless.
Normally, Robert is pretty damn good with words. It's a combination of intuition and analysis that he draws on when dealing with people as Mecha Man, a calculation of when to be gruff and no nonsense and when he needs to be softer, accommodating. The right words come to him like a tide, his heart coloring every word with sincerity. He believes in what he says because he has to. Because the people he saves need him to, taking comfort in his reassurances of safety.
Normally Robert would be able to handle the swarm of reporters with dry wit and a sense of sharp responsibility, blunt where he needs to be, careful when he doesn't have clear answers.
Today, Robert is tired.
He hasn't been able to sleep. Even a week and a half after leaving the hospital, his arm is still in sling, aching at a tempo in time with the pulsing of his head, a cruel thump that nearly makes his eyes water. He has medication for the pain, of course, but he needs to make it last and it's better to save them for when he feels truly nauseous with pain.
It's a close thing, admittedly.
The furious flash of cameras do nothing for his blotty, swimmy vision and the roar of voices nearly knock him off his ass the moment he steps up to the podium. His nose is sensitive, more so than average, so despite half the reporters being betas and the other half wisely wearing patches, he feels like he's knocked over a shelf in a perfume shop, senses assaulted in every single direction.
Robert resits the urge to scratch at his wrists. Against medical orders, he'd slapped on the lightest, thinnest set of patches he could afford and his glands are making it known that they do not appreciate the smothering. Too bad, if he's going to show up to a press conference as Mecha Man, then he has to be as scentless as usual. Even if the adhesive feels like feverish little ants chewing up the skin of his wrists and throat.
He can't imagine how small and pathetic he must look in just the undersuit, the heavy armor plating that normally protects his chest having snapped into two useless pieces in the fall.
His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. He imagines the gentle cradle of his chair, waiting for him back home.
Robert looks down at the single page he'd been able to type out, the words drifting gleefully as if trying to escape his gaze. When he finally manages to pin them down, they thrum from his throat like dead things, his voice flatter than he's ever heard it, a tired breathlessness to his tone that escapes no one, least of all journalists waiting to take a bite out of him.
They pounce on the news of his retirement, and Robert has to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the ones who ask questions literally answered in his brief statement. He can't fix the damn mech. He can't do hero-work as is. He will find a way to continue, somehow, even if he's unsure of the means. Literally what else could they want?
"What do you have to say to your fans, to the ones who mourned? Of the vigils and prayers sent your way?" asks a young woman. Blond, her dark eyes sincere. That's all that Robert's sluggish brain can glean.
"Thank you. I appreciate the support and I hope to be worth it", is what he's able to manage. Lackluster by every means, but he hopes that they know how much he truly fucking means it.
He points someone else out of the crowd and immediately regrets it when he starts talking like a freak who crawled out of a movie from the 50’s, The Ring style. The question is stupid and Robert barely makes sense of it through the outdated slang and his own fuzzy brain.
"No comment", he says, lip curling slightly as he adds, "that's the only "skinny" I can give you."
He asks for one more. One more so he can be done with this whole fucking thing and wallow in his own fucking misery for a few hours before he forces himself to think about what comes next. Surely there has to be a way for him to help without the suit. (Helping people as someone else has to be just as good as helping them as Mecha Man, right? It's the pilot that makes the suit, not the other way around, according to his father, but then, every time Chase suggested that Robert could help in ways that didn't involve a fifty ton suit of armor, Robert the Second would shut him down faster than one could say "legacy".)
Speaking of legacy.
The last reporter holds himself with the air of an extremely self-assured alpha. For once, Robert is grateful for the muddle of scents in the room, doubtful he'd be able to withstand a full blast of overconfident alpha-stink without doing or saying something he'd regret later.
The man, Kingsley, asks a question that isn't a question, each sharp word guiding Robert to the noose he's so neatly tied for him. The hunger and scorn in his eyes tell Robert that he doesn't really care about the Mecha Man legacy.
"How disappointed would your father and grandfather be?"
Robert very tactfully does not say, my father was disappointed the day I was born.
He feels, more than ever, like a hollowed out husk, his insides scooped out to make way for the black void that settles in his chest. It numbs him down, cools him down like he's more automaton than the mech suit he pilots. Piloted.
He could say that the previous Mecha Men would be proud of him for holding the line for as long as he has. That he broke the curse of dying in the suit. He could give into the feral urge for violence that lives tucked away in his ribcage, chilled out for the moment but always begging for blood, for recompense. For justice and vengeance. He briefly wonders how long it would take for someone to stop him if he were to punch the guy in the face. His tongue is a heavy, cotton-thick thing in his mouth and though his hands curl into tight fists, there is no strength in them.
Robert blinks slowly, tiredly. Then he promptly walks away from the podium and back into the shadows to the confusion of the reporters he leaves behind.
He really doesn't look all that much better from when he left the hospital, Robert thinks. He looks tiny on the television, his suit fitting wrong, like slightly saggy skin. The dark bruises under his eyes give him something of a skull-like appearance, not helped by the pallor of his skin.
Robert shifts his gaze, catching his own reflection on the display window and finds that out of the Mecha Man suit, he might actually look worse. His hair looks limp and sad after being flattened by his cowl and the collection of freckles on his cheeks seems to have shrunk from lack of sunlight. With the chunk taken out of his ear, he looks like one of the dogs he'd seen at the shelter when he'd gone to pick up Beef.
His scent glands are angry with him, wrists red and irritated, his throat tender to the touch.
At least he can still control the way his emotions carry on his scent so he doesn't track the smell of sad burnt coffee all over the place. He's all chocolate and caramel, sweet and unobtrusive. Joy.
He pulls out his flask from the duffle where he'd stuffed his suit, taking a deep pull as the news segment switches from the press conference to an interview with some rando who thinks Robert should have died in the mech.
Mecha quitter. Well, fuck him too, then.
If fifteen years of dedicated service isn't enough for those kinds of people, then nothing ever will be.
In the span of a couple of seconds, the display window shatters under the force of a crowbar, the television flickers off, and a pair of hands drag it away. Huh. He must really be out of it.
Robert tilts his head, watching dispassionately as a group of thugs start to empty out the electronics store. There's one alpha, reeking of motor oil and unearned confidence, followed by a whole skittles pack of betas, their eyes gleefully bright beneath their stupid ski masks.
"Hey, I was watching that", he says acidly, eyes sweeping over to count the number of chucklefucks.
Five of them, one in the driver's seat, one inside the truck, the other three quickly swiping as many electronics as they can.
They hardly spare him a second glance, though the alpha stops long enough to laugh, looking him over with a scrunch to his eyes that suggests he's grinning. Smugly, if Robert were to hazard a guess.
He knows what this looks like, him in his too-big flannel and torn jeans, arm in a sling, looking like the poster boy for a domestic dispute hotline. In their eyes, he's one fragile little omega surrounded by a bunch of thugs— there's nothing there to fear.
"Okay sweetie, well why don't you run on home before you get hurt", the alpha— the one with the obnoxious orange mask— coos, nodding at the others to keep moving. "Well, more hurt."
The burning swath of anger that had stayed dormant during the press conference bubbles up, indignance crawling hot and molten up his throat. Analyze and pinpoint, his brain says. Fluorescent Yellow Mask stays in the truck, watching from the side mirror. Purple Mask Lady, helped out by a big guy in a red mask glances at him briefly, unconcerned. She's more preoccupied by the stereo that they're trying to move. None of them are powered, as far as he can tell. Red Mask, the most muscular one, would probably be the biggest problem out of all of them, even if Orange Mask seems to be in charge.
But none of them move with the sort of practiced grace that comes with proper fight training and Robert, small, quick, and vicious, knows how to fight fucking dirty.
He shifts, stance going loose. He won't be able to fight long in his condition, but if he can keep them distracted long enough for the cops to get here…
"Oh don't tell me you're gonna try and play hero", Orange Mask jeers, tapping his crowbar against his arm. That'll be a problem, Robert muses, though he can probably use his duffle as something of a barrer. Not a shield, per say, just something to keep it away from his face.
Robert scoffs.
"Don't really need to be one to take on a pack of skittles-lookin' fucks like you", he says, dragging unimpressed eyes over each of them. "You guys have some sort of coupon or something? Or was black just too cliche for you?" He laughs, a rough, rasping sound.
Red Mask narrows his eyes at him, drawing himself up to his full height, but Orange quickly intercedes, voice harsh as he says, "I've got this."
Tension. Robert suspected there might be some.
Red huffs but backs off, trailing the faint scent of soured fruit.
"Seriously, just go home, sweetheart", says Orange, holding up his hands placatingly, like he's talking to a small child. "Little thing like you probably doesn't stand a chance against all of us. Specially if we know which hand the punc-"
He doesn't finish his sentence before Robert pulls his arm out of the sling and swings his fist into his face. The idiot made the mistake of getting too close, his head snapping to the side with the force of the blow. He stumbles and Robert presses his advantage while the rest of the would-be thieves are too stunned to react, swiping Orange's legs from beneath him.
He grunts, finding it takes more effort than he's used to, his body slower than it’s supposed to be.
Green Mask pounces at him, ready to catch his arm but not expecting him to crash his head into his nose, his shout of pain finally pushing the others to move. Robert has to go on the defense, then, narrowly avoiding a punch to his stomach, ignoring the twinging of his injured arm.
He ducks another swing at his face (the idiot threw it too wide, nearly smashing into whoever— Purple?— had been trying to sneak up behind Robert), throws out his own jab into Red's ribs. He flinches, but there was nowhere near enough force for the hit to actually do much and Robert curses sharply as he swerves to the side to avoid a sloppy kick. If he could get his hands on a big enough piece of glass, then maybe his chances would increase in landing a debilitating blow, but that would mean taking his eyes off the four bastards trying to beat him to a sad little pulp.
Wait.
He can't duck away in time from the hand that snags a chunk of his hair and he only just manages to tangle the strap of his duffle around the crowbar swinging towards his chest.
It's with a mean little snarl that Robert tears it out of Orange's hand, barely listening to it clatter before going for a bite at the next hand that gets too close to his face. His misses, teeth clicking over empty air as the hand wisely retracts, the one still in his hair trying to painfully pull him back like a dog on a leash.
"Little bitch, fucking stop", Orange grits out.
Robert has to compensate for the weight of the Command, feeling it wash over him and then retract like a tide. The hand lets go of his hair, likely expecting him to drop like a stone.
His limbs twitch, wanting to lock up, and it's enough for someone to drive the air out of his lungs with a swift punch to his gut. Still, even as bad as he is now, it's not enough to totally knock him down.
He shuffles back, breathing harshly, eying the group as they circle around him. They're definitely pissed now, the burning reek of anger and bruised pride making his nose scrunch in annoyance.
"That all you got?" he wheezes. Oh he's gonna need a nice dose of those pain meds when he gets home. And Beef kisses. So many Beef kisses.
The circle tightens. Robert tenses up, throbbing arm wrapping gingerly around his bruised ribs. He's ready to spring in again before any of them get a chance to move, already eying Green's broken nose.
"The fuck is wrong with you?" Orange snaps, all playfulness gone. There's frustration and a bit of murder in his eyes, a familiar combination from those who've been forced to deal with Robert's brand of stubborn resilience. He already feels better than he did an hour earlier, adrenaline singing in his veins, body screaming as he pushes it so soon after waking. Oh if only his doctor could see him now.
"Seasonal depression, I think", Robert quips, pivoting on his heel to drive the heel of his palm into Green's face.
The motion is smooth, quick, practiced, complete in time for him to throw a kick at Yellow-
"Fucking— I said kneel you little bitch!"
Robert expects: the stuttering of his leg, smooth movement halting then resuming. The quick flash of fog in his brain before it clears up into the sharpness of battle once more.
Robert does not plan for: the way his knees wobble, then fold, dropped entirely out of the kick and into a swerving, unbalanced kneel. The glass and asphalt scrape unkindly against his skin through the tears in his jeans and his mind empties out, gone, for an entire, terrifying minute. He's locked in place, the Command settling over his limbs like ice.
No. No, no, no.
The hand is back in his hair, gentler this time. There is laughter. His lungs can't catch enough air.
(His father's eyes are hard and black like marbles, set in a stony face that is sometimes gone for so long that Robert fears he may start to forget it.
"Kneel", he rumbles, the word lodging like a spike of ice through Robert's heart.
He's thirteen, mouth pressed into a tight, bloodless line, his breath uneven with tears he refuses to let fall.
"Get up", his father says. It's not a Command, so it doesn't override his demand for Robert to kneel. No, Robert has to do that himself, has to gather the willpower and strength to overcome the weight of the word.
"Get up, Robert."
He promised they could do something nice together if Robert showed promise in his training. They've been at it for an hour and all Robert can think about, when his brain doesn't feel like it's wrapped in cotton, is that the concrete floor of the basement really hurts his knees.
It's an arduous back and forth of Kneel and "Get up" and every time Robert opens his mouth to complain, his father reminds him, quietly, in vivid detail, exactly what the sort of people they're meant to fight against would do to him if he let them get him into this position.
Get up.
Get up.
Get up.)
His legs won't obey him.
Orange drags his head back by his hair until his throat is bared, the submission pose leaving him exposed and vulnerable. His vision won't clear up, making him feel like he's seeing through clouded glass so every time he senses something go near him, he can't quite snap at it with his teeth the way he wants to.
Fear clogs his throat, constrictive and useless, and even as he repeats his mantra of get up, the Command holds, restraining without restraints.
"Not so fucking tough now, huh", jeers a voice, not Orange, he thinks, he can't tell who. He feels disoriented. Holy fuck he hates this so bad, he would actually rather be back in the mech as it's falling out of the sky than here.
There's the sound of something swooping up above.
"Asshole broke my goddamn nose! Gotta return the fuckin' favor", someone else growls, the words muffled and warped.
"You hear that? You gonna be a good li-" the sentence does not resolve. Instead, it's interrupted by a scream and the sound of chaos, the swooping thing— strawberries and plasma burn against his nose— picking them off like a bird.
He hears more breaking glass (feels some of it spray into his hair, scratch his cheek), another short, cut off scream, the sound of someone landing on a roof (this is a sound he recognizes for a variety of reasons, half of which include himself being the body doing the landing).
Slowly, his vision stops looking like a marker bled through the other side of a piece of paper. Images snap into focus, the light of streetlamps dimming away until they no longer consume the world in apocalyptic yellow-white, instead haloing a floating woman and turning her hair a shimmery silver. His savior.
"Hey", she says softly, drifting closer like she's approaching a spooked animal. Good choice. Robert doesn't want to be known as the guy who bit off the Blonde Blazer's hand.
"I'm fine", he manages to croak, finally finding the strength to force his baby-deer legs into unfolding.
Blazer hovers, eyes bright and concerned, her hands held out but not touching. The scent of strawberry overtakes the plasma, soothing and fresh. Pheromones to calm him down, Robert realizes, and hates that it's working.
"Sorry, I should've been here sooner", she starts, guilt lacing her voice only for Robert to shake his head, not in the mood to be treated like a piece of the glass scattered around him, brittle and broken.
"You were right on time", he says with a crooked grin, which quickly slips into a grimace once he realizes that his arm isn't moving correctly. He glances at it, wincing at the angle. The good part about the constant hum of pain is that at some point it kind of stops registering, more or less. It becomes manageable enough that he can push it out of his mind.
The bad part is that he misses things like a dislocated limb. Somehow. Oof.
"That's gross", Robert remarks.
"I can fix it, if you want?" Blazer offers. She doesn't come closer, waiting for his permission.
Robert weighs his choices. Go back to the hospital and have the doctor yell at him again? Try to do it himself? Nah.
"Yeah, go ahead. Wait, you've done this before, riGHT?!" His voice pitches up to an impressive range as Blazer, a little too eagerly, pops his arm right back into his socket, the flash of agony thankfully there and gone in a blink.
Robert means to thank her, but finds himself caught in Blazer's intense blue gaze, deer-in-the-headlights style. He can't look away, even as the silence lengthens and becomes awkward. Thankfully, the arrival of the police catches her attention, dragging her searchlight eyes away, and in the moment that she's distracted, Robert decides to make his escape. He just needs to get home, kiss his dog on his soft little head, and maybe delay the crisis scratching at him beneath his skin for a little longer with some cheap whisky .
"Oh, shit, hey, hey Robert wait up a second!"
Robert does not wait up. He forces his traitor legs to walk a little faster and finds himself betrayed yet again when that does not deter Blond Blazer who is
One: taller than him, her long legs easily overtaking him
and two: not wobbling like a concussed idiot.
"You know my name", Robert says, just shy of accusing. Blazer is a hero, he knows. A very good hero, even.
Unfortunately Robert is a paranoid fuck and the fact that Blazer apparently knows who he is strikes him as odd. He's never worked with her through his tenure as Blue and he'd been very meticulous about the separation of the name Robertson and Mecha Man, just short of deleting himself entirely.
"Okay, I was really hoping the whole saving your life thing would earn me a little more trust", she says with an awkward smile. Again, sincere. She's an alpha, but there's no annoying reek of it, her scent pleasant and calm.
"Sorry", Robert sighs, rubbing his temple. "Kind of a weird night." He tosses his head behind him, where the sound of crackly dispatch radios and cursing dickheads emanate.
"Yeah, no I get that. Let's start over a little bit over drinks? Although…" Blazer's eyes flicker over to the duffle bag miraculously still held over Robert's shoulder. The strap's bitten a bit through his hand, enough to leave a red mark, but he'll forgive it for saving him from the crowbar.
"I was hoping I could talk to Mecha Man?"
Robert wonders how bad it would look if he started genuinely running now.
Okay so maybe Robert had been a bit overdramatic, sue him.
Once he finds a public bathroom to lockpick, it takes him a quick minute to change back into the Mecha Man suit, the scent blocking patching that he hadn't thrown away clinging to his skin like their lives depend on it.
"Oh", Blazer says once Robert ducks out of the bathroom, "you really are… Nevermind. C'mon, I know a place near here where we can get a decent beer."
The walk is quiet but thankfully quick and the cool air helps to clear Robert's head. What a fucking night, he thinks. And the thing is, it probably wouldn't have felt all that remarkable in the long, long list of weird nights he's had as Mecha Man if not for the fact that, well. He couldn't be Mecha Man anymore.
"Drinks are on me", Blazer says once they settle onto a pair of stools in a place called Crypto Night.
Robert squints, wondering if he's been here before, before deciding he doesn't actually care. Free drinks from the nice alpha lady who saved him is all he needs to hear.
"You know, if I hadn't been kinda lost in a haze of panic or whatever, I bet you would've looked really fucking cool beating the shit out of the skittles squad", Rober says, leaning his cheek on his open palm. Blonde Blazer looks nice in the shitty bar lighting, though he suspects she kinda just looks nice regardless.
She stares at him, wide-eyed, before laughter startles out of her, her head falling back a little, her broad shoulders bouncing.
"Skittles pack?" she asks incredulously.
"Yeah", Robert nods. "Didn't you notice?"
She scrunches her eyes a little as she thinks before, like a lightbulb flash over her head, realization brightens her eyes.
"Oh my god, the masks. I can't believe I didn't notice!"
They talk. They drink. Robert finds that he doesn't feel so defensive anymore, the tension bleeding from his frame. Blazer is sweet, a bit chatty, and she seems to have forgotten why they came here in the first place (how the hell she knows who he is), but he finds he doesn't mind. He hasn't felt this relaxed just talking to someone since… Uh. Does his dog count? Probably not. But it's nice.
She drinks, and drinks, and drinks and Robert's eyebrows follow up, up, up at the deep pull.
"Had a rough night?" he asks. He knows his hasn't exactly been pleasant.
"What? Oh, oh no, it just takes a little more for me to feel it. You know. Tipsy. I normally drink from the bottle, but I thought that'd be, hmm. Embarrassing." She doesn't blush, but there's a note of awkwardness to her voice, eyes flitting away.
Robert grins, shaking his head. "Nah, been there. Sometimes a nice bottle is a girl's best friend."
She huffs another laugh and Robert feels warmth bloom in his chest. He likes making people laugh. He's hardly the most charismatic Mecha Man, but he's always been proud of his ability to make people smile even after a rough rescue.
“You know… I always thought it was impressive how you managed to go on for so long. Especially as a hero with no powers. I can’t imagine the thousands-”
“Millions”, Robert corrects.
Blazer gapes at him, like she can’t quite believe it.
“Yeah, um, I kind of burned through my inheritance, trying to keep it going. Last couple of years have been just duct tape and sheer determination.” He shrugs, a small, rueful smile tugging at his lips.
“Why do it?” she asks. There’s something a little reverent in her voice.
Robert turns the question over in his head, examines it like a piece of tech he needs to take apart and put back together. It’s more complicated than just wanting to advance the Mecha Man legacy or even just wanting to do good, though both have kept him going, fueled by his endless stubbornness.
He says, “I guess it’s the only thing I’m really good at.” Which isn’t wrong. The way he grew up, he doesn’t know if there had ever been any other choice for him. He hadn’t wanted there to be.
“Oh”, Blazer replies, gaze drifting down to her glass.
They sit in silence for a moment, and Robert wonders if he should have said any of that. It probably doesn’t help the sad, helpless wet dog impression he seems to be giving Blazer.
"So, you wanted to talk to me about something?" he prompts, finally.
"Right!" She sits up, the intense, searchlight gaze returning. She's tall, almost imposing, but she doesn't do that looming thing alphas do when they want to intimidate, so Robert simply settles in to listen, hand curling around a pint glass.
(It kind of stinks a lot of alpha in this bar, but Blazer's strawberry-plasma scent is growing on him. Even the plasma part. It kind of reminds him of the sword from his mech, which is strangely comforting.)
"Now that you're all loose and not about to bite my hand off, I figure I can finally tell you about the proposition I have for you."
There's a flash of excitement in her white-tooth smile. It's slightly sloppy, real, not the corporate toothpaste commercial thing she wears on her face for the billboards. He grins back, feeding on her energy despite himself, tilting his head in curiosity. What could Blonde Blazer possibly want with him?
She opens her mouth to speak at the same time Robert takes a long sip of his drink, which turns out to be a bad, bad idea because this is not fucking water, and the Not Fucking Water ends up all over Blazer's face. Specifically her mouth. Ah, shit.
"Who drinks straight alcohol out of a pint glass?" Robert sputters, staring from the glass to Blazer. He shakes his head. "No, fuck, sorry. I promise I didn't mean to aim for your mouth."
To his relief she looks more amused than anything else, the alcohol sluicing off her no doubt water-proof suit.
"You know what? It's fine. Not the worst thing I've had spit on me and not even the grossest part of my day. Since you've also had a pretty shitty day, I'll forgive you", she says graciously. Her nose wrinkles. "But I do think I need to clean up. Be right back."
She pats his back as she leaves and Robert tosses another sheepish apology her way before she disappears around the corner to the bathrooms.
He misses her company, the soft radiance of her presence keeping his brain from trying to twist itself Uzumaki style around the day's events. He sniffs his other drink, confirms that it's actual water this time, and pops an ice cube into his mouth, reveling in the sharp chill that prickles against the inside of his cheek. He focuses on that instead of the terror from earlier, the betrayal of his body and how goddamn pissed his dad would be about all that training going down the drain after one fucking coma.
"Hey, bitch!" he hears someone call. His nose picks out something smokey and cinnamon-y, a faint memory of fire tickling in the back of his throat. He ignores it.
"I'm fucking talking to you, bitch!" the voice snaps again, this time directly behind him. Okay. Probably directed him, then.
He turns slowly, face set somewhere between neutral and actively not giving a fuck.
"Let the record show, I turned around because I heard yelling, not because I'm a bitch", he says, the tonelessness of his voice conveying his utter lack of interest.
Robert meets the blazing amber eyes of an alpha whose… everything screams I know I'm hot and I'm a total douchebag about it. Most of that douchey aura emanates from the stupid pair of sunglasses he wears, despite it being the middle of the night.
Would it still be a "pair" if it was just one visor?
He pulls his hand over his nose to try to escape from the overwhelming scent of burning, though he finds that his own chocolatey smell leaking through the patches isn't very ideal.
The man is speaking, but Robert barely hears him, his obnoxious voice drifting into the din of the crowd, drowned out by the music playing over shitty speakers. Analyze, his brain demands. Mr. Hot head is posturing, puffing out his chest and throwing his scent around, but Robert doesn't register him as the biggest threat in the room. That spot lands swiftly on the woman who trails quietly behind him, all shadow and metal, her yellow eyes cutting through the bar like blades.
There's another man, jovial and small, and while he's definitely someone to be wary of, if his disproportionately muscular arms are anything to go by, but he's no more a problem than any other superpowered hero in the bar.
Shadow lady catches his eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching up, amused.
"Are you fucking listening to me?"
Robert's been boxed into the bar, big hands smacking onto the counter to draw his attention while Sunglasses At Night presses into his space. His scent would be so much nicer if it wasn't tinged with so much smoke and ash, Robert thinks as he twists around for another piece of ice.
A big hand curls around his wrist, the temperature of the bar climbing up, flames bursting bright orange from the man's large shoulders. So this is how his night's gonna go, huh.
He really is handsome, Robert thinks mildly. Long black hair slicked back into a ponytail, full mouth pulled back into a nasty sneer, like being menaced by the cover of a fitness magazine.
"Sorry, no I didn't catch that. Don't really make it a habit to get into it with losers who don't know the appropriate time to wear sunglasses. Don't want those two brain cells to work any harder than they have to, you know?" Robert says. He tugs lightly in hopes of getting his wrist back, but alas, it stays trapped in an iron grip. It's almost impressive, the way the man's hand can wrap around it entirely, though, oddly enough, he doesn't try to grind the bones to dust.
"This is a superhero bar, Mecha-Bitch. And you aren't a fucking superhero anymore." His eyes blaze behind the visor, demanding a challenge. Robert leans in closer, until they're nose to nose, doing himself a favor and flicking the sunglasses on top of the man's sleek hair. He's a little surprised that he's allowed to.
His eyes really are beautiful. Topaz-amber, lit up from within and scalding in their fury. It’d be nice if the guy clearly didn’t want to incinerate him.
"Oh? And is that what you are? A superhero? S'your power to point out obvious shit?"
The man's nose flares, sharp teeth bared, and Robert almost laughs, far from intimidated by the show of aggression. Another alpha might have snarled right back, might have tried for a submission bite, but Robert merely leans back, raising a deeply unimpressed eyebrow.
The man… deflates a little at not having his challenge met, but he's quick to rally, finally opting to put pressure around Robert's wrist. The gesture kind of falls flat, considering he doesn't even bother to make the bones grind together. Would it even bruise, he wonders.
"I control the fire and the flame, and my skin does not burn", the man says, twirling a spark between his fingers, mesmerizing.
That's when the memory hits, the blaze in the mall, the fireball powerhouse that trailed the smell of cinnamon as he tried to murder the shit out of Mecha Man. He still has burns from that, old and faded, occasionally tender.
"I remember you now!" Robert says, his eyes going wide, stupid grin sliding onto his face. "You're that shitty villain I busted a few years back, holy shit!"
Flambae— right, that was his name— scowls, eyes burning brighter, like fiery lamps threatening to burst. He's so warm, pressing all that heat into Robert's body with intent, likely to harm, though all Robert can feel is his aches and pains taking a sigh of relief. Finally, his wrist is starting to feel like it's being crushed, the pain grounding, bright, a starburst through the fog in his mind.
"Woah, sure you wanna do that here, lad?" asks the man with the big arms, voice lilting with an Irish accent. The flames on Flambae's shoulders climb higher, threatening, and yet Robert feels no fear, no urgency.
The scent of cinnamon and ginger and something spicier cut clean and unmarred by smoke, the smell of an alpha getting ready to fight or fuck.
Robert tilts his head, intrigued.
"I'm gonna fucking turn you into burnt smear", Flambae snarls, which is about when Robert decides enough is enough.
He reaches behind him with the hand Flambae has (sadly) stopped squeezing, fingers curling around glass to fling whatever liquid into Flambae's face. Thankfully it turns out to be water, dousing the flames and sending Flambae into a clumsy slip right into the bar, his mouth taking the brunt of the fall.
Ouch, Robert winces, feeling just a tiny smidge bad about the tooth that falls gracelessly to the ground.
He watches as Muscle Idiot follows Flame Idiot out of the bar, tooth in a glass of water despite that absolutely not being how that works. The Knife Lady follows them at a more leisurely speed, those cutting eyes raking over Robert for a moment before she slips into the shadows.
He gets kicked out despite barely doing anything, but it's fine.
There's a singular moment of temptation to just go home, but Blazer's been nice and he thinks his Dick Quota's been hit for the night, even if Flambae's misfortune was like. At least ninety percent self inflected.
Instead, he huddles under his coat and resists the urge to scratch at his wrists, breathing in the late night Torrence air. It smells like dumpster and weird damp alley (on account of the fact that that's where he is), but it's nice to be out of the crowd, eyes slipping shut as he leans against the brick wall and listens to the low murmur of hero chatter outside the bar.
He hears the sound of the door swishing open, the click of heals and opens his eyes to greet Blazer with a tired smile.
"Now what are you doing out here?" She asks, smiling back. There's a pair of glasses in her hand, full of dark whiskey.
"Pondering the dumpster. Trying to unravel the meaning behind "fart barf"", Robert answers. Trying to ignore the radiant thrum of pulsing pain beginning to engulf his body, he does not add. Trying to ignore the scent of cinnamon, ginger, and smokey sandalwood.
"That so? Because the way I heard it, I missed out on a big fight. Vibes were all weird in there", Blazer huffs.
"Yeah? Huh, I guess there was this one guy getting heated up. Hardly a fight, though. Just helped him cool down a little." Robert smirks.
Blazer narrows her eyes at him like she doesn't believe a word he says, but her grin is mischievous and sweet as she nods towards the drinks.
"Nightcap?"
Robert huffs a breathy laugh through his nose, taking one of the glasses.
"Aren't you trouble?"
"I could say the same about you", Blazer quips, handing him the other glass. At his questioning look, she adds, "I'm gonna fly us somewhere."
Her arm winds tightly around his waist, her grip sure as she pulls him close.
"You strong", Robert murmurs, stomach doing somersaults as gravity ceases to exist.
Robert's never been afraid of heights. Powers or no, Mecha Men were born to fly. He remembers being small, cradled in the hands of the mech (demonstrative, because eventually he would have to learn how to handle civilians while inside), watching the world become pinpricks of lights, the roar of the wind in his ears. Chase had been tense, as if afraid that his father would accidentally drop him, and had only been able to start joking again once Robert was safely on the ground.
Sometimes he forgets how beautiful the city can be.
With all the crime, the viciousness of dark alleys and shady warehouses, all the people with bad intentions, it can be easy to forget the brightness, the sound of laughter, the warm eyes of a stranger.
Blazer is warm, he thinks, her body and his coat joining forces to keep the chill air from leaching the meager heat his body keeps. The curse of poor circulation and all that.
Ahead, the Hollywood sign glows dreamily, the light a little hazy around the edges, pretty and gaudy at once. Blazer doesn't take them quite that far, choosing instead to settle them on a billboard with a lovely view of it. The hills behind the sign look black in the night, hardly distinguishable from the navy sky and its pale stars. Robert downs his drink, the awful taste worth it for the gentle fuzziness in his head. For the first time since he woke up, he feels floaty and soft in a good way. For once, the bright lights don't pulse in his head and if not for the height, he thinks he could fall asleep up here.
He can feel Blazer's eyes on him, a prickle of awareness on the side of his face. She sits a respectful distance away, though Robert kind of misses the warmth.
"This was nice", he says, the sarcasm stripped from his voice. "I don't know if you could tell, but I really needed this. So. Thanks." And then, because he can't leave well enough alone, he adds, "don't think I can take my pain meds tonight though. Already breaking so many medical rules."
He chuckles, though the burns he feels under the scent patches are no joke. He's half tempted to tear off his gloves, hike up his sleeves, and claw at his wrists like an animal with fleas. That probably wouldn't leave the best impression, though. Well, actually, he already spat in her face, didn't he?
"So what's that proposition you've been waiting all night to talk to me about?" he asks before Blazer can voice her concern.
She's silent for a moment, watching as he tugs off his gloves with his teeth.
“I'll tell you… but first I need to know how you ended up with a name like Robert Robertson.”
Robert snorts, “you mean a name like Robert Robertson the third.”
Blazer’s eyes widen in astonishment.
“Thrice this happened?” she asks incredulously.
Robert abandons his gloves for a second to explain, partly amused, partly melancholy.
“It’s family tradition. There was Grandpa Bobby, who died before I was born, and then dad, who I called dad but everyone else called Robbie. And then there’s me, Robert, because I wanted to be taken seriously.”
He chuffs, looking over the quiet parking lot below them, the hum of the billboard filling in the silence before he says, “It was supposed to be my destiny to die in that suit. But I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“I’m- I’m sorry”, Blazer says, and Robert doesn’t need to look at her to hear the regret in her voice.
He shrugs.
“Just your run of the mill tragic superhero backstory.” He knows he sounds a little apathetic, but it’s hard trying to conjure up any other emotion tonight when he feels so drained.
“I’m not quite drunk enough to share my backstory”, Blazer says softly, “but remind me to tell you sometime.”
She offers him a small smile and Robert returns it, nodding.
“Sometime”, he promises.
Silence persists once more, like a wall falling in place. It’s not an unfamiliar wall; Robert’s felt just a little to the side of everyone else, a spectator to the world around him. They all wanted Mecha Man, so Robert had to be tucked away. Funny, he thinks, that it’s always been like that.
He goes back to tugging off his gloves.
Then, finally, Blazer says, "what if I said we— that is, SDN— could make you Mecha Man again?"
That stops him in his tracks, wide eyes tracking Blazer's face for signs of deception. It's more an instinct than an actual belief that she would lie to him, her scent unwaveringly resolute, the promise of a thunderstorm.
She continues, "do you know a hero named Track Star?"
The name makes Robert's heart pang, a small smile titling on his mouth.
"Yeah! He was like family to me, the closest thing I ever came to considering pack… He was the youngest member of the Brave Brigade so I always had him as my babysitter", he says fondly. Chase had been more of a constant in his life than his own father, the cool older brother that made the world seem just a little less scary. "I haven't seen him in… a very long time. What about him?"
"He's the reason I'm here", Blazer admits. "He recommended you for SDN and, well, I guess I wanted to see for myself what you were like. If you'd fit in."
"Ah", Robert nods, "had to make sure I'm not crazy."
Blazer shrugs.
Then, slowly, she reaches towards him, gesturing towards his mask. She'd already seen him without it, but he nods anyway, her hand warm through her glove as she carefully slides it off his face. Her expression softens as she takes him in, messy copper hair, his scattering of freckles, the notch in his ear. Properly looking at him this time.
"We can work with this", she says quietly.
Something passes between them, but Robert doesn’t have the mind to think too hard about it. When they pull back, the scent of chocolate and strawberries intertwine.
Robert finishes his task of taking off his patches, tugging down the zipper of his suit to get the ones at his throat. They slide off with ease, barely sticky, and Robert watches as the wind whips them away. He digs blunt fingers into red skin, not quite feeling relief.
Blazer's hand curls around his wrist, elegant but strong.
"What do you think? You'll have the full support of a big company like SDN behind you, and while it's gonna take time to put the suit back together, it should be enough time for you to mentor and level up some of our rookie heroes. We could use that, you know? Your experience, your guidance, your work ethic."
Robert doesn't have to think very hard, if he's being honest. There's no way that not having the suit would stop him from trying to help, but he knows that without it, he would be… bereft.
He grew up in that suit, bled in it, for it, and the thought of losing it permanently, of Mecha Man fading into Robert Robertson, a man who barely exists outside the mech, brings back that awful hollow feeling. And if he’s being honest, he's curious about the dispatching part of the job, of what it may entail, if he would even be any good at it.
"When do I start?" he asks.
The assessment that Blazer makes him do is a breeze, actually. Phenomaman's voice is soothing, if a bit stiff as he assigns jobs, taking in the information on the screen as he would in the field.
Analyze. Predict. Intuit.
It's made slightly difficult by the fact that he doesn't know anyone on his roster personally, that he can't take in more information than what the screen allows, but not enough to stop him from acing it.
"Looks like I'm a pro at this", he says when he takes off the training glasses, grinning smugly when he turns back to Blazer.
She isn't looking at him, but at his wrist, still in her grasp. Her finger carefully circles the irritated scent gland, the smell of chocolate-and-caramel thick in the air.
"It's even more impressive how long you managed to hide. I was confused when Track Star told me not to approach you like an alpha, that it would freak you out, but I see what he means. You wouldn't have challenged me back."
"I didn't take you to be one who does challenges", Robert says, too tired to feel defensive.
"No, not really. But a fifteen year career long alpha hero— usually I have to be at least a little aggressive if I want to get taken seriously. Track Star didn't say you weren't an alpha, but I didn't really realize what he was holding back until I saw you. If I had done the whole alpha shtick and you ran off, I think he'd actually break something."
"I'm usually a fight over flight sort of person, actually. It's a problem", Robert snorts.
"That's probably what confused me so much about his advice", says Blazer. "Mecha Man has a bit of a reputation for being vicious outside the suit. Guess Star was trying to save me from getting bit."
They both chuckle a bit at that.
It must be nearing morning when Blazer finally brings them down from the billboard. She helps Robert find a bathroom to change in (he explains that those were the only set of patches he had, and he wasn't supposed to wear them in the first place), and he allows her to fly him a block from his apartment. He ignores the look of concern she wears as he bids her goodnight, insisting that he's fine from here. Right. If she thinks this street looks rough, there's no way in hell he can show her his barren concrete block of a living space.
Once home, the door (and balcony) locked, he settles into the ruins of the Mecha Man suit, repaired to the best of his ability and useless as a corpse without the Astral Pulse to give it life. He feels small in its embrace, comfortable despite the lack of blanket. A sorry excuse for a nest, but the only thing he has. Beef settles in his lap, licking up the crumbs of dry cereal that slip from between his fingers. He uses one of the mech's hands to hold up his phone, old news footage of Blazer lighting up his screen.
"A nice lady wants to help us", he murmurs to Beef, resting his cheek on his fist.
There's a blooming feeling in his chest, something to overcome the numbness that had overtaken his bones since he woke up. He isn't done.
He can get back up.
And, for once, he won't be alone.