Chapter Text
The thing is, being a villain is easy. Way easier than Robert’s short-lived attempt at being a hero.
It’s not exactly cheap, repairing a giant robot suit that gets damaged so frequently. Keeping up maintenance on Mecha-Man is far more affordable when it’s on the dime of a robbed bank, or a hacked overseas account belonging to some rich corporate douchebag.
And your typical heroes have this tendency to slap a band-aid on problems that sometimes require a solution that's a little more… permanent. For instance, a legit villain, the kind who kills thousands and plans to take over the world, is far less likely to escape prison and continue their evil ways when they're a crushed pile of gore.
But sometimes, easy means boring. And right now Robert is bored out of his fucking skull as he kills time inside the empty bank he broke into at almost midnight. There isn’t much else to do besides idly flipping through police scanner frequencies tapped through the Mecha-Man suit, making sure there won't be any interruptions while he waits for–
“Mecha-Bitch,” a familiar voice behind him sighs. “God, it’s like your full-time job is just to annoy me.”
The smell of smoke fills the room. Robert smiles to himself, already giddy with anticipation. Because this is what he was hoping for, waiting for. To drag the attention here, and out of the skies.
Robert turns the suit to greet the closest thing he has to a nemesis lately. “As full of yourself as always, huh, Flambae?”
The SDN hero stands near the broken glass and mangled metal of the bank door entrance, his arms crossed over his admittedly impressive chest with one thick eyebrow raised. “What, like you’re not fucking waiting here to get your ass handed to you? The fuck are you doing in there, eh? Had to jerk off before flying away like a thieving little bitch?”
“Got distracted when I hacked into your Grindr profile,” Robert says. “The mesh shirt is a nice touch.”
“Fuck off.”
“You first.” Robert starts prepping some combative protocols, because Flambae usually only banters for about a minute or two before they brawl.
“This is, eh. What’s the word…” Flambae waves a hand as he steps closer, full of cocky bravado. “Ironic, yeah? When I finally arrest your ass, it’ll be in a bank, just like–”
“Just like our first date,” Robert jokes, and Flambae bristles, low flames igniting over his arms and shoulders. He’s getting pissed off now, just like Robert planned. The fight is going to be a fun one when he finally charges. “Oh, come on,” he continues. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even get to be this much of an infernal pain in my ass. Shouldn't you be thanking me for getting you a job at SDN?”
“I’m at SDN because I’m a fucking hero,” Flambae grits out. “One of the fucking best.”
On one of his screens, a notification from Mecha-Man’s only ally pops up on the screen, and Robert nearly lets out a sigh of relief. Because now it’s just a waiting game, and keeping Flambae busy is hardly a challenge.
“Good for you,” he says. “You were a shitty villain, so I guess that was your only option left after you got arrested, huh?”
“You fucking–”
“You know, my offer’s still on the table.” Robert cocks his head. “I already have a water guy. Could use a pyro, too.”
“I’m past robbing banks, Mecha-Dick. And I never really gave a shit about taking down pathetic CEOs. What, you need me to keep your lame-ass fucking evil lair warm for you?”
“No, I just like looking at pretty things while I work,” Robert replies. “It's like a reward.”
Flambae rolls his eyes, but there’s a flush on his cheeks, and Robert grins. Half the fun of fighting this guy is messing with him, especially when he gets these little reactions.
“By the way, isn't it kind of late for you to be hero-ing? Are they not giving you enough to do at your corporate gig?”
“It's hectic right now, I'll admit,” Flambae sighs, starting to round Mecha-Man as his hands light up in kindling flames. Probably looking for a weak point, as always. It’s almost endearing how predictable he is. “Our dispatcher got bored. And you know we're not the easiest bunch to handle, what with us kicking your ass all the time.”
And– that's interesting. Flambae has been patrolling the night skies a lot lately, and now it makes sense why. Robert knows that Z-Team, the crew of former villains-turned-heroes that Flambae is so proud of, took a while before they got a dispatcher that actually clicked with them. It probably worked because said dispatcher was originally one of their own, some chick who turns invisible that was actually part of the Red Ring, once.
Well, before Robert dissolved the syndicate like rotten meat in a vat of acid, and killed Shroud with his bare hands. You know, one of those things that heroes aren't actually ballsy enough to do.
“So you need enrichment,” Robert says. “Gotcha. But the rest of your team didn’t care enough to back you up?”
“I don’t need them for a fight with your bitch ass.” Flambae grins wickedly with the assurance of someone who’s already won the battle. “But it’s cute that you’re worried, Mecha-Bitch.”
That’s somewhat true. Flambae is admittedly one of the more powerful supers that Robert has ever gone against. He’s physically strong, impressively resilient, able to fly with far more agility than the Mecha suit, and his heat levels sometimes hit temperatures that have threatened to melt the metal armor more than once. It’s part of why Robert likes fighting him so much.
The other part is the chemistry. After Flambae became part of the Phoenix Program, he got cockier than ever. Thinks he’s better than everyone else, thinks he’s the hottest shit that SDN has ever dropped. And because of that, he’s an insanely snarky bitch. Robert fucking loves it. He pushes his buttons like it’s an olympic sport, because Flambae will hit him back just as hard, just as pettily. It’s way more fun than Shroud’s stoic bullshit that ultimately got him killed.
So, yeah. Robert enjoys fucking with the guy.
“You sure about that?” Robert smirks. “My buddy Waterboard is on his way. You still have time to tuck your greasy ponytail between your legs and run.”
Flambae scoffs, but there’s no denying the way he tenses, the way his flames falter for just a moment. Robert doesn’t really blame him. Waterboard can be creepy as hell, and his powers are basically the only thing that stand a chance at subduing Flambae’s fire. He's reduced the hero into a sopping, bruised mess only a few times, but it was clear that it rattled him differently than fights with any other villains.
“What, your little soggy napkin of a sidekick? He doesn't scare me.”
“My mistake. I guess when your heart rate spikes at the mere mention of him it's because, what? His unnerving aura gets your dick hard?”
“Alright, enough fucking foreplay.”
Flambae clenches his hands into fists that burn bright and lethal, his face screwed into a look of malice and determination, and he growls lowly as he braces himself to attack–
“Wait, hold on a sec!”
Flambae falters, scowling. “Fucking what now?”
“I'm still just going through your Grindr profile,” Robert says. “You're a vers, really? But you have such needy bottom energy–”
“Motherfucker!”
He bursts into flames and charges. Robert cackles inside the suit as he’s sent skidding back from the force of Flambae’s inferno. He waits until Flambae gets close enough that he can see that determination, that sheer strength of will that makes these fights so exhilarating, to set his shield up and use his free arm to backhand him, sending the hero flying back into the air before he regains his footing and takes off in a fiery blaze.
The living fireball zips around the air, almost too fast for the suit programs to keep up with as he slams into the sides to try and knock Robert off-balance, before resorting to his classic blasts of lethal fire. Their fight is a flurry of orange and blue clashing against each other, of dodges and strikes that keep both of them on their toes, and more than once Robert catches the hero smirking as he attacks.
Flambae thinks he’s winning. But Robert’s already two steps ahead.
Finally, after drawing out the fight for nearly ten minutes, he gets the message.
> Got it. Returning to base.
Robert smirks, and fires a wave of plasma discs at his opponent, throwing Flambae off enough that he’s able to shoot an explosive at the wall behind the man.
Severely injuring Flambae is never the goal, so the resulting mess of falling debris and the plume of smoke filling the room works just as Robert predicted. Flambae is sprawled out on the ground, gritting his teeth as he tries to regain his footing, but Robert takes off into the air before he can catch his breath.
“Rain check, Hothead,” Robert drawls, blasting a hole into the ceiling and littering the bank with more rubble. “We’ll call it a draw. Hell, maybe next time I’ll even let you win, just to mix things up.”
“You’re a coward, and a bitch!” Flambae yells, flipping Mecha-Man off as he flies through the hole in the roof and away from their battle.
But when Robert checks the zoomed rear cameras, the corner of Flambae’s lips are just barely curled up in amusement. And, despite his growing nerves at what he may soon uncover, Robert finds himself grinning as he heads to his hideout.
Mecha-Man’s “evil lair” is more along the lines of a messy workshop. To anyone flying overhead or passing by, it’s a simple abandoned train entrance in the empty slums just outside of Torrance, a tunnel overrun with dying plants and an overwhelming aura of ‘don’t go there.’
About thirty feet under that is a warehouse. Essentially a secret bunker, filled with a plethora of computers and tech, enough repair tools to fill a mechanic shop, and more scrap metal than a junkyard.
The dim workshop lights are already on when Robert arrives. He exits the Mecha-Man suit, affixing it to the hangar to check the damage Flambae managed to cause, as wet steps approach him like an omen.
Waterboard– formerly Waterboy for about a week, before he found reluctant employment with Mecha-Man– wordlessly hands over a Ziploc bag with a nondescript flash drive inside.
Water drips off of his terrifyingly tall stature onto the concrete floor, giving him a permanent appearance of someone who was recently drowned, and he still has his dark metal mask and mirrored goggles on. The mask was Robert’s design, wrapping around the lower half of his face with a grated nozzle at the mouth to amplify the water pressure of the torrents he spews.
The guy admittedly looks creepy as hell, as always, and Robert snorts as he takes the bag.
“You can ditch the mask, buddy.”
Waterboard makes a quiet sound, like he forgot he was even wearing it, and he fumbles to remove it with an oddly wet click. When the mask and goggles are off, his eyes are big and round, his brow drawn together nervously, and he's worrying his bottom lip. It's still amusing, and almost jarring, how fast the man can go from utterly terrifying to endearingly innocent.
“D-did they fall for– did it work?” Waterboard stammers, fiddling with the mask straps as his eyes dart back and forth between Robert and the stolen tech.
“Like a charm. Didn't suspect a thing,” Robert says as he carefully opens the bag and plugs the drive into his mainframe. “Great work, Herm.”
Waterboard straightens, a tentative smile stretching across his face. “Th-thank you, sir!”
“C’mon, again with the ‘sir.’ We talked about this, man.”
“Um, right. My bad, mister– boss guy. Boss man.”
“For the millionth time, ‘Robert’ is just fine.” The files begin downloading, and Robert tugs his own mask off before crossing his arms, watching intently as the screen loads. For the first time in a long time, he’s a bundle of nerves, feeling like he might vibrate out of his skin from uneasiness and anticipation.
Tonight was chosen for this plan for a specific reason, a plan that’s taken weeks in the making. It’s Friday night. There's a YouTopia concert that’s sold out, and a football game at the stadium on the other side of town. And there may have been an anonymous tip sent to the police about an underground fighting ring that Robert has been keeping tabs on. All heroes and law enforcement have been busier than a blind man at a strip tease, which left the SDN headquarters conveniently empty and easy pickings for a little heist.
The only exception would have been Flambae, who’s been patrolling off the clock more times than not lately, and doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. But a fight with Mecha-Man is a sure-fire way to get him fired up and preoccupied. It was almost too easy to get him out of the air so Waterboard could break into SDN without prying eyes.
“Any trouble getting it?” Robert asks quietly, needing to fill the silence as he tries not to let his mind spin out of control with possibilities.
“Nope!” Waterboard sets his gear into the designated bucket-for-wet-shit and takes the nearby towel to wrap around his shoulders. The black wetsuit Robert designed for him keeps most of the overall wetness at bay, but his hair and face are still usually a drenched mess, so it doesn't matter much. Robert doesn’t mind, for the most part. The guy is usually pretty conscious of staying away from delicate tech. “In and out. I, uh. There may be a flooded bathroom, or–or two, or maybe a floor, though.”
Robert manages to crack a smile. “Still bitter, huh?”
“Eh, um. A little,” Waterboard admits. “N-not that working here isn’t, uh, great! Just–”
“Relax, buddy.” The SDN logo pops up on screen, and finally the files start opening. “I get it.”
The room is quiet as Robert scrolls through the sensitive information Waterboard stole from SDN’s deep records, the ones that only a few at the company get to see. Getting through the few firewalls is easy enough. Frankly, their security is embarrassing for being such a prolific company.
It isn’t long until Robert finds what he’s looking for: the files with the most safeguards, the most passwords. The ones that SDN really, really wants to keep private, because the information inside changes everything.
“Fuck,” Robert breathes, rooted in place, his stomach twisting with dread. “It’s true.”
Waterboard swallows nervously as his own blue eyes flit over the screen. “He’s–?”
“Yeah.” A flurry of emotions rattle Robert like a hit to the stomach. Frustration, regret, shame. Poisonous rage. Restless uncertainty that makes him dig his fingernails into his biceps, makes him clench his jaw so tight that his teeth creak under the pressure. “Shroud’s alive.”
Waterboard audibly gulps next to him. “Are you– what, uh. What does this–?”
“I'm going for a ride,” Robert murmurs, shutting the program and tugging his mask back on. “You want Chinese?”
“Um, sure?” Waterboard watches him go, wringing his hands together nervously. “Mister, um. Robert, shouldn't we–?”
“Yeah, steamed dumplings, for sure.” Robert climbs into the suit, plugs in the Astral Pulse, and takes off through the automated exit into the dark night sky.
For once, he hopes he doesn't run into Flambae. They can't keep having those fun little fights if Robert's angry enough to kill.
The steel mill is a mess of rubble and carnage.
There's a green smear on the ground that still glows like track lights: the remains of Toxic, crushed and dragged until his dickish little comments ended with a sick splat. Scaly limbs are strewn about, oozing blood from their severed stumps, and the head of the lizard-like goon is still twitching at the mouth, like the muscles are still instinctively trying to spit fire. Two bright red laser Khopesh swords stick out of the still body in the corner of the room: one in his chest, and one through the skull mask on his face. A pile of pink goo is still smoldering nearby, melted to the point of nothing more than a stinking, liquid stench.
The Mecha-Man suit is empty, but its pilot is on the ground close by, choking the life out of the bloodied, battered leader of the Red Ring.
Shroud chokes out, “Robert– please–”
“Oh, I think we're past ‘please,’ Elliot,” Robert says, squeezing a bit tighter to see the blood vessels in his eyes burst. “‘Please’ didn't matter when I was a teenager, getting shocked with thousands of volts so you could get ahold of the Astral Pulse. Or when you locked me in a watery tomb that I had to wreck my way out of.” He cocks his head, staring vacantly as Shroud struggles in his grip. “I will thank you, though. If you didn't kill my dad, none of this would have ever happened. I never would have seen my true potential.”
He leans in close. “You've opened my eyes, Shroud. Being a hero? It’s a waste of time. The heroes never win, not really. Pieces of shit like you always survive, always rot in prison, because heroes never do what needs to be done.” He cracks a smile, soft but deadly. “So I think it's time for Mecha-Man to switch sides.”
A wet gurgle escapes Shroud’s bleeding mouth as Robert stops teasing, stops drawing it out. His grip is firm, unyielding, and his eyes never blink as he watches Shroud’s roll to the back of his head before–
He's gone. No more struggling. Just a limp body, shut eyes, a gaping mouth that doesn't beg anymore.
Robert drops the mangled mess that used to be his nemesis, his father’s friend, Astral Mecha-Man’s murderer.
With an exhausted sigh, he climbs back into the suit, and takes off through the roof of what was once a steel mill, but is now the mass grave of the Red Ring.
With what little power he can afford to use in the damaged Mecha-Man suit, he aims a missile at the building and fires. The explosion rattles Torrance as he flies away with a new sense of purpose.
Robert blows off some steam, and maybe a few drug front locations, on the way to the Chinese restaurant that stays open all night. Thankfully he doesn’t run into any heroes on the way there, or on the way back to base.
Despite his villainous status, most heroes don’t go out of their way to fight Mecha-Man. Not unless he’s actually causing mayhem, the kind that they can’t ignore, and they’ll usually send the goody-two-shoes heroes like Blonde Blazer or Phenomaman for a short, pointless fight.
(Flambae is the only exception. He’ll show up just for the hell of it, just for the fun of the battle. But Robert is glad that he seems to have called it quits for the night, and that he isn’t followed by a bitchy human fireball.)
The flight is short, because he doesn’t feel any better. Usually soaring through the skies helps alleviate his foul moods, but tonight it doesn’t do shit. So he’s back to the hideout in less than an hour, with a massive bag of takeout that Waterboard eagerly arranges on the metal table they usually use for nefarious plans. Tonight it’s just used for spilled MSG and wallowing.
“Did you have a fun, um. A fun fight, at least?” Waterboard asks, still chewing on a dumpling. “I know the, er, mean fire guy always puts you in a good mood.”
“It was,” Robert grumbles, mostly just poking at his noodles with his chopsticks, because his appetite is nonexistent now. Truthfully, he still feels a bit nauseous. “I wish my biggest problem right now was the ‘mean fire guy.’”
Shroud is alive. The guy who made Robert’s mere existence a living hell for years, in a pathetic attempt to take the Astral Pulse. Who Robert choked out until the life left his bloodshot eyes after he eradicated every lowlife criminal that was stupid enough to join the Red Ring. And somehow the asshole fucking survived.
Story of Robert’s life, he supposes. Couldn’t make it as a hero. Couldn’t even kill his worst enemy. Maybe he should just let Flambae burn him to a crisp; it's not like he has a dispatcher to hold him back now–
“Huh.”
Waterboard cocks his head at Robert’s furrowed brow. “Th-that’s an idea face, isn’t it? You– you have an idea, right?”
“Not sure. Maybe.” Robert takes a careful sniff, then a small bite of noodles. Swallows and declares, “Yes.”
“Yes!” Waterboard cheers, nearly sending his own chopsticks flying across the room. “Of course you have a plan. Always planning a, uh, two steps ahead!” Robert takes a bigger bite, his lips curling into a smile, and Waterboard gulps. “So what are we– what is the plan?”
Robert sets his chopsticks down and reaches for his laptop.
“I,” he says, “am gonna be SDN’s newest dispatcher.”