Chapter Text
Robert Robertson had been through many tough days in his 15 years as Mecha Man. Tough battles against powerful villains, sleepless nights trying to repair the suit his father had left him when he died… Robert was no stranger to hardship. Still, even by his standards, the last day had been more taxing than any other he could remember.
It had started in the SDN’s on-site medical room. He had sat by Chase’s bedside, watching the man who had been a cross between the big brother he always wanted and the father he always needed sleep in some kind of coma while desperately praying that he’d have a chance to talk to him again. Robert wanted to tell him how important he was, how his babysitting gigs had gotten Robert through a lonely miserable childhood. How one of his biggest regrets from his time as Mecha Man had been that he lost contact with him, and that he planned on making up for that mistake by treating him like family for the rest of their lives.
The guilt and anxiety had squirmed within Robert, making him feel like he was on the verge of passing out or throwing up. Chase had pushed himself, used his powers when he had told Robert himself that doing so put his health at risk, to save Invisigal. Robert didn’t blame Invisigal for what happened, although he was sure others would. He didn’t even blame Shroud and his little red gang, although they were probably the most at fault in actuality. He blamed himself. Chase had a pretty contentious relationship with Invisigal, they’d even gotten into a shouting match that ended with Invisigal punching him in the face earlier that night. Chase was a true hero, and Robert knew he would always try to help those in need despite any personal feelings he had for them. Still, a tiny voice in Robert’s head that he couldn’t fully ignore was telling him that the main reason that Chase risked his life to save Invisigal was because he knew how much Robert cared about Invisigal.
Thinking about Invisigal had brought more guilt to Robert. When Blonde Blazer had found out what had happened, she had taken Invisigal aside and told her that she was suspended from SDN pending a full investigation into what happened. Privately Robert thought that the only reason it was a suspension and not an outright termination was due to a combination of Blonde Blazer’s deceptively close friendship with Invisigal and Blonde Blazer’s appreciation for proper procedures and following office protocol. Invisigal had looked so crushed when Robert first saw her after Chase’s rescue, but she looked more resigned when Blonde Blazer told her about the suspension. As if she was receiving bad news she had expected to come for a long time. Her suspension was Robert’s fault too. If she didn’t care so much about him, if she hadn’t been so determined to help him specifically, she would’ve been nowhere near that warehouse and all that followed would have been prevented.
Leaving the medical room gave Robert his first glimpse of how other people were feeling about the situation. He had witnessed Waterboy, one of the most mild mannered and kind people he knew, freak out and smash a vending machine in frustration over what happened and what Invisigal had done. This frustration carried over to the rest of the z team as Robert suffered through the quietest, most morose work shift he had ever had at the SDN. There was none of the joking around he had gotten used to. There was none of the over the top celebrating after completing jobs. The z team barely spoke, seemingly sleepwalking through the shift the same way he was.
When the shift had mercifully finished, and Robert was trying to decide how inappropriate it would be to get drunk in Chase’s medical room rather than at home in his apartment, Robert saw Punch Up come flying through the conference room door like some kind of angry soccer ball.
Robert had followed him back into the conference room and found out that Golem and Punch Up had gotten into a fight over Invisigal. The team was pissed at her, and they near unanimously demanded that he cut Invisigal from the team. Robert could admit that he took a second to consider it, especially when they phrased it as an “it’s her or us” style ultimatum, but he pretty easily made up his mind to tell the team he would not be cutting her. The team wasn’t exactly happy with that. Robert was sure they thought he was only keeping her on because he had feelings for her. But that wasn’t true.
Well… it was maybe a little true. Robert couldn’t say with a straight face he didn’t have feelings for Visi, and that they had been growing since he laid in bed the night after his first shift regretting how he had handled the post-granny mission discussion and dreaming of inappropriate donut behavior. But the main reason was far deeper than that.
Z team was part of the Phoenix Program. That was more than just a name, and it was something that Robert took extremely seriously. All the members of the team were former villains. They had fucked up and hurt people constantly in the past, but they came to SDN because they desired more. They desired to change, to better themselves and learn to use their powers to be heroes. As Robert had worked with them he had watched them transform. They weren’t fully there yet, but they were far beyond where they had been when he first started. They were almost unrecognizable, and Robert couldn't be prouder of their progress. This progress, however, had only come because they had been time to develop. Time to make mistakes and the support to overcome them. Maybe Invisigal’s actions would get her cut from the other SDN teams. But Robert thought that they meant he should double down and support her more, rather than cut her off and abandon her to whatever self hating dark thoughts she had to be having at the moment. Mistakes and missteps were to be expected on the path to redemption, and Robert could recognize that she had progressed from getting people hurt doing villain shit like stealing to getting people hurt doing anti-hero shit like taking on a dangerous mission against orders to try to do what was right.
So no, he hadn’t cut her. He had finally done what he wished he could have done when he first started his SDN career and his boss had told him to cut either Sonar or Coupe. Robert hadn’t wanted to let either of them go, but it was only his second shift and he had let a desire for a good start and to avoid rocking the boat prevent him from offering up more than a token resistance to letting Coupe go. Perhaps it was his feelings for Invisigal that gave him the courage to stand up for her, or perhaps he was merely more comfortable in his role at SDN. Either way, Robert learned from his mistakes.
After Robert had refused to cut Invisigal and given his best shot at smoothing it over with the rest of the z team, Beef had done that little wiggle he started doing when he smelled Invisigal nearby. Robert went into the locker rooms and, sure enough, found Invisigal there. She was changing when he walked in, but Robert couldn’t find it in him to enjoy the sight.
His conversation with her had been another heavy blow in a night of heavy blows. Invisigal had told him that he was wrong to defend her. She had been giving up, again. Robert tried to talk her out of what felt horribly like a break up (even if they hadn’t officially been dating yet) but Visi’s self-recrimination was stronger than he had ever seen it. She then revealed the reason why she thought so little of herself to him, and Robert had to admit that it shocked him.
She had a red ring marker on her torso, just below her breasts. There had been a moment after their movie date, as they left the theater joking about the movie to avoid admitting how touching they had both found the ending to be, where Robert was sure she was about to invite him to come home with her. Robert was not a player by any stretch of the imagination, but he had been with enough women to recognize the vibes Visi was giving out as she kept staring at his face and looking away when she thought he noticed. But she had hesitated and simply told him goodnight. At the time Robert thought he might have misread her, but now he wasn’t so sure. Had she changed her mind because she’d realized if they slept together Robert would see the mark? Had she decided she wasn’t as ready to have that conversation with him as she was to make her dream a reality?
Either way nothing had happened that night. As Robert stared at the mark in disbelief, Invisigal's confession had continued. Not only had she briefly worked for Shroud in exchange for enhancements, but she had been there the night Shroud ended his hero career. More than that, she had planted the fucking bomb that blew up his suit and put him into the hospital. Robert had expected to get angry at her, to want to yell at her, but he found that it didn’t really change much. Like he told her, he had already known she used to be a villain. Her villainy impacting him didn’t change what he thought of her past. He was much more concerned with her future, especially since it had seemed like she was determined to give up on being a hero. Robert told her that he forgave her, but he must have come across a little more flippant than he intended because she didn’t seem to believe him.
She got up then, telling him that she had wanted him to look at her the way he looked at Blonde Blazer. At first Robert had thought she meant in a romantic sense, which confused him. Nothing like that was going on between him and Blonde Blazer, and he was sure Invisigal knew that since she seemed to be watching all his talks with her so closely. But when she insisted he knew what she was talking about he realized it was about being a hero. There was some truth to that. Robert saw Blonde Blazer as a true hero, a woman dedicated to doing what was right and capable of determining what that was. Invisigal was working her way there, but still early on in the journey. He hadn’t realized Visi had picked up on that, but evidently she had and it bothered her.
After she walked away, Robert stood there with his heart sinking as he wondered if Invisigal would even bother to come back to SDN once her suspension was up. Suddenly he was surprised as he felt himself get pushed into the locker as Visi finally finally kissed him. It quickly got heated as their almost overwhelming sexual tension boiled over and Robert put aside all thoughts beyond how good she felt as he tried to enjoy it. After far too short a time Visi pushed away from him and left without saying a word, or even letting Robert see the expression on her face. Robert had thought that as much as he had wanted to kiss her, he wished that it hadn’t felt so final when it happened.
With no real outlet for his frustration, and perhaps a bout of guilt induced masochism, Robert had gone alone to drink at the villain bar he and the z team had gotten into a fight with just a few days prior. Robert had told Invisigal, back when she sat on a swing exposing children to secondhand smoke, that when he was upset he liked to hit bad guys. He hadn’t been lying, as the bartender found out when he taught him that glassing someone did not mean offering them a toast.
Somewhat predictably, the bar had been full of red ring members. What Robert had not seen coming was that he would be sitting at the bar with Shroud himself, and that Coupe was now high up in his organization. She had threatened him when he cut her from the z team, but putting a positive spin on it had not prevented her from fucking torturing him that night at Shroud’s request. Apparently Invisigal had gotten away with the astral pulse after the mess at the warehouse. Shroud tried to play mind games with him, make him think she had betrayed him, but it didn’t work. Robert trusted Invisigal. He couldn’t think of why she hadn’t told him she recovered the astral pulse, but he was sure she had thought it was for a good reason.
After enduring torture, and an embarrassing attempt to spit at Shroud that taught him spitting while hanging upside down didn’t exactly work the way it did when he was standing rightside up, Blonde Blazer had come and saved him. It was a truly awe inspiring sight, to watch her stand there and boldly tell a group of villains that they might kill her but she’d take half of them with her. Honestly, having her rescue him and fly him to safety was probably the only truly good thing that had happened to him since Chase raced out of his apartment. So of course it couldn’t last and explosions had rocked the city.
The day from Hell had only gotten started, and Robert was about to try his luck at following Winston Churchill’s advice: if you’re going through hell, keep going.