Chapter Text
Idea 1
Author’s note: This is an idea reworked from a vague original idea I already had.
As a child, it wasn’t usual for Robert to get kidnapped. Either villains would work out his father’s identity and use him as a hostage, or other villains would see that this random kid was getting kidnapped often and decide that he must be the kid of someone important and so kidnap him themselves.
He wasn’t the only one this happened to, there being a group of the “Regulars” when it came to being kidnapped because of who they were related to. Though one, who I’m going to name Charlotte, only became a Regular because she was already friends with Robert and so would get grabbed alongside him whenever a villain showed up, until she was getting kidnapped because “every other villain was doing it”.
The kidnappings were so frequent that Robert and some of the other Regulars ceased finding it a frightening experience, even when the villains threatened death.
When kidnapped, Robert and the other Regulars he had been taken with would either wait for rescue or decide to break out themselves, knowing all the tools and tricks to free themselves. On freeing themselves, they’d either subdue the villain or escape, often times stealing whatever they could get their hands as compensation from the villain. Afterall, a villain doesn’t exactly have the right to complain when someone steals from them.
As the Regulars, who were mostly also children, didn’t want to give up what they stole to the heroes, and some of it couldn’t be kept at their homes, they gave it to Robert for safe keeping. A villain had once set their lair very close to Robert’s local playground, Robert had found it after heroes had defeated its owner and claimed it as his own, storing all the stuff stolen from the villains there. Over the years, the Regulars had amassed quite the collection of various things.
Robert, Charlotte and a few of the other Regulars had come up with the idea of using all of their loot to become young superheroes, getting to the point of having costumes and even doing a few runs, before ultimately giving up on the idea.
The Regulars eventually stopped going Robert’s “secret lair” for one reason or another, leaving their stolen goods there, it all coming to a final end when Robert’s dad died. He locked down his lair and proceeded to forget about it.
Years later, after defeating Shroud, Robert’s “secret lair” suddenly becomes relevant again. Charlotte could reappear in his life and blabs about it, or the heroes are looking for an item that was lost decades ago that Robert eventually recognises as one of the things the Regulars stole, or a member of Z-Team discovers the lair on accident.
The Z-Team then get to have fun seeing all the stuff in the lair and learning what Robert used to do as a kid.
…
Other ideas for this include:
- There are both technological and magical items in the lair.
One of them is a book titled, “Demon Summoning for Kids”
There is also a home video of kid-Robert and his friends attempting to summon a demon, wearing black hoodies and blankets in place of robes, only for one of them to get possessed and the kids have to fight it off - There are several high-powered items just casually sitting in the lair because Robert and the others didn’t realise what exactly they were taking at the time
- The lair has several photos and home videos of what the Regulars did while hanging out in the lair.
Included are videos of Robert and the others testing out the weapons and tools that they’d planned to use to become young heroes. Like a grappling arm that young-Robert is shown testing, which then drags him off his feet when the wire retracts suddenly. - It’s pointed out that Robert could have used the tech in the lair to continue being a superhero after Mecha Man blew up, or at least sold it for money. Robert doesn’t give a response. He had completely forgotten about his old lair and everything in it and his now internally punching himself for it.
- As a kid, Robert and his friends got so good at escaping their kidnappers, that his father/babysitters would sometimes not even realise that he had been taken until after the fact.
- Robert and his friends briefly has a secret alien/pet/whatever that stayed at the lair.
- Robert and his friends were the cause of some incidents that were never solved. Z-Team laugh their asses off when they realise that kid-Robert was one of the culprits.
Idea 2
Author’s note: Going to be a Young-Robert story, but the ages of the Z-Team remain the same.
After the death of his father, Robert is placed with a foster family and the Mecha Man suit is placed in storage. He’s told that he’ll get the suit when he comes of age, though there are plans to take it away from him before he reaches that point.
A while later, the Mecha Man suit is stolen and a couple of weeks later, Robert is reported missing. Though, in actuality, he had gone missing not long after the suit and his foster family just failed to report it.
A new Mecha Man shows up frequently to fight crime. Every superhero believes that the guy in the suit is a vigilante who stole the suit, so aim to capture him for theft. Though, if there’s a disaster that the new Mecha Man shows up to help with, other heroes and cops are willing to work with him and even follow his directions until the danger has passed.
Mecha Man is also known to steal things from the villains he fights.
Those who know of Robert’s disappearance are unsure as to whether the new Mecha Man had anything to do with it or not. So, aim to capture him to find out.
The location of Mecha Man’s hideout is eventually discovered and Z-Team are the only ones available to take him on. A full team is needed and waiting for another team to be available risks Mecha Man realising that he’s been found and running.
Flambe still had his fingers cut off by Mecha Man, so still has his grudge. Chase, who is serving as their dispatcher, warns Flambe to not allow his grudge to get in the way, and that any unnecessary injury to Mecha Man would result in him being kicked from the Pheonix Program. He’d prefer to not send Flambe at all, but the job requires a full team.
Chase gives similar threats to the rest of Z-Team. He wants Mecha Man brought it with as few injuries as possible. When questioned as to why he cares so much, Chase replies that if Mecha Man is who he thinks he is, then he doesn’t want any harm coming to him, and if he isn’t, then Chase wants to be the one to give him a good ass kicking for stealing the suit.
Z-Team breaks into Mech Man’s underground hide out and first have to bypass multiple traps. After the traps, they find place where Mecha Man had been sleeping, which they find depressing. A stone room with a few appliances, a mattress with no bedframe, some storage boxes and battered shelves, no personal touches, etc.
Mecha Man has already suited up by the time they find him. He takes down multiple of them but the team succeeds in keeping him in the hideout so that he can’t fly away long enough for them to temporarily disable the suit. Mecha Man abandons the suit and manages to avoid and even temporarily take out a few members of the team, fighting dirty the entire time.
A dog is spotted multiple times with Mecha Man.
The team eventually realise that he’s leading them on a wild goose chase around the hideout while he doubles back to his suit, barely stopping him in time. Mecha Man’s care for his dog is what eventually gets him caught.
Once caught, Flambe forcefully removes Mecha Man’s mask, revealing him to be a teenager with long messy hair and the beginnings of stubble.
The team are surprised and put out by the fact the guy they’ve been fighting and who nearly beat them is a teenager.
Returning the base, Chase greets them and identifies the teen as Robert. He happily greets the teen before harshly reprimanding him for running off and stealing the suit. Robert responds that he didn’t steal anything, since the suit was his anyway, earning him a slap over the head from Chase.
On interrogation, Robert reveals that he’s been living rough since running from his foster parents. Taking on odd jobs from people who don’t ask questions, or selling some of the stuff he stole from villains to seedy people to support himself and keep the Mecha Man suit running.
He doesn’t answer when questioned on why he ran away and took the suit.
With the suit being his by inheritance, the charge of theft of the suit against Mecha Man is dropped. Though, there’s still the charge of vigilantism, property damage (vigilantes aren’t protected like lawful heroes are) and his theft of equipment from villains.
Since Robert was always acting as a hero, it’s decided that he’ll also join the Pheonix program to work off his charges. Because of his age, he’s only allowed on the field if he has an experienced partner and the mission isn’t too dangerous. After taking a test for dispatching, he usually gets assigned that job role with Chase as his supervisor.
…
Other ideas for this include:
- Robert fights feral when unsuited. He bites multiple members of the Z-Team when out of his mech.
- The Mecha Man suit is now semi-sentient thanks to the Pulse powering it. After a while of inactivity and overhearing plans to pass it onto someone other than Robert, it broke out of storage and found Robert, taking him away, not that the boy objected.
- Being homeless, Robert’s long hair is choppy and full of split ends, prompting the team to force him into getting his hair cut.
Idea 3: A short concept for a de-age fic.
Robert gets caught up in something that results in him being reduced to a child. He has all his memories intact; he just has the body of a child.
Since he still has his mind and works a desk job, he’s deemed fit to work, so still has to go in to work dispatch. The team is gathered so that his condition can be revealed to all of them.
While the team is too shocked to react, Robert tells them to get all of their comments and jokes out of the way now so that it doesn’t get in the way while they’re on duty. The team proceeds to do just that.
(No real plans beyond the set-up.)
Other ideas for this include:
- Being shorter, Robert has to put his cubical chair up higher, resulting in his legs dangling.
When sitting in non-adjustable chairs, the team jokingly asks if they should get him a book to sit on - The team makes all of the short and puberty jokes
- A least one person on the team is constantly picking Robert up, much to his annoyance
- While Robert has the mind of his adult-self, his brain is also that of a child, with all the emotional control of a child. So, he gets emotional more easily.
He also gets other moments of acting like a child before he remembers himself. - The body of a child means needing to sleep more, leading to the team catching him asleep more than once.
- Since he can’t protect himself as a child, Robert either has to stay in a room set up for him at the SDN or with one of the Z-Team
- There is a two-sided fight about whether Robert should be allowed to drink alcohol or not.
- Robert is coerced into giving a depressed Phenomaman a hug, which helps the alien feel better (because the unconditional affection of a child is a balm for the soul).
- At some point, Robert is asleep in Flambe's arms and refuses to let go of him until he wakes up and realises what he's doing, letting go in embarrassment
- Robert gets kidnapped along with other children. By the time the Z-Team has tracked them down, Robert has already escaped, led a rebellion of the other kidnapped children and taken down the kidnappers
- After Sonar learns that some woman find men who are good with kids, he tries to bribe Robert into helping him pick up a date
- When Halloween comes around, Robert voices his interest in going trick or treating, admitting that he never got to do it before. The others try to voice their opinion on what Robert should dress as, eventually devolving into arguing on which of the Z-Team he should dress up as. Robert already has a costume in mind and asks Prism for help in making it, after hearing him out she agrees on the condition that she gets to film and post the reveal of his costume, since she'll be missing out on the inevitable bet the Z-Team will have over Robert's costume.
Halloween arrives and Prism makes sure that she's in position to capture both the reveal of Robert's costume and the reaction to it, especially the reaction of Chase. Robert walks out in a miniature Trackstar costume, which causes a strong reaction from Chase, Prism then prompts Robert to do Trackstar's signature pose, which causes Chase to break out in tears, though he vehemently insists that he's not crying. - Chase also got caught up in the thing that de-aged Robert, restoring his youth and ability to use his speed without danger. When the way to restore Robert to his proper age is found, it's revealed that it would also require turning Chase back to way he was before as well. Not wanting Chase to go back to being an old man, especially after seeing how happy the older man was to be young again, Robert refuses the restoration and accepts aging back to adulthood the normal way, despite all the issues being an adult in a child's body causes him.
After his youth is restored, Chase spends a while running everywhere to enjoy using his powers without his heart being at risk of giving out, despite admonishment from the people around him since his speed still comes with the aging side-effect. Chase keeps his usual job to avoid overusing his powers and advancing his age again, though is on-call as a hero for urgent matters. He's also forced to keep a track-sheet of when he uses his powers and for how long so that he's aware of how much time he's taking from himself.