Chapter Text
"That could've gone weirder."
Robert mumbled when she finally found the ladder of the billboard she was dropped off at. Finding out the face of the superhero agency was already aware of the Mecha Man facade was not on her bingo card. Whoever or whatever was playing this game better be winning money over her life because there was no other explanation for it.
Mecha Man wasn’t completely a lie; he was real so long ago. Astral Mecha Man.Her father. Robert "Robbie" Robertson II, the powerless hero of LA.The man who was barely home because of his "work trips". Well, they were work trips technically, but it was the same thing; it just meant her father wasn’t home. And just as usual, Chase was her babysitter. As early as she could remember, when her dad first and the very last time went out.
Oh— she was gonna see Chase again, that thought alone made her smile as she kept walking on the silent, dark sidewalk. Just as it has been 15 years since her father's death, it has also been 15 years since she last saw Chase, maybe 14. Before the mecha suit was all her life. Isolating herself in anger for years, it felt like she had ignored the denial stage and just skipped to anger. Bargaining stayed for a short time; she didn’t have much other choice, didn’t have the spare hours to be overthinking the situation she was in, the mech suit breaking down over and over again. The insurance money was quickly slipping from her hands. Then the depression hit, nothing like the sadness in shows or movies. All she did was fight, put people in cells, go home, repeat. The routine broke only when the mech suit malfunctioned. The loop only made her more numb in her solitude.
Well, being named "Robert Robertson III" was not giving her any leverage on her solitude, so all she could do was pull through. Get over her name, get over her legacy, get over her very determined death. Just a pile of her fucked up issues.
Finally reaching the stairs of the apartment, she sighed and dragged her feet climbing up. Her knees have been worse; a bed could probably fix her. A good cushioned bed, bedding, blanket, pillow… Well, turning the key threw away all the dreams in her head. The plastic chair was laughing at her face from a distance. A little weight jumped at her feet, basically crushing it. Looking down, immediately smiling, Beef stared up at her expectantly. She petted his head. He should really be put on a diet. Well, she definitely didn’t have the funds to get him to a vet or any specific food the vet would recommend or any exercise he’d have to be put on. She grabbed the almost empty box of cereal from the pantry. She hardly had enough money for food, so the diet had to be delayed.
She stretched, raising her arms; her shirt lifted. Blonde Blazer had put her shoulder back in place and actually did a great job— now it ached less. The cracks in her back were enough signs for her to drop to the floor. She pulled out her phone to rewatch the latest interview, safe from the skittles gang taking her screen. Maybe her landlord would, at one point.
"You killed their legacy. How disappointed would your dad be if he were here right now?"
God, his old scratchy voice irritated her. How could a so-called reporter be incompetent? Asking a question like that to the hero who helped the city for so long, like she wasn’t in a 4 month long coma and just wanted to try her best to answer a few questions, so no more bad rumors would spread around her name. She was already literally dead in so many people’s eyes. Maybe that was the best, she truly didn’t know.
" He was wearing a mask, so... "
He.
Oh, there was also another secret she kept up. Mecha Man. The fucked up universe didn’t give her father a son, so she had to step up to be the man of the house. Getting into the suit, throwing herself to her death. For the legacy. To carry, lift her own name.
The giant metal was the most people looked at, the merchandise, the posters all had the mecha suit. The mask did a decent job at hiding it too. She was already roughed up from the years of fighting, she didn’t need to do much other than deepening her voice a few notes and it was done. She was Mecha Man, she was the tradition. And everyone was searching for the man behind the mask. When she snapped herself out of her thoughts and looked back at her phone again the video was already done and it was skipping to the next one.
Her eye wandered to her left wrist.
Hermione
There was also this issue. Well, everyone’s issue, but she never focused on hers. She didn’t exactly want to drag another person to her fucked up life, without even a proper mattress. The universe pranking her, it had to be. Was she supposed to juggle her broken suit and her love life? Searching for one in the 12 million population of LA was not a time or energy she wanted to waste. Maybe the one wasn’t even in LA. Now she was staring at 6 billion. What a nerdy name, Hermione was.
She wasn’t the one to shit on names, being the third Robert Robertson. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the name Hermione, a really normal name. Stop that.
She sighed. Now she had a bit more free time after her coma and a new job to take a breath for a second. It felt really foreign. Staring at her wrist, her mind wandered to the image of Hermione. Maybe she looked like the one in that wizard film series, wavy brown hair, dark eyes, smart…? She never really watched the series; magic didn’t interest her when she was always surrounded by the biggest heroes. Could she be more of an entitled person? Robert has looked at the name's meaning before.
Hermione (Ancient Greek: Ἑρμιόνη [hermi.ónɛː]) is a feminine given name derived from the Greek messenger god Hermes. The meaning of the name Hermione is: Well-born. Stone.
Also name of the girl from the wizard series and a noble character from a Shakespeare book yadda yadda.
At the end of the day, there was not much to go on. A single name written on her left wrist, non-erasable. That gave her no clue, no hints, nothing.
She sighed deeply and leaned back. She had a 9-5 job now, so she had to get her sleep schedule fixed, preferably. The metal behind her kept her straight. This job could fix her life; having something other than handling a robot could get her mind out of her issues,at least until SDN fixed it up. She couldn’t throw away what this metal giant has given her, an incredible amount of debt and misery, to keep a job that was going to kill her. Robert Robertson IV didn't need to exist.
What an unfortunate name.
- · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Her shirt was nicely ironed and hung at the door handle, her wetsuit was neat in the wardrobe. Tomorrow was her final interview at the SDN. The heroes she admired for years, the comic books and the shirts she couldn’t wear without ruining them, those same heroes were the ones she was going to work with! Hopefully… If everything went well. Maybe she could even be with them on the field, helping people, really helping people— she was getting ahead of herself now.
Even though the thought of tomorrow going well enough and landing the job, she was going to work with them, with heroes. With Blonde Blazer, with Phenomaman… Well, not exactly with Phenomaman, he didn’t work at the Torrance branch she was applying to, but the same company? Agency? This was as close as she could get to him, really, and that was truly enough for her. He could be out in the field, and she could be wiping the floors. That was helping people, that was making sure people working in the dispatch were comfortable with clean floors and clean desks.
She sighed and turned in her bed, the wall covered in protected posters. The rare ones hung low, she didn’t wanna risk damaging them so her grammy hung them for her. She really took care of them carefully if needed, wearing multiple gloves, but the anxiety of taking care of them made her leak worse, sorry Brave Brigades poster, you were truly loved.
Abbath screaming at her face, Phenomaman next to an inspirational speech, DTLA branch of SDN with Pom Pom, Brainbook, Sweetalker, Equilibrium, Brickhouse and of course Phenomaman. Knucklebach and Knight Light to the left of them. More Phenomaman posters and the big three of Mecha Man. Prime Mecha Man, Astral Mecha Man and Mecha Man Blue.
She stared at the Mecha Man Blue poster for a little longer than the rest. She cried for three days after watching the news of his death. Maybe a little childish, but she truly didn’t care at the time; she couldn't say the same for her grandma. Neither the drains nor the newspaper around the house could keep up with her leaking, so she had to sleep in the bathtub. Sorry grandma.
But her grandma never complained, cause she knew. One of the heroes who truly saved her life was dead. The suit looked broken beyond repair. She wasn’t a tech person; water never really allowed that, but she wasn’t blind; the explosion was big. She was surprised no one got hurt— well.
But even after the grief, she managed to get an interview at SDN. She should be able to get it, surely. Her powers were perfect for it! For being.... A janitor.
She sighed and lifted her right hand. She pulled away the glove she rarely took off.
Robert
Stared at it for a long time. For years, she hated how it looked, how it felt, what thoughts it brought to her head. That’s why it was hidden behind her glove, not the only reason she wore a glove, her hands looked sweaty due to her entire body being wet all the time, but not the point.
She never liked any boys, never had any crushes, never experienced “So… Do you like boys in the class?” without it turning into a whole argument in elementary school. What if she never liked anyone in the class? All of them were pricks anyway. Taking her notebooks, stealing her bag, and throwing erasers at her. Why would she have a crush? Well, some of the parents had different ideas: “Oh, he’s doing it because he likes you.” It was pretty clear they had never experienced a hit to the head with a blackboard eraser.
Truth be told, she did have a crush on someone. A girl named Selene had long brunette hair and bright blue eyes. She also stayed away from the crush talk with the other girls, just like Herm. But unlike Herm, it was because, in her words, “Religion is my only love,” and that was the end of the sentence. Herm never opened up to her; if she was against crush talk, there was no point in speaking up about it. She would get rejected, and that would be the next thing she’d get bullied about. She didn’t need to give her class more ammo.
She never understood what this soulmate was meant to be. Growing up, people would say that it was the one true love of their lives. And Herm would grimace. She didn’t want “Robert” to be her one true love. He sounded like a middle-aged man who did taxes for fun.
She had enough fights about it with her parents, too. Telling them again and again that she didn’t want to meet this Robert, she didn’t want to be with him, she didn’t like anyone like that. None of the fights ended well in her favor.
Her parents really believed that these assigned soulmates were romantic, the perfect design of God’s perfect plan. If this soulmate thing was so sacred, so powerful, why didn't it stop her parents' fights, why didn't it stop her dad, why didn't it stop their well-deserved divorce?
Why did it stop her from being a lesbian?
She knew that these soulmates could be platonic, she really hoped hers was one of those cases, but fighting with everyone over her not liking any men, that she loved women would be thrown out the window the moment people pointed at her soulmate and she’d get hit with, “You haven’t met the right man yet.” And the loop would continue. Wherever this Robert was she truly hoped he was unattracted to Herm as she was to him withotu even meeting. She groaned to her pillow, this was not her first time silently screaming about her assigned partner, for years she has done this. And just because she was going to start working at her dream work plac- job didn’t change this pathetic fact.
The name wasn’t going to change. She wasn’t going to wake up one morning, and her wrist was going to be clean of the stupid name that marked her. No matter what, she was stuck with the name, and it was a curse in her dating life. When your love was on your wrist, dating was not something people usually tried for, but sometimes they worked out better than their assigned people. A few letters on a wrist weren’t going to change the whole of humanity from wanting to hook up with one another.
She wasn’t that attractive, she could see it in the mirror. Always being wet, she looked sweaty, throwing up water, the nervousness, the lack of social ability, the stutter, the acne scars, which usually matched with her freckles, thank god, being freakishly tall and lean. Also, the women she attempted to talk to in a romantic way, which could be counted on one hand, usually declined upon seeing the name; she never pushed it, she knew it looked bad. The rejections were never harsh, but they hurt. They always hurt. It was a reminder of reality that her being queer was truly a phase, and she was going to meet the right person who was gonna change her life.
Well, at least her grandma believed it could be platonic, or a girl named Robert. She giggled at the thought. Fighting tooth and nail to prove she didn’t like boys over what the assigned name said, and it turned out to be a woman, she would probably want to just strangle the parents right there and then for giving her that much trouble. Her grandma’s belief in her was enough; she could trust her wise words. She put the glove back on her hand, turned her back to the posters, and dreamed of tomorrow. Her big interview…
She wasn’t going to be able to sleep.