Chapter Text
Maybe today won’t be so bad.
Strange thought to have, waking up with a screaming back in a plastic lawn chair in place of a bed. And weirdly hopeful, for a guy whose life had been nothing but complete and utter shit for the past fifteen years.
Groaning in pain, Robert rubbed his hands across his face, trying to muster up the will to move.
His neck felt stiffer than a piece of steel, lower back practically one giant knot. Bruises and cuts from the bar fight were still making themselves known across his torso, screaming as he stretched, and the pounding headache served as a good indicator that the concussion was still stubbornly hanging in there. Moving was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
Cracking an eye open, Robert peeked through his fingers, eyeing the rising sun outside the glass door of his balcony. The headache sharpened as Robert sluggishly tried to reason out that if the sun was there, that meant the time was nearly—
BRRRRRNG! BRRRRRNG! BRRRRRNG! BRRRRRNG! BRRRRRNG! BRRR—
Robert flinched violently, panic overriding pain as he launched himself out of his chair. Mind still muffled with fatigue, his desperate scramble overbalanced the chair, sending him crashing to the ground. The impact jolted his fried nerves and various injuries, sending sharp waves of agony throughout his body. Robert gasped in pain, back twisted in a way he hadn’t been flexible enough to achieve in years, but instinct wouldn’t let him stop as he clawed a hand toward his phone, which lay ringing on the concrete floor.
Phone silenced but alarm still ringing in mental tandem with his headache, Robert aimed a glare at the offending device. A crack ran through the corner of the screen, evidently from where Robert had dropped it in his sleep last night instead of letting it charge on the counter. A quick click of the power button revealed that it had less than a quarter battery left.
With an even deeper groan, Robert dropped the phone and let his head softly thunk against the floor. Which still hurt, but at least it helped distract him from the rest of his body.
Normally, this would be when Robert would hear Beef’s claws scamper across the floor and feel a small tongue licking across his face, reminding him that there was something good in this shitty apartment after all. But Chase had taken Beef for the night yesterday, claiming the dog for his day off today as well. Told Robert that if he refused, he’d file a report for ‘elder abuse or some other fucking bullshit’.
Without a Beef to feed, was there really any point in getting off the floor? The coolness of the concrete was starting to feel quite nice against his aching head.
Work, Robert’s brain helpfully reminded him in a moment of abject betrayal. Your team. The suit.
All good reasons, and yet, deeply unmotivating. After the chaos of the bar fight at the Sardine last Friday, yesterday’s shift had been oddly subdued, thanks to Flambae’s absence. The reveal of his identity had been, surprisingly, a survivable experience. But not one without a cost. Just when his raggedy group of ex-supervillains had finally started to come together and work as a team, he just had to throw a wrench in the mix. And after all that work he’d had to do to convince Blazer not to cut anyone, too.
Hopefully, Flambae would come back to the Z-Team. It was promising—he filed for official sick leave instead of ditching without a trace, and no random fires had been set anywhere in Torrance. No one had even come over to his sad little apartment to burn him alive in a, frankly justified, fit of revenge.
Honestly, Flambae had been handling the reveal far better than Robert had expected. Maybe he’d even come back around in time to witness the next test run of the Mecha Man suit… if he could be trusted to not melt it into a pile of molten metal.
Again, understandable. Robert would be pissed, too, if the guy who cut off his fingers and knocked out his tooth revealed himself to be his pathetic normie boss.
As for the suit… the rest of the Z-Team had been supposed to see him test it yesterday, but apparently some weird geomagnetic storm had interfered with some of Royd’s equipment. Probably more of a supernatural occurrence than a natural one. It had been oddly weak, though it had grown in power over the course of the day and could potentially extend into today. Not only that, but it was directly centered over Torrance as well.
Worrying? Sure. But honestly not Robert’s problem, outside of a few weird subscriber calls about glitchy equipment.
If all went well, that odd storm would be cleared up by now and Robert could test the most promising replica of the Astral Pulse yet.
Or, like everything else in Robert’s life, it would blow up in his face.
His scars burned. Well now he really didn’t want to move.
He could just lie here, letting his fucked up spine fuse together in this weird twist he found himself in while some poor schmuck of a substitute got his ass handed to him by the Z-Team.
Chase wouldn’t be there today, so maybe it’d be Daryl, the C-Team’s dispatcher. Daryl needed to be taken down a notch.
Life sorted, Robert closed his eyes, content to let the coolness of the concrete floor lull him into slumber.
“Get up,” demanded his father’s voice, echoing through his skull like a gong.
Fuck.
With a crack of his back that nearly made him scream, Robert twisted himself around enough to get his hands and feet beneath him. An agonizing push and Robert stood. Swaying slightly, but upright in the technical sense.
Would his father think it satisfactory? No. Robbie Robertson would want him to leap up, athletic and steady, ready for any fight an opponent could throw at him.
But his father wasn’t here, so his shame would just have to continue living on in the comfort of Robert’s mind. Joy.
Maybe he shouldn’t have beaten the shit out of that reporter. That asshole had just been asking about the truth.
Robert loved his father, he really did. But the only thing which could make the destruction of the Mech and his entire legacy worse, Robert decided, would be if his dad was here to see it. He might be temporarily retired as a superhero, drowning in thousands of dollars of credit card debt, fighting through chronic pain, unable to take revenge for his father’s killer, and working as the barely respected leader of a group of superpowered assholes… but at least he didn’t have to deal with that.
Robert dragged himself to the bathroom to go through his morning routine. Just the bare minimum to make his depressed ass presentable enough to get through the workday.
Looking at himself in the mirror, Robert tiredly traced the beginnings of stress lines around his eyes, too deep for someone barely in their thirties. The downward tilt of his mouth was near-permanent at this point, and the deep eyebags only grew with each passing day. Bruises from the bar fight were shifting from a deep purple to a sickly green hue. The entire picture was neatly tied together by his patchy morning stubble.
Damn, he looked like shit. Felt like it, too.
With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, Robert picked up his razor. He missed the days where he did his work obscured within a giant metal suit and a masked cowl. Nobody could see what a fucking mess was hidden underneath.
Now though, if he went to work looking too much like his inner self, he’d be an immediate target for the Z-Team’s particular brand of amusement.
Or worse, the pitying looks of Chase and Blonde Blazer.
Sighing, Robert finished up shaving and trudged out of the bathroom. He didn’t even bother thinking about breakfast—the fridge was empty and Beef wasn’t here, so there wasn’t really any point. And he had finished the last of his stale cereal over the weekend.
Opening up one of his kitchen drawers, Robert pulled out a relatively clean work shirt, pants, and socks. He didn’t have a dresser, and Royd had taken all his boxes when he picked up the mech suit. It wasn’t like he had any food or utensils to put in the cabinets anyway.
On his way out, his foot stepped on something with a light crunch. Looking down, Robert lifted his foot. And sighed again. Ignoring the pain, he bent down to pick up his phone, now with cracks spider-webbing across the screen.
“Why is my life like this?” Robert muttered, too exhausted to be upset.
Whatever. He could charge it at work. The screen was a later problem.
Gathering up his keys, Robert shambled out of the apartment, hoping the walk to work would loosen up his back.
With luck, work would go easy on him today. Even he had to be lucky at some point, right?
Staring at the giant glowing portal blocking the street, Robert wished Golem had let Flambae fry him.
The walk to work had almost been normal. Whatever geomagnetic storm Royd had been talking about had apparently been joined by the beginnings of an actual storm. The sky was dark with angry clouds, the wind sharp and biting, and there had been a hint of electricity in the air that made the hair along Robert’s arms stand on end.
Robert had been doing an excellent job trying to ignore it. Walking to work as fast as he could, huddled in his dad’s old jacket. Not doing anything to differentiate himself from the few other pedestrians who also decided to brave the unusual weather conditions.
It hadn’t mattered.
A few blocks away from the SDN building, the ambient electrical charge had culminated into a harsh buzz, setting Robert’s teeth on edge. A scent similar to sulfur had wafted through the air as small bolts of electricity sparked around the intersection. The brightness leaving afterimages in Robert’s eyes, shapes somewhat reminiscent of runes…
In a bright flash that had Robert shielding his eyes, the electrical charges had suddenly converged and imploded. The shockwave was small, and probably wouldn’t have knocked Robert over if he hadn’t been standing in front of a curb. At least instinct kept his head from slamming into the concrete.
Hadn’t done much for his back and tailbone, though. The pain had been enough to keep Robert down for a few moments, laying back on the hard ground grinding his teeth until it faded into the normal background of too stiff muscles and abnormally crunchy bones.
Now, he sat up with a couple new and easily ignored bruises and stared at the resulting portal with nothing short of absolute resignation.
A quick threat analysis deemed the portal relatively stable, if intimidating. The swirling blue mass crackling with electricity had a diameter of approximately ten feet and was surrounded by floating runes that made Robert unsure if he wanted to call a scientist or a priest.
But it didn’t appear to be actively sucking anybody inside—or spitting anyone out—which was the important part.
It looked like some kind of doorway or portal, but Robert honestly had no idea. And he’d be happy to never find out.
A few of the nearby pedestrians ran screaming away from the portal. One particularly shrill screech made him wince.
Robert sighed. For one brief, tempting moment, Robert considered joining them. To pretend like he was just an ordinary citizen, who had nothing to do with supernatural occurrences, and certainly no responsibility to handle them. Not his circus, not his monkeys.
Reality settled like a weight on his shoulders, hand in hand with his exhaustion. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to deal with it. It never did.
Well if he wasn’t going to run, then he wasn’t going to get up either. The bone-deep ache in his body was harsh, spiking along his nerves like a siren. Nobody needed immediate saving and he was taking responsibility—his father’s haunting voice would have to be satisfied with that.
As if, Robert thought. Shaking off those thoughts, he looked at the portal and the immediate surroundings.
Hmm, no obvious culprit in sight. And the portal definitely seemed magical in nature, or at least whatever scientific equipment conjured it wasn’t out in the open. Even if he still had the mech, Robert wasn’t sure if he could do anything to fix this. Giant robot suits really only excelled if there was a bad guy to hit or something heavy to move. Glowing doorways that possibly lead to another dimension? Not so much.
He should probably call SDN at least. Have some heroes come down and cordon off the area.
Would they even come? the distrustful part of his brain murmured. You don’t have a subscription.
Shut the fuck up, Robert thought back. Mandy was better than that.
Shifting to get his phone out of his pocket made his hip twinge, but Robert ignored it, pulling up her contact.
Robert leaned back on one hand while holding the phone up to his ear with the other. He idly moved his foot back and forth while the phone rang, cataloguing how the movement sent spikes of pain up to his knee.
“Robert? What’s up? Your shift hasn’t started yet, has something come up? Please tell me you’re taking PTO for once.”
“Hi Blazer, good morning to you, too,” Robert drawled. “Still don’t know what that is, by the way, but could you send some heroes a couple blocks southeast of the office? Got some weird fucking electrical portal blocking the intersection. Looks like it’s related to the storm that’s been messing with Royd’s equipment.”
“I— What? Oh shit. Yeah, they’ll be on their way shortly. Are there any casualties? Which intersection?”
Robert relayed the location. “No casualties. Most civilians were smart enough to book it once it appeared.” He eyed the few that were left—a couple across the street, cowering behind a lamppost; a guy in a suit cursing at his electric car, apparently fried and locked due to the anomaly; and a couple teenagers, one striking a truly ridiculous pose in front of the portal while the other tried and failed to get their phone to work.
Huh, good thing Robert hadn’t been closer to the blast.
Lowering his phone, he called out to the teens, “Hey! Get away from that thing!”
One of them shot a middle finger his way. “Eat a dick, old man!”
Robert sighed, raising the phone back up. “Just a few dumbasses left. Send Malevola, if you can. This shit looks right up her alley.”
“Got it. Could you stick around, make sure nobody messes with it?”
Robert pinched his brow, trying to ward off the resurgence of his morning headache. “Yeah, understood. I—”
Then he looked up and saw one of the teenage idiots attempting to touch the damn thing.
“Fuck!”
Robert scrambled up, throwing his phone aside to race towards the kid. The other teenager seemed to be egging them on, gesturing widely at the portal while the other edged closer, trepidatious but evidently determined.
Pushing aching muscles and bones into a sprint, Robert reached the kid just before their hand touched the portal. Using his weight, the teen was thrown roughly away from the portal, unharmed.
Unfortunately, Robert’s momentum wasn’t so easily stopped. Twisted around to throw the teen to safety, Robert hit the portal back first.
The moment he touched it, he exploded into agony. Robert couldn’t tell which part of him hurt—his mind, his body, or just everything—but something was clearly wrong. It felt like he was being drawn and quartered at the molecular level. Each of his cells torn apart, examined and judged wanting, only to be pushed back together with cruel indifference.
Golem really, really should have let him burn.
Robert couldn’t tell if he was screaming. How could he not be screaming? This was so much worse than the explosion, what little he remembered of it. That suffering was momentary, followed by the sweet relief of a three-month-long coma.
This? This was an eternity.
Red overtook his vision and Robert writhed. Bones creaking, muscles tearing, as millions of tiny fishhooks of pain were forcibly torn from his skin—
And he was neatly dropped out of a familiar red portal into Malevola’s waiting arms, otherworldly agony suddenly gone.
Robert gasped in the absence of it. The regular pain was still there, but that was practically nothing compared to what he just experienced. His limbs still tingled with the phantom sensation of being unmade.
“Oh you’re light. We gotta put some meat on those bones, mate.” Malevola winked at him. “I know a great burger joint a few blocks away from my flat. We should go sometime, yeah? My treat.”
Robert blinked up at Malevola, confused. “What…?”
“Oh good, you’re okay.” Blonde Blazer stepped into his vision, looking down at him with obvious relief. “When you suddenly went radio silent I got worried. Are you hurt?”
“Uh, no. I’m fine,” Robert managed, still thrown from the absence of pain. He looked up at Malevola. “Could you, uh, let me down now?”
She grinned at him, holding him tighter in the princess carry. “Ah, come on, Robert. Let a girl indulge.”
“Ooooh-kay. Whatever that means,” Robert said. He really didn’t care. Mildly humiliating? Yes, but Malevola’s hellish constitution gave her a pleasant warmth that felt heavenly on his back. He wasn’t going to complain.
Looking around, Robert spotted a few other members of the Z-Team doing damage control. Punch-Up was chasing the teens away, who were hobbling as fast as they could while holding their crotches. The cowering couple had disappeared. Across the street, Sonar had cornered the suit-guy against his car, talking loudly about crypto while the man desperately tried to pry up the faulty automated door handle with his fingernails. And at each road mouth in the intersection, Golem had assembled barricades made from dumpsters, road signs, and a few unfortunate cars. The construct now turned with a glint in his eye, aiming for suit-guy’s electric car.
Robert turned his head away from that impending disaster to raise a brow at Blazer.
She wasn’t looking at him. Blazer stared at the portal intensely before her eyes widened and her expression morphed into horror.
“Robert… what did that thing do to you?”
Robert followed her gaze to the center of the portal. Inside, a shadow of a figure appeared. Features morphed and shifted even as the details grew clearer. One face a facsimile of Robert’s. The others constantly switching between countless identities, as if trying to decide who to be. But it always came back to Robert’s.
“I… don’t know.” Robert shook his head to clear it. “It felt like it was taking me apart and— and examining me. Or something.” He swallowed. “What the fuck’s it doing now?”
“Some of those runes look really familiar,” Malevola said, tilting her head as she squinted, studying them. “I know a couple. That one there means ‘bring’. I think. The, uh, the pointy one? And that rune means ‘time’. Oh and I know that one there means ‘blood’ for sure. Pretty standard demon knowledge there. That spiky one there is ‘memory’… unless I’m remembering that wrong. And there’s one more I recognize. ‘Lord’, maybe? No, fuck, it’s—”
The shadow in the portal stilled, face finally settled into a definite set of features. Tall, muscular body. Short, dark brown hair with a pointed hairline. Thick handlebar mustache. Dressed in simple jeans and a T-shirt, with a familiar brown jacket.
“Father,” Robert croaked out, eyes wide with something not quite awe, and not quite dread. “It means ‘father’.”
Robert ‘Robbie’ Robertson II stepped out of the portal, looking out into a world that had not seen him alive for over fifteen years.