@multifandomtower34 had the immense kindness of imagining a design for Red Mongrel, Robert's vigilante alias in my fic, and so it is only fair I draw it in my style too! Thanks again for drawing these fanarts, it's an honor to have art inspired by one's own writing <3 <3
@multifandomtower34 had the immense kindness of imagining a design for Red Mongrel, Robert's vigilante alias in my fic, and so it is only fair I draw it in my style too! Thanks again for drawing these fanarts, it's an honor to have art inspired by one's own writing <3 <3
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I've just completed my first long form fanfiction! If you've liked my little scenes you might like this one too.
It explores the idea of Robert running away at 15 and following Shroud instead of becoming Mecha Man, and everything that happens after that.
It delves into complicated father-son relationships, Robert's struggle with his self-worth, self-destruction and trust issues, and how it impacts his relationship with the Z-Team when he ends up joining the Phoenix Program. It's violent, dramatic, full of angst and sunny moments <3
He’s making food, which means reheating some mac & cheese leftovers in the microwave, when a large portal appears on his door and Malevola steps into his flat. He watches, not even surprised anymore, as she looks around the place, her expression growing more and more disgusted until her eyes settle on him. They look at each other for a second before she blurts out “Fuck.”
She gingerly steps forward like she’s stepping into a crime scene and does one last sweep of the room before turning to Robert, “Please tell me you’ve just been robbed, dude.”
He shakes his head silently. He should probably feel some degree of shame, being a grown man reheating mac and cheese in his underwear at six in the afternoon, but the whole point of the previous night was to stop feeling anything and he would call it a success. His father's gun is still sitting untouched in its hiding place, a first in many years.
Malevola lets out a long sigh and comes to stand next to him. “I didn’t expect much and somehow this is ten times worse. Did you fight last night, babes?”
He nods, and she puts a gentle hand on his cheek. He gets a rush of emotions at the gesture. “You’re lucky I haven’t used it today,” she says softly, and he can feel his wounds close and the aching fade away as she uses her powers. A small sound escapes his throat at the relief, which he follows by a muted “Thank you.”
“I couldn’t make it all go away but at least you don’t look like the victim of the week in a bad cop show. You know I’ve seen a lot of shit, being Sonar’s sponsor, so trust me when I say that this,” she points at the room then at him, “is fucked-up. You gotta start seeing somebody.”
“You’re telling me to date?” he asks incredulously. She swats the back of his head with her tail.
“I’m telling you to see a therapist. In the meantime, do you have swimming trunks?”
“What?” he’s even more confused.
She walks towards the pile of cardboard boxes that’s in the corner and that effectively works as his wardrobe. “Swimming trunks, babes! Do you have any?” she starts sorting through his clothes, her mouth twisted in judgment.
“Uh, I don’t think so, no, why?”
“Because your nice friends have organised a party for your birthday, and it requires you to be wearing swim shorts. I can grab you a pair at Victor’s.”
The idea is so absurd he can’t be bothered to process it fully. He just wants to go back to his mac & cheese and eat it, alone, in silence.
“Mal, I’m not in the mood for whatever this is—”
Her tail flicks in the air like a warning, and she turns to him. “I said. Your nice friends, who love you and want to celebrate your birthday, are organizing a party. Either you follow me willingly or I’m dragging you there kicking and screaming, and you know you don’t want to try me Robertson.”
He puts his hands up in defeat, having no energy to fight her.
“I will be back here in exactly two minutes, you better have a clean t-shirt on.”
It’s a Thursday morning and they’re having a quiet shift, Chase away in the records room, when something grabs his attention.
“Fuck, wait,” Robert tells Golem over the mic before removing his headset to look at Beef. The dog is panting heavily and shaking, looking distraught. Robert kneels down next to him, putting a gentle hand on his back, “Hey buddy, you ok?” Beef makes a coughing sound before vomiting on the floor. Robert goes numb with dread.
“Shit, not ok at all, alright, hold on,” he grabs the headset on the desk, “Golem, I gotta take Beef to the vet right now, can you handle this on your own?”
“Uh, yeah, is he okay?”
He doesn’t take the time to reply and grabs his things, gently taking Beef in his arms, trusting that Galen heard him and can explain his absence. He pulls out his phone and looks up where the nearest vet clinic is. “Fuck,” he says under his breath. It’s at least an hour away by foot. He walks towards the exit, trying to find the phone number of a taxi company, and he almost bumps into Flambae outside the automatic doors.
“Watch where you’re going, bitch. You’re so small I’ll step on y—” Flambae looks down towards Beef in Robert’s arm and back at him, “What’s up with your dog?”
Robert walks past him, “He’s sick. I need a taxi.”
“Woah, what do you mean a taxi? You don’t have a car?”
“I don’t even have a driver’s licence, Flambae,” Robert mutters, stopping on the side of the curb under the blasting summer heat and putting the phone to his ear.
The man looks at Beef, his hands on his hips, and heads back inside before swearing and turning on his heels. Robert shouts and almost punches the man when Flambae yanks his phone from his hand and cuts the call, striding away towards the one douchey car in the parking lot.
“If he pukes on the seat I fucking kill you, ok?” he barks at Robert, pointing a finger at him while opening the passenger door and rounding the car to the other side. Robert watches him, dumbfounded. What is he doing? Did he discover the truth and is he trying to get Robert alone to kill him discreetly? Beef whines in his arms and he’s startled into motion. Maybe Flambae will still take Beef to the clinic after incinerating him.
It’s as gaudy in there as it is on the outside but at least it’s comfortable. The engine roars when Flambae turns on the ignition.
“Where do we fucking go, Bob bob?” he asks, resentful.
“Uh, take a left here.”
They’re on the road, AC blasting, a pop song on the radio that Flambae immediately cuts off, which leaves them in uncomfortable silence.
“Who the fuck doesn’t have a licence?” Flambae mutters.
Someone who’s been out of the system since they were fifteen, and who’s been on the wanted list before they even became an adult. And probably a lot of other people, surely it’s not that uncommon.
“It’s a long story. Take a right at the end there.”
“You’re lucky the dog is cute. I don’t even like dogs.”
Flambae probably breaks a few laws judging by the aggressive driving and the speed they’re going at. He even shouts at a few drivers on the way, words that Robert doesn’t recognize. Beef is breathing heavily on his lap so he’s got bigger concerns than getting into a car crash.
They stop in a screech of tires in front of the clinic and Robert all but jumps from the car, rushing into the building.
When he gets back into the waiting area twenty minutes later, waiting for scans and blood tests for Beef, Flambae is slouching on one of the seats. He almost doesn’t recognize him, the superhero suit mostly covered by a jacket and a pair of jeans, a cap on his head. He still stands out, taller than everyone else and playing on his phone while surrounded by anxious pet owners. Robert lets himself fall on the seat next to him with a sigh.
“Thanks for taking us here.”
Flambae barely spares him a look. “How’s your dog ?”
“They think it’s pancreatitis. He should be fine.”
Flambae hums in response. They sit there for a while, in the insistent beeping, the ringing of the phone and the hushed conversations, the coming and going of the staff and patients. Robert can feel himself deflate, all the adrenaline leaving him exhausted. God he wants a cigarette. Soon enough he’s slouching too, letting his thoughts drift.
He doesn’t know what he would do without Beef. He’s had him for just a few years now, after finding him alone and starved in the street, no owner in sight. At the time he thought he’d house him for the night and just drop him off at the closest shelter in the morning, but he’d been so cute he ended up keeping him, against his better judgment. Now Beef is the center of his little world and the main thing keeping him on his axis. He even doesn’t smoke inside his flat for Beef.
“I had a dog,” Flambae says off-handedly, pulling him out of his head. “Back in Afghanistan. She couldn’t come with us to the states.”
Robert looks at him, at a loss at what to say.
“Sorry,” he starts. “What was her name?”
He shrugs, unbothered, “Can't remember. I was like six or something.”
“Robertson ?” a voice calls out, and he jumps to his feet. They hand him Beef who wags his tail tiredly when he sees him. “Hey buddy,” he coos, caressing his little head and hugging him tight.
The nurse gives him the list of medications and recommendations for the following week, before handing him the bill. He winces. Four hundred. As long as his salary hits his account next week he should be fine. He hands his card and signs the papers, making calculations in his head. He’ll have to factor in whatever time he didn’t work this afternoon. Getting information is most of his monthly expense, so maybe his research to find the Pulse will have to take a back seat.
Flambae's waiting for him outside, leaning against his car, arms crossed.
“You owe me Bob Bob,” he threatens, but there's no heat behind the words.
“Yes I do,” Robert replies, getting in the car. “Tell me if you get into any trouble for this, I'll make it right.”
Flambae doesn't reply, putting the car in reverse.
He’s in the Archive Room, reading through Water Boy and Phenomaman’s files. Phenomaman’s abilities are as developed and impressive as Waterboy’s aren’t. He’s not sure the board had these two in mind when they asked for heroes that haven’t been to jail, but this is the only two profiles that might actually work. Losers enough that the team won’t feel threatened or patronized by them, while kind enough to not be assholes to the ex-villains. It’s really going to suck for Waterboy though.
On an impulse he tries to pull up his own file. Call it morbid curiosity. A security clearance message pops up but SDN isn’t exactly the most secure database he’s hacked into and he makes short work of it, making sure he leaves no trace. His mugshot appears on the screen, face still gaunt and pale from being fresh out of the hospital.
“Name: Robert Robertson alias Red Mongrel,
Age: 29,
Height: 5’9,
Abilities: Hand-to-hand combat, infiltration, hacking, engineering
Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA,
Bio: Heir of the Mecha Man legacy, kidnapped age 15 by Shroud, now dangerous vigilante.
Crimes: First degree murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery, cyber crimes”
He stares at the screen without seeing it, thinking back to Neeraj and his dad. Both murders are on Uncle Eli’s criminal record, not his. Neeraj is technically not even confirmed dead, just missing. He wonders if his estranged family worries about him. If they even know, or care.
He carefully backs away from that thought, replacing it with the rest of the file. Aggravated assault, robbery and cyber crimes are— were, ninety percent of his job. That’s been his MO for close to fifteen years: tracking criminals online and hacking into their hideouts, grabbing all the dirt he could find to compile files, before showing up at their door and neutralizing them in any way he could, whether that implied punching or killing them. The rest of the time he was patrolling the skies and listening to police radio, stopping super villains or petty criminals. Sadly the police didn’t take kindly to him leaving a trail of bodies, even if they were all the scum of the Earth. With a mandate for his capture he’d had a few run-ins with superheroes. While he enjoyed bringing the arrogant and stupid ones down a peg, when it came to real superheroes he usually found a clever way to flee the encounter. As stupid as it was, he considered them almost distant coworkers. Even Phenomaman, who’d been the closest to ever capture him.
“Hmm… Smash.”
Invisigal’s voice makes him jump out of his skin, his elbow stopping a few inches from her stomach before he actually hits her. He closes his fist and his eyes, letting out a long frustrated breath, berating himself for letting his guard down. She raises an eyebrow, “Jumpy aren’t we?” He glares at her.
“I gotta say the murder charge really does it for me,” she says, sitting on the desk next to him. She’s got a very satisfied grin dancing on her lips, looking proud of herself.
He relaxes into the chair, “Yeah, people tell me that all the time. Definitely my best pick-up line.”
She leans towards the computer, squinting at the screen while swinging one of her legs back and forth.
“So you really don’t have any powers. How the fuck did you survive that long?”
He shrugs, “The big mech certainly helps. But really it’s because most of you supers don’t bother to learn any martial arts.”
“What?” She smiles, incredulous, “You just like… jiu-jitsu supervillains and it works?”
“More like MMA but yes. Doesn’t matter if your opponent is stronger or faster if they don’t know how to avoid a fist to the face.”
“Shit,” she blurts, “it’s that easy?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen you fight, you’re not bad.”
“Not bad? What, you think you could take me?” she wiggles her eyebrows, the innuendo very clear.
He ignores the bad chill that runs down his spine at the familiar phrase and replies, leaning forward and matching her tone, “Before the fall? Easily.”
There’s a flicker of something on her face before she grins and leans even further, “Big talk for a little guy.”
“I could show you what the little guy can do.”
She snorts and he leans back, taking a more serious tone.
“What I mean is I could actually teach you how to fight, if you’d like. Just because I’m in recovery doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything.”
Her eyebrows shoot up and she loses the snark, “Really? Hell yeah, anything to kick more asses.”
“Meet me in the gym after the shift Friday night then,” he says, getting up and turning off the computer. When he sees her wiggle her eyebrows he adds “And tell the team they can come too if they want. The ones who actually know some moves can always help.”
Robert stills, mid-conversation with some low-level grunts in the vain hope they’ve heard something about the Pulse. He turns his head to see the speaker, a large woman with buzzed hair and a Red Ring arm, a gnarly scar on the side of her face, standing imposingly next to him. In a quick glance he can tell she’s looking for a fight. Probably a former victim who has decided to take her revenge after getting an upgrade. He leans back against the back of his chair, setting his whiskey on the table slowly.
“You heard wrong,” he replies evenly. “I just don’t take it out for the small fry.”
She sneers, her augment shifting like it’s coming to life. He takes a look around the bar, a shitty and grimy little place with cheap beer and a sparse crowd of villains and petty criminals, but it looks like she’s alone. It’s a dangerous bet, but why not? It would make his evening worthwhile.
“Let’s take this outside,” he smiles, finishing his drink and throwing a piece of paper with his burner phone number at the other guys, who are both relieved they’re leaving and curious to see how it will unfold. “Message me if you hear anything. I can pay.”
He walks out with his hands in his pockets, trusting the woman will follow without making a scene, and gets to the quiet backstreet. It’s discreet, dry and quiet, with only a few lights and high walls with little to no windows surrounding the space. He turns around and walks backward for a few steps, watching her get progressively antsier.
“So why are you here?” he asks, acting bored. “Did I arrest you? Killed your boss? Gave you the nasty scar, maybe?” He marks a pause, “We didn’t have sex right?”
She doesn’t even reply before she throws herself at him, her mechanical hand aiming straight for his head. He bends to the side and grabs it, using her momentum to fling her forward, and making her trip on his foot, sending her on the floor. She takes the fall badly, which is reassuring. He didn’t read her wrong: she got an augment but not the skills to use it properly. She growls and stands back up heavily, trying to catch his arm this time. He doesn’t slip away fast enough and she gets a hold of him, pulling him towards her held up fist. He pushes her wrist up with his left hand and leans into her, getting up close and personal with the side of her face, before biting forcefully into the lovely ear that’s right there. She pushes him away with a howl, her mechanical arm trying to swat at him and getting a few hits in his shoulder, and she watches him in horror as he spit out the chunk of flesh and cartilage on the ground. He makes a disgusted face, wiping the blood off his chin.
Her face scrunches into a rageful scowl and she comes at him again screaming, messy and wide, hits easy to parry. He manages to kick her in the sternum, cutting her breath and making her fold forward, before his boot collides with the side of her face, leaving her sprawled on the concrete and dizzy.
He straightens up and slowly breathes out, calming himself down for the next part. There are many ways to get information, and he largely prefers the ones that involve a drink and a chat, or even a disappointing shag, over the more violent ones; too bad he doesn’t always get that choice. Thunderstruck might be out of his grasp, but she's not.
He sits her up against the wall, crouched next to her and looks through her pockets for a weapon. He finds a butterfly knife, which he turns in his hand, playing with the quick opening. He wishes she didn't have it, or that he could just throw it away.
“Feeling better?” he asks, voice sweet. “Calmer?”
She mutters a litany of pained curses and he nods. “I’ll take that as a yes. So, Red Ring, huh?”
She glares at him defiantly. They always do at first.
He continues, “You were angry, they got you a nice little augment for a hefty price, and now we’re here.” He makes a wide gesture. “How about I let you tell me your sob story and where I can find the Red Ring, and in exchange you don’t die in a shitty back alley in fucking Torrance?”
She takes in a quick frustrated breath, spitting “You fucking killed my whole crew in January last year.”
He scratches his head. January… What the fuck was he doing in January? His memory has been going to shit for years. When every week looks and feels like the previous one, time doesn't mean anything anymore. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to be more specific,” he shrugs.
She shouts in his face, going red, “We were robbing the Smitherson Bank! We were five and you fucking killed them all!”
He has a vague memory of it. Five robbers, a large bank, a bunch of hostages, children in the mix. One of them had been crying the whole time. Not all the hostages had made it out. He’d gone on one hell of a bender after that mission.
“Hmm,” he nods, thoughtful, before tilting his head and looking into her eyes, “I didn’t kill all your crew now, did I?”
She stills, her breath catching. He flicks the knife open, pressing it against her cheek, a little too close to her eye.
“The Red Ring location,” he asks calmly.
She starts to panic, her eyes going to the blade and back to his face several times.
“I— I met them three months ago, they— They’re at—”
A loud gunshot echoes in the backstreet and he jumps back as her face goes slack. She slumps forward, dead.
He swears under his breath, flattening himself against the wall and looking around frantically for the shooter. He can't see anything, the glare of the lamps too bright against the night. He tries to listen for any movement but nothing jumps out of the ordinary sounds of the city. He looks at the body on the floor. It makes no sense. Why kill her and not him? He's the one trying to get to the Red Ring. Was it just coincidence and was someone already after her?
After a while he starts moving, ready to duck at any time, but no one shoots at him and the night stays quiet. He makes his way back home, taking care to make himself hard to trail, and goes to sleep with more questions than he started the evening with.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Immediately continuing my last post with these hehehehehehe, I’m just a little gremlin making my little pictures of my favourite tortured twink that I’m gonna torture even more and now I’m evil laughing—
Hes definitely a stress smoker.
Like I even did a mood animatic just to see what his walk would be like for this AU and I actually like it a lot.
Ngl no idea where the audio came from I don’t remember adding that sorry if anyone got jump scared by it.
