my take on villain robert robertson. This ones quite long so bare with me
There’s a thin line between love and hatred, his mother once told him.
Love is a strong word for what he feels for Robert. Too strong. Too soon. But Chad can’t deny there’s something there. There always has been.
Needling his dispatcher, bitching at him, deliberately getting under his skin—it started out of spite. Robert was infuriating. Calm when he shouldn’t be. Stubborn in the quietest way. Always pushing back just enough to make it clear he wasn’t going to fold for anyone.
Somewhere along the line—probably after Robert stood his ground and refused to let anyone get cut from the team—Chad stopped actually trying to piss him off and started… enjoying it. The arguing. The push and pull. The way Robert never raised his voice but still somehow won half their fights.
Then Robert revealed himself to be the man who ruined Chad’s life.
And also the man who helped turn it around.
That was the part that fucked with him.
He’d been furious. Blinded by it, really. So angry he almost killed him. And yeah, part of it was because he was Mecha Man, but Chad had already suspected that. Deep down, he’d known.
What hurt was that the man in his ear all day—the one he’d come to respect—was also the person who cut off his fingers.
He’d been angry at Robert. At himself.
Most of that anger burned itself out after Chad punched Robert in the face at his house party. He’d even gone as far as apologizing for his hand later—hadn’t been sorry about arresting him, though, which Chad couldn’t fault him for. Still punched him in the shoulder for it though.
There was no point staying pissed once the truth settled in.
The truth being: he liked his stupid dispatcher.
Liked him enough that he was gearing himself up to ask him out to dinner.
Then Robert had the audacity to go missing.
Not just missing—the idiot went to the Sardine, a villain bar, alone and immediately got himself kidnapped by Shroud.
Blonde Blazer told them what she could. She looked wrecked when she did. Said she’d tried to get to the last place Robert’s phone pinged from, but by the time she arrived, there was nothing left to find. Just Robert’s ratty brown jacket on the floor and blood smeared across the concrete, like someone had dragged him out and couldn’t be bothered to clean up the mess.
Before she could even look for tracks, Shroud started attacking SDN.
They’d won that fight only because Chase—now Trailblazer with Mandy’s amulet—stepped in to help. Shroud was a bastard and an idiot: threatened Beef, got both Astral Pulses (courtesy of Chase being spiteful), then chose wrong. Vomited all over the place. Still had enough left in him to shoot Visi—who, for reasons Chad still can’t wrap his head around, stepped in and took the bullet for Chase.
The entire fight, Shroud stayed silent about Robert’s location. And even when he was hauled away by the cops, he stayed smug.
So the bad guy goes to prison. Fantastic.
People around Torrance threw themselves a parade. SDN got praised. The Z-Team got treated like real heroes for the first time in forever.
Because Robert Robertson never came back.
To say Flambae was adamant about finding him would be an understatement. But the whole team was. Even when they were exhausted. Even when they were forced to admit they were chasing air. Chase, in particular, latched onto the idea that Robert had to be alive somewhere, because the alternative felt like swallowing glass.
They tore through every lead they could find. Shook informants until their hands ached. Hit old Red Ring spots. Checked hospitals, morgues, abandoned buildings—every place villains liked to dump what they didn’t want found.
Eventually, reality forced them back to work.
For a little while, Torrance almost felt calm. Less real emergencies. More bullshit. Latte runs. Security details. Standing around looking heroic while nothing actually happened.
Chad hated it. It made him restless, made his skin crawl. Why the hell was he getting some lady her coffee when he could be out there looking for Robert?
Then things started going wrong.
Calls got misrouted. Teams arrived late to scenes they should’ve reached first. The wrong units got sent to the wrong places. Dispatch logs had edits nobody could explain. Equipment started disappearing from tech and mechanical companies—small, specific pieces, the kind you don’t notice until you suddenly need them.
A new villain popped up not long after.
He hit facilities for chemicals. Stole mechanical components. Stripped tech out of SDN supplies, always the same kinds of parts.
He showed up, did the job, left.
The first clear look they got confirmed one thing immediately.
Red mask. Same color as Shroud’s. Same shape. And a metal arm glowing red at the seams, heavy and unmistakable.
The job was supposed to be simple: escort an SDN transport back to base. They’d had a hunch the bastard would show, so Chad and Prism were assigned.
The second Prism moved to engage, Chad knew something was wrong.
She tried to cut the space with light, angling it to box him in—and he threw something small that snapped against her lenses with a sharp click. The light fractured. Prism yelped, her glasses knocked clean off, blinking hard, blind and furious.
The masked man was on her instantly. Drove her into the wall hard enough to rattle dust from the ceiling. She hit the ground winded, scrambling to get back up.
He opened up with fire, heat tearing through the street, and the bastard dodged like he’d already mapped his routes. Used cars. Pillars. Stayed just close enough to Prism that Chad had to pull his shots or risk hitting her.
He didn’t even realize how close he’d let him get until a metal fist connected with his face and everything went white.
By the time Chad dragged himself back into focus, the villain had already opened the truck, pulled something out, and disappeared.
From there, everything escalated.
More sabotage. More stolen tech. More hits that ended with the Z-Team empty-handed. Sometimes his targets were villains. Sometimes they were heroes—corrupt ones, with money or access or secrets they’d buried deep.
Those heroes started turning up dead.
Whatever they’d known died with them.
There was no fucking way it was coincidence.
Robert disappears, and then a Shroud wannabe shows up wearing Red Ring colors and dismantling SDN piece by piece.
Either he knew where Robert was.
Or he’d been there when it happened.
Didn’t matter which. Chad was going to torch him until he talked.
He replayed footage. Watched how the masked man shifted his weight before striking. How he chose exits. How he never stayed longer than he had to. Chad started showing up in neighborhoods the guy had hit after work, half hoping, half dreading he’d run into him again.
Eventually, they got intel about where the masked figure would strike next.
Almost the entire Z-Team was deployed. Overkill for one man, but no one argued. Every previous encounter had ended the same way.
They cornered him in a half-collapsed warehouse. Concrete dust hung in the air like fog. The place smelled like rust and old chemicals. Floodlights carved harsh shapes through the haze. Chad could feel heat pooling under his skin, that familiar, hungry itch of power begging to be let loose.
The fight was brutal and close.
The masked man held his own against all of them—not because he was stronger, but because he never let them settle. He broke formation. Forced mistakes. Used their instincts against them.
He herded them into angles where they couldn’t use their powers without hitting each other. Every time Chad tried to open up with a big flame, the bastard slipped into someone’s shadow. Every time someone tried to restrain him, he twisted free and countered with one of his devices.
He was getting hurt at least. Chad saw burns catching on his sleeve. Saw a cut split open along his forearm. Saw his shoulder clip rebar and leave blood smeared across metal.
Fire roared through the space. The warehouse filled with orange light, smoke, the sound of concrete cracking under boots. The masked man stumbled back—finally—
He grabbed the mask with both hands.
Metal scraped violently as it tore free. The strap snapped.
For half a second, Chad didn’t understand what he was looking at.
Pale skin. Bruises blooming along the jaw. A cut split across the cheekbone. Hair longer now, dark with sweat.
Robert Robertson looked at them like they were nothing.
No recognition. No flicker. No anger.
Like Chad was just another obstacle in his way.
For a second, he couldn't breathe.
Every hope he’d been clinging to—every "he’s alive", every "we’ll get him back"— just collapsed.
The silence is immediate and total.
Robert’s eyes don’t change.
And then the moment breaks—smoke thickens, someone shouts—and he moves.
A shove, a strike, a smoke canister hitting the ground with a hiss, and suddenly there’s chaos where there was stillness.
Chad coughs, eyes burning, reaches out—
When the air clears, Robert is gone.
No one says a word on the way back to SDN.
Chad stared out at the city lights as he flew, jaw clenched until it ached, and finally understood something he didn’t want to understand.
Finding Robert was never going to be the same thing as getting him back.
my first ever oneshot what do we think? :D
pixelskylines
titsay
romaincrisis
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