Los Angeles was safe. Shroud was in custody. The astral pulse had been recovered. Invisigirl had taken a bullet and lived to complain about it.
And somehow, through all of that, half the team still didn’t know Robert was missing a leg.
He had meant to tell them. Really, he had. He hadn’t sat down and decided, yes, I will conceal this significant piece of personal information indefinitely. It just… never came up. Or rather, it never came up at the right time.
In the beginning, they didn’t respect him enough for it to matter. To them, he was just some former golden boy turned glorified baby sitter—the guy who sat behind a desk and told them what not to do.
By the time they started listening to him and trusting him and looking at him like he actually belonged there, everything else had already started going wrong.
The Red Ring ramped up their villainous efforts until the whole situation chaotically climaxed into a fight for their lives and the lives of every citizen in Los Angeles. Among it all there was the falsely assumed betrayal of Invisigal, the actual betrayal of Sonar who had now resettled on the team, and Chase’s near death. Robert still had nightmares about Shroud stooping to threaten his dog’s life and that horrifying moment when the bullet left his father’s gun.
But then, somehow, against every odd stacked against them, they won. Messily. But they won.
And when it was over, when the dust settled and the city stood (mostly) intact, there still hadn’t been a good time to say, “By the way, I’ve been hiding a metal leg this whole time.”
So he didn’t.
Now things had settled into something resembling normal. The Mecha Man suit was operational again, better than ever thanks to Royd’s handiwork and the recovered Astral Pulse. But Robert had made his decision. He stayed in dispatch.
Well, mostly.
Weekends were negotiable. He wasn’t built to sit on the sidelines forever, and pretending otherwise would’ve been a lie no one believed, least of all him. But during the week, he stayed behind the console, keeping the Z-Team from getting themselves killed all while, hopefully teaching them a thing or two about heroism. He knew now he could do more net good mentoring them than he could on his own.
And, he had to admit, they’d grown on him.
In their own annoying, HR violation riddled kind of way.
He rubbed at his knee as he sent Flambae and Prism on a call, the last before lunch he hoped. The top of his socket was grinding especially hard against the bottom of his kneecap today and he wanted nothing more than to rip the damn thing off for just a second, but he couldn’t.
Even the bathroom wasn’t safe once the team rolled back in for their company-mandated lunch break—the one they treated like an excuse to bicker loudly in every available space.
He loved them, more than he’d care to admit, but privacy was not a word a single one of them had in their lexicon.
So, he stood with a groan that came from too deep in his lungs for a man his age, and shifted his weight side to side a few times. The imbalance still caught him off guard sometimes—the way his prosthetic foot flexed and unflexed mechanically under pressure, just slightly out of sync with what his body expected.
It reminded him that it hadn’t been that long since the crash, since his suit exploded around him, sending him crashing to the earth like a meteor. Since he’d woken up alone in a sterile white hospital room four months later in a body he no longer recognized.
Honestly, it should’ve been obvious by now.
There were tells. As much as his ego begged to differ, he knew there were. The unevenness in his gait when he was tired, the way he clearly favored one side, the slight delay when he pivoted too quickly. None of it screamed amputee, but it was enough that someone paying attention should’ve at least asked a question.
Especially considering how many physical therapy appointments he’d blown off.
So yeah—maybe this was karma finally catching up.
Because the moment he turned away from his console, his foot—the one he couldn't feel—snagged under the leg of his desk chair.
This alone wouldn't have been a problem if not for the loud bang that came after.
“Fuck,” he swore under his breath as he heard the hollow sound of something small hitting the ground after tumbling down his pant leg and bouncing off the top of his shoe. Something that he'd just chipped off of his prosthetic leg.
When he went to take another step, he could feel the weight of the prosthetic pulling against him, tugging at the silicone sleeve that ran snug up his thigh. And when he put the foot back down, the bottom of his residual limb struck the bottom in a way it most definitely shouldn’t. It wasn’t painful, not yet. But it would be soon.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered, barely moving his lips as he subtly shifted his weight again, testing—
Whoosh
His jaw tightened.
… the valve.
The socket itself was almost entirely carbon fiber—durable and built to take impact—but the one-way air valve on the side? That tiny, protruding piece of plastic he’d been specifically warned about? The one that stuck out just enough to be vulnerable?
Yeah. That valve.
He hadn’t thought much about it when they told him. He’d just filed it away under things that probably won’t happen and moved on.
And now it had.
Air leaked out with every step. The suction that held everything in place was failing, the socket pistoning in a way that would go from “annoying” to “problem” to “actively painful” in no time at all.
It was fine, perfectly fine.
He just had to make it through the second half of his shift. Then he could go home, shoot a message to his prosthetist who would promise to see him sometime in the next few… weeks, and switch into his old socket. It didn’t fit great—far too big since it’d been designed before his residual limb had finished shrinking, but he’d make it work. He’d pad it out with socks, he told himself as he sat down too much listlessly on a protein bar that promised to taste like brownie batter but actually tasted like dry wall. Sure, he’d have to wear like 30 goddamn ply socks to do it, but he’d manage. He always did.
Or so he thought, until Sonar came around the corner, paused with his head titled, and one moment later loudly proclaimed. “What the hell is that sound? It’s like… an asthmatic baby trying to blow up a fucking birthday balloon?”
Robert froze mid-step.
He was three paces from the trash can, protein bar wrapper still in hand—half the bar shoved inside because even starvation wouldn’t have convinced him to finish it. One foot lifted slightly off the ground, body caught in that awkward in-between-steps moment.
Around the room, everyone else paused too, more out of habit than real concern. Sonar saying bizarre things at full volume wasn’t uncommon, but it was often entertaining.
“I don’t hear it,” Prism said after a second, glancing around with exaggerated suspicion. “You sure you ain’t just hearing Visi?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Invisigirl replied, “It’s not me. Trust me, if I was blowing anything, you’d know.”
Visi was one of the only people who actually knew. The only one on the Z-Team, technically, courtesy of the whole uniform changing incident in the conference room on his first day. But she had no reason to know that his leg was the cause of the sound.
“No, I know what Visi’s weird lungs sound like. This is different.” Sonar said, pointing vaguely into the room. “Ah, whatever. I don’t hear it anymore.”
Yeah, of course he didn’t. That’s because Robert hadn’t moved a damn muscle.
Sonar took another sip of coffee, then added, “But if we get gas attacked or some shit, don’t let anyone say I didn’t warn you.”
Robert remained statuesque in the middle of the break room, wrapper still in hand. Because he knew that the second he took another step—
Whoosh
And Sonar, once interested in something, had the persistence of mold.
Fuck, Sonar could keep a secret, right?
Well enough anyway.
Maybe.
“Hey, Sonar,” Robert said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to strained professionalism. “Could you come look at something on my computer for a second?”
“Is it boobs? Cause I’m not falling for that trick again,” he replied immediately as he grabbed a second freshly poured coffee cup off the counter. Probably not the most nutritious lunch but Robert had learned to pick his battles.
“What? No it’s not–how would it even be boobs?” he said incredulously, motioning half-heartedly at his noticeably boob-less chest.
Sonar took a sip of coffee. “Screens. Or man-boobs. I’m not picky.”
“No one ever tricked you with boobs.”
Sonar just tsked. “That’s what Coop wants you to think.”
Robert dropped that particular conversation with a shake of his head. He was sure Coupe would have a clean cut rebuttal to add, but she was off with Malevola and Punch-Up at a new deli that opened up down the street that miraculously none of them had been banned from.
Yet.
As he took his first step forward, he noticed Sonar’s ear twitch again as that soft whoosh of air slipped from the open valve, but he didn’t comment this time. Sonar was smart, a lot smarter than people cared to remember. Robert could practically see the gears turning behind his big white eyes as he stitched together the evidence.
Weird sound. Only when Robert moved. Sudden invitation to a private conversation. Slightly panicked body language. Something secret.
So, he fell into step behind Robert without further debate.
By the time they reached a quiet corner of the office, Sonar had undoubtedly arrived at at least six incorrect theories and one potentially accurate one.
“So, Bobert, what weird medical shit do you have going on?” he asked, his voice quick but slightly quieter than normal. A small courtesy. He leaned against the wall, one hand coming across to rest beneath his elbow as he held the steaming coffee cup closer to his face.
“You got a shit bag under there? Glucose monitor? Diabetic from too many twinkies?” He reached out to poke Robert in the stomach only to have his hand slapped away. “Ow, touchy. I hit a nerve there? No, wait, it’s a butt plug, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not a butt plug. What kind of butt plug would sound like that?”
Before Sonar could reply, Robert spoke again. “No, don’t answer that,” he sighed, “Just—just look, alright?”
With that, he finally bit the bullet, leaning down to wrestle up the cuff of his trousers just enough that the titanium pylon peaked through.
“Oh, shit,” Sonar said, though the surprise in his tone was muted. “I thought you just walked like that because you’re a bottom.”
I've been putting way too much research into osseointegrated prosthetics for transfemural amputations just so I can draw Polnareff. I kind of want to make a little informative comic about him explaining those plus the transradial amputation (with his myoelectric prosthetic) on his right arm and the focal cortical trauma cataract he has in his right eye. Wow, I love him so bad. He's so cool.
If you look at Kuzan in the film z movie, his ice goes slightly above his knee so I guess we can assume that he's an above the knee amputee.
Now. Obviously prosthetics are different depending on above the knee or below the knee because of the joint, therefore making above the knee ones more expensive, harder to maintain (especially in battle and being a pirate, with the sea everywhere), and easier to break i would assume? Or more ways to break, if that makes sense.
Imagine Kuzan just waking up. Seeing that he's an above the knee amputee and cursing because he knows EXACTLY what it means. So then just says fuck it and uses his ice as a prosthetic LMFAOO
now a common modification for a below the right knee amputee to have is left foot accelerators, allows the driver to use their left foot for gas and brake, and hand controls, allows the driver to use their hands for gas and brake. no need to use their legs
but here the thing its not guaranteed you'll find these in their car. every amputee is different. it really varies on their comfortablity. some use hand controls, some use left accelerator pedal, some drive with their prosthetic, some drive solely use their left leg
now this leaves us to imagine what type of modification or not that abbot uses
EXCEPT the show actually gives us a small hint that abbot doesnt really drive with modification
now, if you read this post i made taking about abbot prosthesis or maybe you notice abbot has a microprocessor prosthesis ankle
and since this device actually mimicks actual joint and muscle movement. it also means he can drive with his prosthetic without any need of modification
tho i fully believe he had drove before using only his left leg and with the help of a left foot accelerator system. and for sure had to relearn and practice a lot of times to drive comfortably and safely
i also believe that there might be times where jack might just drive with his left leg. like deadass take off his prosthetic and just drive. tho i feel like that can get confusing but once again that is up to fan fic writers to interpret on where to go with that
here are the links on where i got the info cuz once again im no expert
yt video
site
this one goes in depth between hand controls and left foot accelerators (for those who want to use one of em in their story)
medium: Crayola colored pencils, ultra-fine artist pens, gel pen, Paint.NET
the self-proclaimed "King Of The Universe" takes a royal smoke break. Just wanted to show what it looks like when his prosthetic arm is detached.
[Image ID: Lux Prime aka Mr. Ring-a-Ding The First, an alternate-universe version of Lux Imperator from Doctor Who, sitting down with a smouldering cigar in his left hand, wearing only a pair of white briefs. He sneers and glares towards the viewer, exhaling a puff of smoke out of his snout.
Lux Prime looks like his canon counterpart, but his hair has grey highlights, there are wrinkles around his eyes, he has jagged top surgery scars and black nipples, his wings are bigger with ornate golden edges, he has an outie belly button with an "x" shaped marking on it, and he has coarse white hair on his chest, belly, and feet. His right arm is missing, with only a stump remaining. End ID.]
