Something I want to incorporate into one dispatch fic or another (and feel free to steel it if you like the concept) is this idea I've had that Robert actually has a pretty big network of people/entities/groups that owe him favors.
It runs the gamut on how big the favors he's owed, who owes him these favors and how happy they actually are to actually repay these favors.
There are everyday people in his neighborhood that owe him the equivalent of a ride home from work. There are heroes that owe him their lives or their careers. There are major villains that owe him more than they could ever possibly pay if he ever made good on the promises they made to him.
Some owe Mecha Man Blue, some owe Robert Robertson the Third, some the random fake identity he was using at the time he met them and helped them out. All of them, though - no matter how reluctant they might be about it - would answer if he ever called on them to settle up their debts.
Because Robert is Robert, at the end of the day.
And because Robert thinks - believes with the certainty of a priest giving a sermon - that he's nothing but the empty space between all the things Mecha Man is supposed to be.
The idea of reaching out, of asking for help for something he feels is his duty alone to handle, for anything at all really, is anathema to everything Mecha Man and the legacy that came with it and the dead father that condemned him to such a life had taught him. A betrayal to the very life he'd dedicated himself to and the grave he'd been promised was waiting for him since his earliest memories.
So he never calls in any of the favors, just collects more and more and more of them over the years until the number of debts he's owed rivals the stars in the night sky.
Not until he starts working with the Z-Team.
He can't and won't use any of the favors he has piling up for himself, no matter how much easier it'd make his life, but for them? He'll make good on those old debts for them.
Prism suddenly fighting for her life against dozens of armed and dangerous super villains in what should have been a simple call to get an angry couple to calm down? When it becomes clear that no one else on the team is going to be able to get there in time before something bad happens, Robert reaches for his phone, calls a number he hasn't even thought of since it was given to him over a decade ago, and cashes in a favor.
For a moment, Prism thinks the situation has gone from bad to apocalyptic as one of the biggest, scariest, most dangerous villains in the entire country just casually walks in seconds after Robert told her he was going to get her help. But then said villain just... helps her? Guarding her like his fucking life depends on it while dropping bodies with a terrifying amount of ease, not letting any of the other villains she'd been trying to take on even look in her direction.
He politely offers her a handkerchief to wipe some of the blood off her face after everything is said and done. Tells her to let "that feral hellcat Robertson" know that accepting this as his debt being clear would be an insult and to keep his number on hand in case there's something actually worth his time that Robert wants to cash in that favor for.
Attempts to get answers about how Robert knows the Dispatch universe equivalent of Ra's al Ghul or why the man owed Robert a favor go unanswered.
(There is a non-zero chance that he's Robert's ex.
Flambae is seething about that fact, but only because he hates not knowing things and totally not because he has any strong feelings about Robert possibly having dated a villain, let alone one that Flambae might not actually be able to beat in a fight.
Not that he'd, you know, fight someone over Robert or anything.)
And it all just keeps happening.
Someone on the team will be in trouble, or will need help with something or any number of things, and Robert will make a call or text someone or - in one memorable instance that led to a powerful demon queen of hell showing up - draw a complicated symbol with his blood and boom. Problem solved.
The Z team has no idea how Robert knows these people (they can't all be his exes...right?) or how he's managed to rack up so many favors over the years or what about him makes it that everyone actually shows up and delivers when he calls those favors in.
What they do know is that Robert clearly hasn't been using his wealth of connections and the debts owed to him for himself. Man is sleeping on a plastic lawn chair because he doesn't have a bed even though last week a minor god of wealth and prosperity showed up to save Sonar's ass after a crypto scheme he got involved with (predictably) went south.
Obviously, in order to make sure they aren't stuck having to help random future assholes out when Robert ends up calling in the many favors they now owe him for helping them out so much, they're just going to have to help this poor, sad bastard themselves.
(Robert keeps trying to tell them that if they feel like they owe him any favors they could repay him by not aggressively trying to take care of him.
The Z team, in typical Z team fashion, ignore him completely.)
