You ever look up a video of a water jet? That shit can cut wood, steel, glass, and straight through your flesh if you fuck up and aren’t careful.
Waterboy could blow a dudes head smooth off their fucking shoulders with some practice and honing of his abilities.
Prompt with that context with two lanes:
Waterboy displaying his powers by helping free civilians trapped in rubble and the moment his team realizes how fucking strong Herm is and how glad they are he’s on their side.
Route one:
Robert with his competency kink thinks that’s hot as hell & bones the hell outta the dude for it.
Route two- The Plot version:
Robert helps fabricate Mecha Man & is broke as shit, he would be ecstatic because oh my god water jet cutters are so fucking expensive, he 100% would take advantage of having an easily accessible water jet cutter that doesn’t need cooldown. Despite not quite being at the level of precision that CNC would get you, Herm is shockingly accurate (i like to imagine that as a kid, he’d use his powers to hit random targets he set up in his backyard and got really precise with his aim.). Robert asks for Waterboy’s help in etching details on the Mecha Man suit for a new design post-shroud. Somewhere along the redesign and prototype process for the new suit, Robert steps back and realizes how much he loves the idea that Herm’s contributions to the redesign are visible and everyone will be able to see it- oh my god it’s because he has a massive crush on Herm. Oh no, that’s why he loves the idea of everyone being able to see the impact Waterboy has on the details of his suit. Oh fuck this isn’t good, now what does he even do?? He’s not even close to finishing the designs and is scheduled to work with the guy twice a week for this project, oh noooooo. Guess he has to kiss him, there’s just no other way out of this. [Waterboy has been trying to flirt with Robert this entire time but of course Robert was so focused on getting Mecha Man up and ready with this new outer plating design that he completley missed all the signals causing Waterboy to be this 🤏 close to giving up bc the man doesn’t seem interested at all.]
everyone is going to be so tired of me when i’m on my fiftieth watermech fic LMAO
as silly as herman is as a character i think it’s really important that people don’t forget that he’s 100% a grown ass man. it happens in every fuckin’ fandom that a vaguely anxious character or someone that’s not throwing their weight around becomes the baby, and not in a fun way.
that’s a grown man
like how you mentioned them working together/him honing his skill, i can 100% see that because what else is he gonna do! you’ve got a weird power, you might as well learn how to do cool shit with it.
also my fave flavor of anything is the more collected one going ‘ah fuck that loser has wooed me with his strange manner’
herman: thanks for letting me work on your suit robert :)
robert: i want you……
sigh……. i love u herman
