Hear me out Robin powerplex actually ends up with Thragg somehow. Maybe after killing that variant he gets invited to the viltrumite war where he's given a space suit and sent on out. He figures he's probably not surviving this one so might as well go out with a bang. He goes for Thragg and actually manages to do some damage. Thragg survives and even manages to keep fighting but he's left with permanent lightning scars across his chest and down his body. Thragg discovers something about himself. When the viltrumites settle on Earth Thragg actually seeks out the only warrior who managed to wound him. When he finds Robin in a prison cell he's so insulted he almost says fuck the whole plan lets destroy this place. But he just breaks him out instead. Thragg can't really chastise Lucan and Kregg and Anissa for going against the plan since he ended up shacking up with a male human he can't breed with after interfering with humanity by using his powers to bust him out of jail and refusing to sleep with anyone else but ya know, its fine.
Bonus points if Mark is actually really jealous because he thought he really bonded with Robin during the war. Like on the ship out from Earth Robin "forgave him" and the two became friends. Then they fought side by side. Then Robin helped him fight conquest. Mark got a lot less fucked up since Robin was there but he still needed to rest on that planet to heal. Robin was by his side taking care of him that whole time. Did that mean nothing to him??
This situation is hilarious (and such a Robin thing to happen. Absurdity really does make up her foundations) so I wrote another small snippet lol
In your defence-
None of this was planned, okay. It just sort of…happened. Somehow. You’re still confused on the specifics, because there was a big chunk in the middle where you maybe knocked on a few doors and brought something back with you. But only a sliver, just for the boost needed to make you useful - and unintentionally, sturdier than anticipated.
Which…came in handy. For sure.
“You’re here willingly?” Mark still looks completely bewildered. Fair. He did sneak his way onto the warship of his greatest enemy with the idea that you’ve been kidnapped (from prison, but it applies) by someone with a justifiable grudge against you, just to stumble across- well.
C’mon. There’s a very dramatic throne; are you supposed to not fuck on it? Especially with how good the acoustics are in here.
You shift your weight, but that just makes Thragg’s arm tighten around your waist. Damn, dude, you’re not gonna run off just because an unlikely rescue has shown up. A…really unlikely one? Seriously. What the fuck are you doing, Mark?
“He is,” Thragg answers for you, the dick.
You roll your eyes and smack the back of your hand against his chest - right where the gnarly lightning scars you left on him are deepest, and most sensitive. Odd, since you’d think they’d be the opposite, but instead his breath catches and his fingers spasm on your side. Ha.
Must be a freaky side effect of your freaky side effects being involved; your own hands up past your elbows are marked by similar Lichtenberg figures, deep black with traces of the gold that characterises your electricity now.
“I did start out kidnapped,” you clarify, feeling bad for all the effort Mark went to just for this. And the risk he took…Christ, this was a terrible move on his part.
Yeah, you guys could probably be considered friends by the end of the war. Good ol’ forced proximity trope at play, and while he was badly injured by Conquest, it wasn’t a full coma the entire time - so after the initial ‘no hard feelings, I was having an ongoing mental breakdown and needed someone to blame’ talk on the ship, it was natural to warm up to each other while he recovered. Mark’s an easy guy to like, and you’re not the absolute worst even with your fucked up brain.
But damn, this is the wrong genre for ‘I’ll do anything for my friends!’ behaviour. Save that for the love interest, there’s more leeway there.
“Then I, uh…” How the fuck do you explain being charmed by Thragg’s utter lack of charm?
Dude’s a mess. It’s kinda hilarious, since you have all the context on how he’ll get worse, but also have to deal with what’s actually in front of you. Which is a guy so wrapped up in duty and failure that it stripped him of the ability to process a whole new kind of want, left him vulnerable once repression failed, and-
One thing led to another. And another. And another, Christ, you love Viltrumite stamina. Maybe left a few scorch marks on multiple rooms in the process, but it’s a sturdy ship.
You give up on explaining. Offer Mark a shrug and half-smile. “Like I told Cecil, consider it advanced diplomacy. Did he not tell you it was all good?”
You thought he was going to; sending a transmission over was your way of testing how honest Thragg was about your lack of restrictions. You’ve been considering an Earth visit next. There’s a lot of shit that’s due to go down soon, so hey, maybe you were hoping to nip a few issues in the bud now you’re somehow alive. Which remains, fucking wild.
“All good?” Mark repeats, incredulous. “Scott, you can’t seriously want to stay here!”
Yeah, you guess this is a pretty odd move for your (partially self-inflicted) tragic backstory and villain origin, huh.
“Why would he want to leave?” Thragg says with typical Viltrumite pride and entitlement that covers an entire ecosystem of insecurities and constant comparison. His brief glance at you really tells on him; a check that you aren’t going to contradict him. Cute. “I provide everything he needs, and freed him from unjust imprisonment on your planet. If this is how you treat your greatest warriors, how can you demand their loyalty?”
“It was temporary,” Mark says quickly, his scowl slipping when he looks back to you. “It was. I wouldn’t have left you in there.”
“Sure,” you say, because yeah, you know?
Obviously Cecil would’ve gotten you out when you’ve proven too useful. You figured this was a mix of the bureaucracy all must bow to in order to keep up the facade of civility, and a little reminder of your place despite the heights of the war. Few more weeks, and you would’ve been out.
Hell, the GDA might’ve just been sorting out some form of shock collar or counter-measure that would work on you, now you have a couple ways to get around simply being restrained. Mark helped you out with practising that, actually.
He really is too good a guy. Even the prickles of another man’s experiences and resentments are doused by the new memories you’ve piled onto the bonfire.
Separating your ask out because I'll likely get to the (very tasty) second half another day, but I have a snippet for the first! xD
Powerplex robin but full amnesia? Maybe robin remebeing bits n pieces even worse than normal robin thinking how she must been alive in a dif life but right shes — hes now happy with his wife, son, sister and niece n then it just shatters n robin focuses on invincible bc he rembers him - somewhere of the past - its most comforting n not bc he ruined his life - its all his fault but he knows it not either — the moment he kills the bootleg variant his memories rush of robin still having many gaps n oh - okay thats why. He still hyperfocuses on mark like before but its more tame or maybe its not - it gets worse maybe. Toxic yaoi markrob.
Oh it'd sure be toxic af in this version of the AU.
“What’s got you so distracted?”
You look up, wincing at Jessica’s amused smirk. “Sorry, Jess,” you say, going to stuff your phone back in your pocket. Jessica snatches it from your hand before you can. “Hey, that’s-”
“Still a hero fanatic, hmm?” She leans into your side as she scrolls through your feed, and you sigh in defeat, slumping against the bench. “Oh, I recognise this one. Invincible, right? He’s new.”
“Not really,” you mutter, because Invincible has been around a few months now. Your work at the GDA is real handy for finding out about new heroes, but even if you were instead stuck in the mailroom, you’d have heard about the son of Omni-Man gaining his powers.
Really, there isn’t much on social media you can’t get access to on the GDA database. But Jessica isn’t wrong about you liking heroes a normal amount (you’re not a fanatic, damn it), and it doesn’t count as letting work leak into your personal life if it’s what any layman would see.
Besides, you like the kid - he’s had a few rough moments, and those powers are more than any teen should have, but he seems like he’s got a good heart. The world can always use more of those. Now more than ever, with the original Guardians gone.
Something about that-
You weren’t shocked, is the thing. When you heard they’d been killed. It was…strange. You were alarmed like anyone would be, but you weren’t surprised.
Gretchen runs over, and you smile as you offer up your palms at her demand. This lame power of yours isn’t worth much, but if it can make her laugh in delight, you’d pick it over flight and superstrength any day.
Then, your world ends, and you have to keep moving forward in the ashes.
And you still aren’t surprised. It isn’t until months later, after your third end, after you’re imprisoned and left to think and think and think, and then you’re proven right yet again as the prison falls and then-
When your electricity burns through your veins and opens up a door which should’ve stayed closed-
It isn’t until you fail to reach out, but force a path all the same-
Oh.
Yeah. You know why a thing or two rang familiar now. Ha. Haha.
You could’ve stopped…all of this. You could’ve saved them, all of them, if you remembered. You could’ve…
None of them needed to die. They always needed to die, for the sake of the story you loved so fucking much.
Each life sacrificed, and meaning nothing except what was deemed important to him - his guilt, his despair, his whining and complaining and his happy ending when first thousands, then millions will die because of him. His story.
God, isn’t it so fucking funny? Isn’t it the joke of a century, that you have to live with this now. A villain, pathetic and delusional and one-note, blaming Invincible for all your problems when you killed Jack and Becky. You did. All to get at him. All because he’s- he was meant to be-
No, no, it was…it was always going to be this, right? It was always…
What? Always what?
You didn’t get all those memories. Her memories, this woman from another world. This…you. How much have you changed now - how much of you is Scott, how much is Robin? Were you ever Scott, or just the warped pieces of Robin stripped of just enough to follow a set path?
Becky. Jack. You loved them, you did, you…
How could you ever claim to love them, when their lives came second to Invincible’s death?
What now. What now, in ruined cities and the bodies of innocents, more people dead due to Invincible? Millions of Jessicas, Gretchens. Deaths which will be brushed aside - will they get memorials, too? Etchings on black stone, a service attended by a hero who won’t even kill the man responsible, because his dad said sorry.
Fucking hell, the big deal they make out of Invincible killing an innocent man months from now - and what justice does Omni-Man ever face? It’s a joke. Not of it matters. It’s a story, and the only lives that count belong to the main characters.
Not Becky. Not Jack. Not Jessica, Gretchen, Steven Park, Amal Shahir, Elizabeth Volpe, Dominique Bassett-
They’ll never matter. They’re set dressing.
They’re not real.
You hate him. You hate him with everything in you that feels real, and alive, and forced to exist here.
You have nothing else now. Because of him.
(It was never his fault.
But you know, in the deepest parts of you, that you only exist as you are because of Mark Grayson.)
how do you think robin would fare in powerplex?? she often tries to follow canon as much as possible, but do you think she would be committed enough to allow her sister & niece to die? to thanos snap her infant son and wife?
Thought a fun time for a transmigration in terms of 'oh fuck how do I deal with this' would actually be when it's too late to make a change! Since yeahh otherwise with the position she's in, you'd get the debate on how much Powerplex actually matters to the overal plot - which isn't that much?
As in, not a situation where it's A causes B which means C happens and thefore happy ending D results, so there's a lot less pressure than some Robins feel when closer to the plot/more impactful a role.
So a short snippet xD
In a cruel twist of fate, it starts to rain right when you’re lighting up a cigarette, the downpour too heavy for you to shield against and risk it all.
You sigh forlornly. “This is all Invincible’s fault.”
There’s a snort beside you from your fellow semi-released prisoner. “For fucking once, nutjob, you’re dead on.”
You shrug at Tanya and give up on your break from corpse-duty, shoving the pack and lighter back in your jumpsuit. “Told you this broken clock of mine’d line up right eventually.”
Not so eventual, given you transmigrated into Powerplex just a few weeks before the Invincible War. Like, jeez. If you actually were this dude, that’d be a hell of a confirmation to get all biased about. Instead, you were lucky enough to boot up right after he was imprisoned.
Boy, was that a confusing situation to wake into. It’s a real miracle you didn’t give into hysterical giggles when Invincible himself came by with his apology. Holy shit, man, did that come across as extra jarring from this side of the bulletproof glass. Didn’t help when every dream you have is-
Jessica. Gretchen.
The apartment hit. Crumbling. Falling.
Invincible.
Crawling forward, and Jessica, Gretchen-
Jack? Becky?
No no no-
Electricity. Too much. You didn’t realise.
It’s Invincible’s fault. He did this. It’s his fault.
It has to be.
So, yeah. Fun times all around.
Does feel good to be outside again, given you weren’t allowed in the prison yard yet. Even if you’re only here because they need every superhuman body they can get. A few good smacks from Tanya’s titanium arms buffs you up to a level of strength that makes shifting rubble easier, and you’ve been called on for some controlled blasts. Guess trust gets extended when the big wigs are aware you helped take down an evil Invincible after Mohawk got away.
Obviously, so much fucking weaker than the real thing - otherwise he’d never have fried to a crisp like that. But hey, it was cathartic to the part of your brain boiling over with Scott’s memories. The smell fucked you over a few seconds in, yanked you into the sinking horror of seeing your wife and kid-
His wife and kid. Ha.
You’re getting better about dealing with it. Keep making dumb jokes, like blaming Invincible for every minor inconvenience until inmates started half their conversations with you by asking what Invincible has done to fuck up your day this time.
Of course, that cut out once Invincible fucked up everybody’s day, but you figure this one’s not on him. He really did think Angstrom was dead. See, this is why burning the body should be the go-to with villains, or at the very least a full decapitation. Only thing you can trust is smoke and cinders.
Though there’s something to the crackle of electricity coating your palm, the sparks that clash against raindrops but fail to so much as singe your skin. Hell of a crash course in power use, but you’ll make it work. You’re pretty good at that.
