rhea

(Slight Spoilers Ahead!)

His body hits the concrete, cold and unyielding, tearing at his skin. His heart is still, and his chest doesn’t rise, no matter how much Invisigal presses her hands to his chest, tears dripping down into the bright yellow on his sweater. She yells his name, hoarse, shaking, begging him to not leave. To not do this to her, to Robert. “You weren’t supposed to be there-“

He does not answer.

Robert arrives, barely having the second thought to throw his car into park before he’s sprinting towards the pair that lay on the ground, Beef trying to keep up. He all but throws himself to the ground, not registering the hard street that bites and scraps into the flesh of his knees. His hands hover, just for a second, overtop the man who basically raised him. The same man who would run all over town at his beck and call, but not without a impossibly fast rustle to his hair that always had it standing on end.

His brother dad best friend. The one who had gotten him this job, even all those years of silence, of rejected phone calls and brief, awkward encounters. The one who had forgiven him instantly, despite it all. Ready with a smile, a clap on the shoulder and a witty remark with hidden wisdom only earned from a true hero such as Trackstar.

Chase is dead.

The tears are already falling, joining Invisigal’s as they stream down Robert’s face, tasting like salt on his tongue as he shakes Chase’s shoulder, laughing in the way only a broken man can. He insists this must be a joke, a cruel way for Chase to show him the consequences of his actions, crueler than he thought the man was capable. He tells him to stop being mean, to open his damn eyes, to please not leave him please don’t go please don’t go please he’s scared to be alone…

Robert doesn’t know when Visi left. Maybe it was between the shattered pleas and sobbing, but all he knew is that he was fucking alone. With no one to call home, to put a hand in his shoulder and tell him it’s ok, to have someone truly understand him. And maybe he’s selfish for that, but he thought- he thought maybe he finally deserved some solece. Had he not suffered enough? Was anything he ever did enough?

Beef whines at him softly, paws propped up on Chase’s chest, looking between him and Robert with sad, knowing eyes. He nuzzles into Robert’s hands, licking them slowly to provide his owner with any sort of comfort, resting his chin on them next to ease their shaking.

And when Robert finally pulls himself together to call an ambulance, to fight off the next onslaught of tears and yelling and threats as the EMTs loaded him up, and he hears the drone of the news the next day at the Sardine at the loss of a beloved hero of the Brave Brigade, he doesn’t know where to go next, if there IS anywhere to go, but the bottom of his next glass.

The first time he died was before he became Mecha Man. Before his dad died and before he picked up the gauntlet of death that is his familys lineage.

Dear old dad had always had a knack for pushing his son too far. Robert suspects it was part of the way he showed love, preparing him for the hell that was being a powerless hero in a hulking tin-can, with training lessons that stretched for days on end, late night study sessions on up to date supervillains and hero’s alike, and so forth. He didn’t have much time to be a regular kid, but when your dad is the reason the city can sleep peacefully at night, an empty dinner table is the least of your worries.

Robert still remembers the first and only time his dad ever said he was proud of him, however. Always looking to impress and show his dad that he could handle whatever Mecha Man could, he had agreed to another ruthless day of training. It was hot- 100+ degree heat in the midst of summer in California kind of hot. His dad had brought him down to the docks to practice infiltration, something that he struggled with still. Robert wanted to be all brawn and little brain back then, convinced that fists could do all the talking. His dad had laughed and clapped him on the shoulder as he steered them both into the abandoned building, shaking his head.

“That thinking is what gets you killed, Robbie. One day, all you might have is your brain, and it’ll keep you alive a lot longer than your fists can.”

Robert remembered scoffing, rolling his eyes in pre-teen angst with a grin. What world would ever exist that his dad wouldn’t be there to save the day?

Training had commenced as usual, but a little more… intense, than usual. His dad didn’t often train him with the mech present, but today was different he guessed. His main objective was to cross the warehouse without being caught. Maybe that was supposed to be some elements of evasion, but Robert didn’t think he took that part seriously. All he knows is that he was sweating his ass off as he clumsily dodged beam after beam from the other end of the warehouse, dodging and weaving between crates that splintered and exploded when he forgot to hide the brown fluff of his hair when peaking.

He was panting, wiping the sweat that rolled down his forehead into his eyes and vision swimming in an out. He’d have to finish this fast if he didn’t want to pass out from heat exhaustion, or worse. A gleam from the metal stairs on the wall to his right caught his attention, fixed to the roof by steel cables and leading to a cat walk that would get him to the other side of the building much quicker than this game of cat and mouse. With a triumphant smirk, he gathered up some broken pieces of wood on the ground and attempted the most cliche move of throwing it behind coverage further away from him to draw his fathers attention and proceeded to book it to the stairs when he hears the explosion behind him. The dust and noise will give him time to get up and a third of the way down the catwalk he guesses, almost slipping on the second step up.

Robert knows now that his father wasn’t so easily tricked. Once he had reached the top of the stairs and started running, he heard a whiz of energy and heat blast past his face, severing one of the cables that kept the platform suspended. The entire thing groaned and shook, but held fast. That’s all Robert needed to keep gunning it, yelling at his dad to “keep up!”

Then, another blast, cutting a jagged hole in the platform in front of him, activating a sharp pang of fear in his chest as his movements faltered. He rights himself to best he can, urging his body to move faster so he can jump and clear the new obstacle. For a moment, he’s weightless, bracing for his landing, when one foot meets solid steel and the other meets… nothing.

His body jerks back, eyes wide as he realizes he’s falling backwards through the hole, not reacting quick enough to reach a hand out to grab the railing, and plummets. For a moment, the wind rushing past his body feels nice, cool against the heat that clung to him, and then there’s darkness.

And then, he remembers waking up. There’s an ache in his body and a dull throbbing in his skull, but nothing else. He blinks away the sleep and looks around, his childhood bedroom coming into view the more he wakes. Sitting up is easy enough, though his joints creak in complaint, and he spots his dad sitting in a chair off to the side.

The air stills as his dad looks up when he hears shuffling and for a moment, Robert expects another lecture. He already feels the word sorry forming in his throat when his dad suddenly throws his arms around him, hugging him tight. Any voice dies right then and there, scruching his brows tight at the form of physical affection and tentatively pats his dad on the shoulder.

When his dad pulls away, his eyes might be a little misty, but he sports a grin, eyes alight in what Robert can only describe as admiration. It looks a little weird on him, unsettling in a way when someone has just figured out something hidden away from them.

“Robert,” his dad says, hands finding their way to his sons shoulders and giving them a powerful squeeze, “you’ll be unstoppable one day. When the suit becomes yours, you will be what your grandfather and I could never be.” It’s cryptic but it’s praise, and Robert is preening under the sudden attention.

“I am proud of you, son.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if he’s basically just a phoenix. The whole family tradition of dying in that suit, Robert throwing himself into life or death scenarios with little thought to his wellbeing, dying in a blaze of glory, as he says, is all adding up too nicely for my amphetamine riddled conspiracy theories.

Which also makes it so fucking devastating to think that Robert has died before, maybe even numerous times without his knowing, and just keeps going back to it. He thinks he’s lucky for all the times he’s been poisoned, shot, curb stomped, but he’s just dying time and time again.