Soulmate poly Z Team au idea where the first time you meet you soulmate(s) their initials appear somewhere on your skin and, subsequently, Robert is positively covered with marks. As are all of the Z Team.
(Cut cuz this got really long)
The problem is that it's not always obvious then your marks appear, which was how Robert got incidents like after he first fight Flambae, where later that night while stripping off his Mecha Man suit he found his very first mark on his right hand, the same hand he accidentally cut two fingers off of the fire starter just earlier that day. He reasons with himself that anyone in that crowd of people could've been his soulmate. The fact that the initials are a beautiful burnt orange most definitely doesn't linger in the back of his mind, or make him think of the villain's flames or his eyes.
When he meets Blazer for the first time, he couldn't imagine her actually being with someone like him. So when he gets home and sees those golden yellow letters, written in simple yet soft hand writing and resting in the center of his chest, he reasons that it must've be one of the people at the press conference or the bar. Still doesn't stop him from tracing the golden M longingly. If that incentivizes him to take her up on her job offer, who's to say?
The surprising part was that the very same night two other marks appear on his skin and he honestly couldn't fathom where they came from. The first is a metallic grey, appearing on his left ankle in an elegant hand writing. The second is a much sloppier scrawl, forest green letters on the inside of his left wrist. It's the first time he feels a pang of genuine regret about his marks, because he didn't even have a guess to the owners of the marks. Not yet anyways.
His first day in the office is its own kind of mess, meeting several... strange and difficult people, as well as seeing Chase again for the first time in ages, but in the end he goes home and feeling good about the day. That is until he realizes that he's now got not one or two but four new marks. The first low on his ribs, a light blue that reminded him of the ocean in a way, the letters were a different kind of messy than the last, more nervous than simple sloppy. The second rested on his hip, a faint purple color that he might've missed if he weren't inspecting himself, the letters looking like they were written quickly, as though the owner was in a hurry to avoid getting caught. The third is a deep blue, written with a type of self importance to it and situated on his back, between his shoulder blades. This one he really wouldn't have spotted if he hadn't already been looking for them. The last was red and bold yet somehow also delicate, sitting almost casually on his shoulder. Only it wasn't initials at all, it was some unknown alien text that Robert couldn't possibly place. He could guess the owner of at least two of these new marks, but that didn't mean he liked where this all seemed to be going.
At last he meets the whole team and it's a total shit show. They're sabotaging each other, he has to make threats about firing one of them, he gives them the pep talk they need, but ultimately they turn it around in their second shift and... well, Blazer has a change of heart all of the sudden. Meanwhile Robert tries not to let it slip how relieved he was. Because he couldn't help but to like them all.
And then, yet again, he goes home and discovers another three marks. The man feels like he's losing his mind! A massive brown G on his forearm where Golem collided with him earlier that morning, messy, like it belonged to someone who didn't often write. The next is a deep crimson, looking almost burned into the skin of his inner thigh, again not in any mortal language from what he could tell. Finally, almost insultingly, the last was by no stretch of the imagination a tramp stamp. The colors shimmered in an iridescent kind of way and was written with a type of flashiness that made it impossible to question who it came from, but it was still very much plastered across his lower back. Unquestionably a tramp stamp.
This time he couldn't deny the origins of those marks if he tried. No, he had to just accept it, he was soulmates with a bunch of supervillains... and maybe a few heroes as well? He debates with himself on whether or not he should even talk to them about it, surely they wouldn't be into him anyways, right?
Meanwhile the Z Team all get together and are freaking out! Because in the span of, like, four days most of them had found a new set of marks. Faded blue and in a variety of places on them but all of them the same "RRIII" that Flambae had found on himself years ago, sometime after his first fight with Mecha Man. They don't make the connection that Robert is Mecha Man fortunately, but they did make the connection he's very much their soulmate as well.
And suddenly it's game on as they all begin to plan how they're going to court their handsome new dispatcher. They may, or may not, involve Blazer in this planning? They've definitely been trying to pull her to the dark side, and by dark side I of course mean directly into the polycule. And Robert is officially their next target.
