you can call me Pink if you want

Just wanted to put all this in one place, I'll add more as I go!

The first time, they start getting frisky on Robert’s patio chair and it just collapses under their combined weight. Robert ends up breaking a couple fingers in the process, so they have to go to the hospital to get them set. He tries to insist that he can set them himself and they can keep going, and Chad tells him that he has two choices: he can go to the hospital and get them set, or he can set them himself and Chad will throw up on him. Either way, they’re not having sex tonight. Robert chooses the hospital

The next time, they make it to the bedroom, but there’s a fly that keeps buzzing around Chad’s face, and they spend the next half hour hunting it down. By the time they’ve finally found and killed it, both of them are sweaty and irritable and neither of them are in the mood anymore

Next time, they’re on the bed, completely naked and halfway through some hot foreplay, and they’re both excited and feeling good, and most importantly there are no flies in the room. But then Robert hears Beef throwing up in the other room and has to get up and take care of it, and the mood is ruined because nobody wants to get busy with the smell of dog vomit in the air

One time they get so close—they’re in bed, nobody’s injured, there are no flies, and Beef is asleep in the living room. But then Chad gets too into what Robert’s doing with his newly healed fingers and accidentally sets off the fire alarm, and they can’t turn it off quickly enough, and the whole building gets evacuated

Robert and Chad and Beef end up standing out front with about a hundred other people, all pissed off at being woken at such a late hour. Management calls the fire department, and Robert and Chad just have to stand there—hastily dressed and trying not to look too obviously sheepish—as they all wait for the building to be cleared. When the fire fighters finally give the all clear and everyone goes back inside, Chad is too mortified to do anything but hide his beet red face in the couch cushions while Robert pats his back

After that humiliating experience, Chad takes matters into his own hands. He plans everything out, down to the last detail—the bed is neatly made, the apartment has been searched top to bottom for bugs, Beef is spending the night with Chase, and the batteries are temporarily out of the fire alarm. Nothing is going to ruin this. 

They get through all of the foreplay and prep, and Chad is just starting to relax and enjoy himself as Robert goes to press in… 

And then fucking Malevola tears through reality and right into the fucking room with them. 

Her eyebrows immediately raise at the sight of them naked on the bed. “Whoa, sorry babes!” 

“What the fuck!” Robert barks, throwing the sheet over Chad in an attempt to preserve his modesty. Unfortunately, Chad’s so fucking furious that he almost sets it on fire, and Robert has to quickly take it back. 

“Why the fuck are you here?” Chad bursts. “Jesus fucking Christ!” 

“Hey listen,” Malevola says, holding up her hands, “I get that you’re upset, but neither of you have been answering your phones, and there’s sort of a city-wide emergency? Like, all-hands-on-deck situation?” 

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Robert mutters, rubbing his face. 

Chad’s out of the bed, pacing back and forth butt-ass naked and visibly steaming as he rants. 

“I take the batteries out of the fire alarm, I send the dog away, I spend all fucking day looking for bugs—”

“Sure, man,” Malevola says cluelessly. “Just get suited up, will you? The rest of us are already on the clock.” 

Sonar’s head pops through the rip in reality. “Hey so I checked Flambae’s place and he’s not th—no fucking way, were you guys BONING in here?” 

“Get the fuck out!” Chad snaps. 

“Both of you,” Robert says firmly, massaging his temple. “We’ll be there as soon as possible.” 

Sonar turns back the way he came, but his words are still audible as he immediately starts spreading their business around the workplace. “Dude, I just saw Robert and Flambae’s co—”

His gossip is abruptly cut off as Malevola steps through the portal and closes it behind her. 

Robert sighs, getting up to find his clothes. “Alright, let’s—”

“I swear to fucking god,” Chad seethes, yanking on his suit, “whatever bitchass villain is responsible for this is getting flame broiled, and don’t even try to talk me out of it.” 

“Don’t worry,” Robert says darkly, “I’m in full support. Make sure to really char them for me, will you?” 

“Don’t you dare be fucking sexy right now,” Chad complains. “I’m holding on by a thread, Robert.”

“Hey,” Robert says, his frown softening into a devious smirk, “get this taken care of quickly and maybe we can make it back here before we lose momentum.” 

I believe it's many times, and if so, how would Z-Team/Flambae react to finding out? (That is, if you haven't already answered this, of course)

I’m not sure about the exact number, but it’s definitely high enough that he hasn't bothered to keep count for a while.

I’m thinking that a good amount of his deaths happened early on in his Mecha Man career, when he was still young and inexperienced. When he started to find his footing as a hero and learned how to fight smarter/dirtier, the frequency of his deaths eventually slowed, to the point where it wasn’t uncommon to spend a year or two without any deaths at all. 

But then Shroud broke out of prison, and Robert got increasingly more reckless the more the villain evaded him. His thought process began to shift. Suddenly, he found himself wondering, did it really matter how many times he died if he would always come back anyway? Yeah, it was terrifying and it hurt, but he was no stranger to fear, and what was a little pain compared to closure? 

He got careless, started taking more risks. Unnecessary risks. The deaths started racking up again, quicker than ever. 

There was a particularly dark point in time when he even stopped bothering to hide his power. He didn’t care who found him. The suit was barely holding on, and his inheritance had long run out. He couldn’t picture continuing on as he had been—doing odd jobs, trying to scrape together enough money for cheap fixes that would fall apart in the next fight. He was hard pressed to plan any further into the future than catching Shroud and avenging his father. 

In the end, he got incredibly lucky—despite his carelessness, no one ever found out his secret. When he was blown out of the sky, his power healed the injury that killed him and left all the rest, leaving him in a coma for months. 

And then he got the job offer, and met his team, and started rebuilding his life and his hero career. And aside from that one disastrous bar fight and the event that blew his secret out of the water, he hasn’t died since. 

The Z-Team are various mixtures of horrified and furious when they eventually find out all of this, because it’s immediately pretty obvious that 1, Robert was—is?—passively suicidal, and 2, he spent the better part of a year using death as a form of self-harm. 

Robert tries to argue that the suicidality is not a huge issue, since he can’t die anyway. He also tries to argue that the phrase ‘self-harm’ is too strong a word. 

Obviously, that gets him yelled at by most of them—which he rolls his eyes at—and cried at by Waterboy—which he awkwardly panics over—but what really strikes a chord is the lecture from Coop. She bluntly points out exactly where Robert is wrong and how his apathy negatively affects the team, and her firm delivery of the facts actually leaves him feeling abashed. 

In the end, he agrees to try and work through it with an SDN-appointed therapist, just for their sake. In the meantime, the team move up their scheduled ‘meet up at Robert’s place to huddle around him under the pretense of watching a movie’ by an entire week, and they spend the night eating take out and arguing over what movies to watch and touching Robert as if to reassure themselves he’s still there. He thought they’d mostly gotten over their lingering trauma from his death, but it seems like that might not be the case. 

One person in particular sticks around after everyone else has left. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet the entire night—he didn’t even get in on the argument about whether Grease 2 was better than the first, which Robert knows damn well he has strong opinions on. 

The lights have been slowly turned off throughout the night, and now the only lamp still on is working overtime to brighten the room. Even in the dim light, though, Robert can see how stiffly the other man’s holding himself. 

“You didn’t get out of the way,” Flambae says, his voice low and tense. 

“What?” Robert asks, furrowing his brows. 

“When you said you were Mecha Man,” Flambae bites, as if he can barely force the words out. “When I tried to set you on fire. You didn’t move. All you did was hold your arm out in front of you. As if that would do anything.” 

Robert says nothing, unsure what Flambae’s getting at. 

“Were you really going to let me fucking kill you?” Flambae demands, eyes bright with anger and fear. “You were just planning to let me live with that for the rest of my life?” 

And then he spins on his heel to face away from Robert, the wide line of his shoulders taut as a bowstring as his back heaves with heavy, angry breaths. 

And because Robert graduated with honors from Chase’s school of ‘We joke, we laugh, we suppress our trauma,’ he can’t help saying dryly, “You should be honored—I’ve never died by fire before. You could’ve had my first time.” 

“It’s not fucking funny!” Flambae snaps, swinging back around to face him again. Robert is horrified to see that his eyes are glassy and red.

He clenches his hands at his sides, unsure what to say or do in the face of Flambae's uncharacteristic vulnerability. He can do banter and pep talks all day, but this? This doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s not good at it. 

Flambae must catch on to his discomfort, because he roughly scrubs his hands across his face, clearing away any evidence of the tears. As if that will make Robert forget they were there. 

“I wasn't actually trying to—” Flambae breaks off, the words catching in his throat. His hands are still pressed over most of his face, but Robert can see his chin quiver just slightly as he says, “I didn’t want to.”

“I know,” Robert murmurs. He reaches up and draws Flambae’s hands away from his face, pulling them behind his own back and encouraging the man to hug him. 

Flambae immediately latches on, hunching down to bury his face in Robert’s neck. Robert pats his back, and can’t help but feel that the motion is wrong—too robotic, not human enough. He’s gotten used to Flambae’s clinginess these last several weeks, but it still feels strange to be the one reaching out first. He feels clumsy and incompetent. 

“I got out of the habit of dodging,” he quietly confesses. If he speaks the words into his hair, he can pretend they’ll be lost among the thick black strands before they can reach his ears. “I just wasn’t thinking. It had nothing to do with you.” 

Flambae’s arms tighten around him. The small, shuddering breath he lets out would’ve been inaudible to Robert if they weren’t pressed so close together. 

“Yeah well,” Flambae mutters after a moment, his voice hoarse, “fucking think about me next time, okay, bitch? Stupid fucking asshole.”