#robrenegade

Sure didn’t help them when it came to Omni-Man, haha. See, this is why they should’ve made some proper headway on like, making you care and shit. Could’ve totally done…something?

Let’s be real; any interference from the human element most likely would’ve catapulted the lot of you into a much worse ending. At least on the current course, you know Earth makes it through with some dings and bruises (and a hell of a chunk taken out of the population), and it works out relatively alright.

For the next couple hundred years, anyway; can’t remember if the Immortal situation was a closed loop style of time travel, or if it’s a diverting path. Fucking time travel. You love it as a plot, sure, but goddamn writers better than Invincible’s have fallen into the trap of mucking up their own rules.

Best not to worry about. You’ll be long dead by them, anyway. In fact, you should’ve been dead a few weeks back when you made the dumbass decision to join a cape fight.

Yeah, Cecil’s the one who sent you out there. But it was your choice to get your ass to where Rex was fighting. Not the Teen Team’s base like you expected; nah, in all the chaos of the wildcard, the outskirts of an already shattered city played host to a cluster formed of the evil Invincibles remaining. Because their numbers had been very quickly cut down, one more dead every time you listened in on comms.

Christ. Didn’t see this coming, did you.

You had a plan for the Teen Team base scenario. You had fuckall for this. Then, it turned out not to matter at all, and the irrelevance was such a fucking relief.

But it’s been weeks, and the mystery of the century hasn’t headed back home. He’s moved in with Debbie Grayson, and by all reports, they’re getting along just swell. You’ve maybe snuck into surveillance a bunch, bribed the agents on duty with whatever works on them (hey, it’d be real lame to spend a decade as a GDA hostage and not make some dubious connections), and consistently wished you could get close so you could get a better sense of what the fuck is going on with this dude.

The universe has a sense of humour, because you’re in the field on cleanup duty the same day that Conquest drops in, and the Renegade Invincible decides to lend a hand.

You shove a chunk of rubble aside, grunting as your leg tries to decide if it’s gonna stay human or not. Huzzah, it stays flesh and blood, and aches like a bitch from the mild crushing.

You were pretty far from the initial impact zone, and you feel the reverberates of a battle cut short. Taste the blood which could’ve been spilt, and mourn the lack for a few shivering moments of almosts.

Then you get up, remove your helmet when the broken face guard proves a liability, and move towards the first screaming civilian you hear.

Comms remaining up means you just need to follow orders. Donald’s flicker of relief when you confirm your status, his apology for not releasing the collar’s restrictions, your “Don’t sweat it, dep,” as you bend a piece of rebar so a kid can be lifted from the wreckage, down a leg but up a lifetime of trauma.

Not your first disaster zone, and you’re joined by another squad and a few heroes within minutes. Yeah, it’s shittier because the area was already unstable and still had its fair share of rotting, splattered, sighing agony of corpses to discover, but there weren’t too many fresh bodies around, compared to a city’s worth.

A work crew was trying to salvage what they could of the electrical grid, and you push aside a digger now to get to the hole a bunch fell into. You’re already in a crater, concrete shifting in gentle warning above your head. Maybe should’ve grabbed a fresh helmet, but it isn’t like you can’t take a dent or two. Might do you good, ha.

Something in the pile-up gives in when you’re helping the fourth dusty, blood-stained worker out. You shove her away from the crunch-zone and settle in for your second collateral stomping of the day.

Instead, someone shields you from the collapse, and you blink at a t-shirt with Seance Dog front and centre. The colours are faded, and the design is more like the comic than the cartoon.

That limits the options on who this is, huh.

“Thanks for the save, hotshot,” you say as you look up at an almost-familiar face.

He does look a lot like the Mark Grayson of this world. Just younger, pushing late teens with a softer jawline and less muscles bulking him up compared to Earth’s prime defence. Sure didn’t make a difference when this twink went up against every other version of himself.

The blue eyes are distinct, but the shape is all Debbie Grayson, and-

They’re currently staring at you like you’re the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen.

“It’s really you,” he whispers while holding up the groaning ceiling of concrete and metal without a sweat, and the soulmark burns into your rib.

Oh.

Well, damn. You might get the chance to figure out his deal after all.

…Wait, did you just tattoo ‘hotshot’ onto his chest? Whoops. If he decides to let the rubble drop on you now, you figure it’s pretty justified.

He doesn’t.

He’s just…staring, and you’d stumbled back against a tilted slab when the area got unstable, so you’re just a bit trapped. Left to stare back at him, notice the total lack of breathing or blinking, as frozen as any statue if it weren’t for how his gaze skates over your features. Unable to settle, frantic but uncertain, and you can’t-

He’s different. You can feel that much, despite how numb you are. He’s as foreign an element in this world as you, and it chimes at some deep instinct you didn’t know you had.

You’re me, I’m you, we’re us. We could be.

The soulbond is separate. That, you feel as the chain it is, much more permanent than then collar around your neck. It makes his closeness the most natural thing in the world, and the remaining space between you an offence.

Seconds, and it’s already breaking your fractured mind further, leaving you to bleed into him - and him into you.

“It’s me,” you confirm, and when you cup his cheek he makes this sound, a broken whimper you adore in an instant.

His eyes close and his lips tremble but he holds so, so still. The jolt of fascination is the vibrant heat of spotlights on a stage left empty for too long.

In his two-shot it's really him being a little regressed mentally, thanks to seeing his mom again (in a way), but in a potential soulmate AU hmmm I can see him clinging onto the idea but at the same time thinking he's completely undeserving of a soulmate.

Finding it reassuring that the mark doesn't fade even after all those years go by, so he could still meet them one day, but won't they hate him for what he's done? How could he ever, ever make up for everything - enough that they'd even possibly look at him without disgust and fear and hate?

It'd probably work best if his deal with Angstrom is similar to Omni's - the promise of being told who his soulmate is. And he knows it's a long-shot, and almost definitely a trick, but what does he have to lose? Dad will just come after him if he takes too long anyway.

Earth will be fine without him for a while, and this could be his one chance (after Cassandra failed to locate his soulmate, and the Curse of Orion didn't work either, and he asked Luci but got laughed at, and he's tried other dimensions but none of them led anywhere with-)

I'm not sure what his soulmark would be, but if Robin speaks first, his mind would go completely blank when it's a match.

"I didn't exactly have a lot of options," he says, shrugging one shoulder. The other is playing chinrest as you peer at him, the both of you sprawled out on his bed after he proved he definitely isn't a virgin now, and hasn't been for a long-ass time.

"I looked thirteen. At best. And I was already in Hell, so when the Evil Sword made me like, ten times more horny, I figured...Why not take Luci up on the creepy offers?"

"Huh." Your fingers trail back and forth across an old scar that cuts down the middle of his chest, like something cracked his ribcage and ripped him open. "Satan's a shotacon. Was he at least a good lay?"

"Not as good as you," he says loyally, but cracks a grin when you send him an amused quit it you dork look. "Yeah, he's alright. And I got a full immunity to heat out of it, so that's come in handy. Trying to fight a possessed sun is really tough when you can catch on fire, and melt and stuff."

"Melting does sound inconvenient to combat," you agree. "Okay, but you've gotta tell me more about how that went down. Both events. Your life is so fucking insane, Mark."

"Don't I know it," he says, but launches into the tale of a gate to Hell opening up in Florida (again, apparently it's a regular thing) and him getting sucked in when he was dealing with a villain of the week back in his hero years.