Robert, you pathetic wet sack of a man

Sonar himself is no stranger to anxiety/panic attacks. It's very common for cocaine to make people anxious-

But I digress.

Today had started off fine. It truly did! No oversleeping, made it on time to work, minimal fighting with the rest of Z-Team and first shift went great!

But now? You're not entirely sure what's wrong. You've felt off since getting back from lunch. That familiar pressure is sitting in your chest again. You're resting between calls at the moment so you make a quick run to the locker room to splash cold water on your face and take your anxiety meds.

You go to your locker where your bag resides, and begin digging through it, somehow the bottle fell to the very bottom of your bag. Which is fine, you say to yourself it's not fine.

Your hands are trembling by the time you get the bottle open, shaking the bottle onto your palm, noting comes out.

Nothing comes out...?

Nothing fucking comes out?!

Tossing the bottle away, you frantically dig through your bag to see if you have any back ups. You don't.

Slamming the locker shut, you turn one of the showers on, cold water sprays all over your palms. You splash your face a few times. Somehow your anxiety is worse than it was before.

Your breath comes out in short, aggressive gasps. The pressure in your chest is worse, there's that sinking feeling in your stomach and everything feels like too much and too crowded.

Brain acting on fight or flight now, it's practically screaming 'Out! Get out! Have to get out now!'

Running back upstairs you rush past everyone walking into the building and bee line it for your car at the far end of the parking lot. Yanking the drivers side door open you quickly get in and slam the door shut.

Your brain spirals further, and your panic attack increases in intensity. Your breathing is choked gasp, and hiccuping. Tears pouring down your face.

Out of the corner of your eye you see something move, and hear a quiet "Yo." Whipping your head in the direction of the passenger seat, you see Sonar and audibly yelp and accidentally slam your head into the window behind you.

"Woah woah woah, hey! It's just me! It's just Victor! Chill out!"

You pant, still crying and hiccuping. You lean back into your seat, and feel Sonar quietly lay his head on your shoulder, and you, like you've done dozens of times, reach your hand up and begin petting Sonar's fur. You two stay that way for a while until you've calmed down to mere sniffling.

The sounds coming from you and Robert are down right filthy. You feel him lean over, his chest pressing agaisnt your back, gently holding your neck as he murmurs "Where do you want me to cum?"

You feel yourself clench around Robert, your whines and pleas are muffled a bit by the pillow you have your face pressed into. "Inside! Want you to come inside! Please!"

It's been four months. Four months and some odd days since Robert was blown up and put into a medically induced coma.

You tried to visit Robert a few days after he was admitted, but that old hag at the front desk trespassed you off the property-

So you resorted to visiting him via climbing through his hospital room window. The visit were sporadic, and often short. But you made it a point to bring beef sometimes, and when you couldn't bring him, you'd update Robert about beef, even if he couldn't hear or respond to you.

You heard somewhere once that coma patients could sometimes hear when people talked to them.

You don't know if that's true or not, you just hope his subconscious picks up on the fact he's not alone all the time. It's been about a week since the last visit, you plan to visit again either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Frustrated, you chuck the wrench you were using to the other side of your hideout. The intention was for it to hit the ground, but you completely over shoot and it falls over the ledge into the void below the metal grate platform you've got the bench on.

That's a problem for future you. For now, you're gonna check your phone and see if anyone's sent you any new jobs. Turning your phone on you see a text message, sent twenty minutes ago. Opening it, you see it's from your most reliable info broker.

2 New Messages from: Constant Francis 5:10 pm

Hey, you're gonna wanna stop

what you're doing and see this

[Attachment 1 link]

Opening the link, it takes you to a clip of a tonight's news segment. Starting off with that video from a few months ago, the one of the girl doing a tiktok dance for a good bit before you see Mecha Man fall out of the sky, crashing and exploding off camera.

You prop your phone up against the wall of your work bench, and scoot the chair you're sitting in closer. Folding your arms on the bench, you lay your head on them and watch as the news anchor begins speaking.

"It was just over four months ago, that images like this were recorded across the Southland. showing what many thought to be..

The death of Mecha Man... again."

They cut away from the news anchor and begin showing pictures of Mecha Man Prime and Astral.

For nearly fifty years a Mecha Man has protected Los Angeles. Built by an ordinary civilian with no superpowers. This first suit was dubbed by some fans as Mecha Man ‘Prime.’ Three generations of pilot, their identities kept secret, have given everything to protect this community...

...including their lives. After the tragic passing of Prime, the next Mecha Man, known as ‘Astral’, teamed up with the star studded superhero group known as the Brave Brigade, leading to an unprecedented period of peace in the Southland.

After years of loyal service, tragedy struck again when Shroud, a former Brave Brigade member turned villain, killed the pilot of Mecha Man in cold blood. But yet again, as hope was lost, a third generation of Mecha Man emerged. A Mecha Man for the modern era. --a bulwark against organized crime in the greater Los Angeles area, until, today.

Earlier today, Mecha Man broke his silence and addressed the media.

You see as it cuts to Robert, walking up to the podium with multiple mics attached, with a cobalt blue curtain behind him. Donned in his Mecha Man costume.

His right arm is in a sling, he looks… smaller… thinner than you remember.

Seeing him for brief moments in the dark, covered in tubes, wires and blankets didn't help either.

"There's been some speculation about my health and the state of the Mecha Man suit, and I’m here to put that speculation to rest. The suit has been damaged beyond my ability to repair, so I will be stepping back from superhero work... effective immediately."

You sigh as Reporters begin rapid fire asking questions. Robert looks and exhausted, and as you correctly assumed-

The media doesn't give a fuck, and is about to eat him alive.

"Does this mean you're finished?"

"Can you repair your suit?"

"What's next for Mecha Man?"

"Does this mean your career is over?"

"How badly were you hurt?"

You can see and somehow hear the obscene amount of camera shutters going off, just one after the other and overlapping in some cases

'Reaaallllllyyy hope no one with epilepsy is watching or in that crowd. Someone's gonna have a real bad time if they are.' Is a thought that crosses your mind before Robert begins speaking.

"One at a time please."

"Ashley Rhiness. San Pedro Daily. Do you have anything to say to your fans? The public outpouring. The vigils. A lot of them were worried you wouldn’t wake up."

"I suppose I want them to know I did my best. I worked as long as I could as hard as I could and... that's all anyone can do. Next question."

" Chris Stratton. Torrance Tribune. Does this mean you're retiring as Mecha Man? Word on the street is you’re donezo."

Your brows furrow in confusion, but you and Robert seem to have the same question.

"Are you a hundred years old? Why’re you talking like that?"

Off camera Chris pushes, "Answer the question, buddy boy. Are you retiring? My readers need the skinny and I aim to deliver. Let’s get it on the record."

"Well, I don't have a suit, and I don't have any superpowers so, yeah, short of a miracle... pretty much."

"Is pretty much the same as definitively?"

"Pretty much is the same as pretty much, buddy boy. Alright, just one more, please. I gotta get back to uh, just, just one more. Preferably someone from this century."

"Charles Kingsley. South Bay Signal. So, Shroud kills your father, goes to jail fifteen years, breaks out and immediately dupes you into a trap where he destroys the Mecha Man suit and puts you in a coma for months..."

"I didn’t hear a question in there."

"Two parter. First, why didn’t Shroud kill you? You haven’t been conscious for months. It’d be easy money taking you out."

"Ok, Shroud wanted the Astral Pulse and Mecha Man gone. He got both. I’m not sure I mattered much."

You scoff and roll your eyes, 'You mattered moron, if he wanted to just take the astral pulse, he would have. Shroud trying to kill you was his attempt at insuring the astral pulse would stay in his possession.'

"Right. You’re unimportant. Which leads me to my next question. Most heroes avenge their family. You, did the opposite. You killed their legacy. How disappointed would your dad be if he were here right now? Your father, your grandfather, they must be rolling over in their graves."

You watch as Robert walks away from the podium and towards the reporter. 'What is he about to do??' When Robert walks up to the reporter, he stops for a moment before reeling his head back and head butting the reporter, with such force it knocks him to the floor.

Robert then begins kicking and stomping Charles, and you begin hysterically laughing, "He goes off script for barely ten seconds and immediately starts beating that guys ass! Fuck! Gotta buy him a round of drinks for that!" The scene only lasts a few more seconds before the news anchor transitions the reporter with a bloodied nose, mics shoved in his face talking to the local news station.

"Up Next…"

"Do I want to sue? Of course? But there’s two issues there. He clearly has nothing left and... he was wearing a mask, so..."

One of the reporters ask, "How do you feel about the crowd seemingly encouraging him?"

"It did explain why after the first three or four minutes no one was stepping in, yes. I was disappointed with the chanting."

The video cuts back to the news anchor, "Up next, is Mecha Man a Mecha quitter?"

The clip of the broadcast ends, and you just sit and stare blankly at your phone screen for a moment, "That was…. the dumbest and most cheesey line I have ever had the un-fucking-fortunance of hearing, good fucking god the people they've got writing for that news room suck!" Exiting out of the video, you look to see when it was sent, just ten minutes after the 4 o'clock news ended. "Fuck, how did I miss that?"

You open the messaging app, and furiously text Constant

Constant Francis 5:10 pm

Hey, you're gonna wanna stop

what you're doing and see this

[Attachment 1 link]

Why didn't you fucking call me

when I didn't immediately look

at the text, you stupid fuck?

Received 10:00 pm

dont call me stupid fuck

Received 10:01

im not responible 4 ur lack of response

u dont pay me enough for that

Received 10:02

Tossing your phone back on the work bench, and drag your palms down your face in frustration. You let out a long sigh, lean back, and fall directly onto the grated floor with a grunt. 'Forgot that stool doesn't have a back rest… oopsie…' Picking yourself up, grabbing your phone, jacket and apartment keys before climbing up the tube ladder that leads out of your base and into an abandoned radio tower. Crawling and up out the hatch, you quickly close it and head home, excited to see Beef.

At that thought you stop, 'Fuck! I forgot about putting Beef back before Robert wakes up! Fucking fuck fuck fuck FUUUUCK!!!' That realization has you sprinting at an inhumane speed to hopefully get back to your apartment before Robert gets back to his and realizes Beef is gone.

Making it back to your apartment, you quickly run in grabbing Beef before heading across the hall to Robert's apartment. Taking a deep breath, you will your brain and body to calm down, and try to listen and see if you can feel anyone's energy or emotions in Robert's apartment. Luckily for you, you don't feel anything. Sighing in relief, you pick the lock and deposit Beef inside. Summoning a pen and a notepad, you begin writing a note

Dear Robert,

I took care of Beef while you were comatose the last 4 months

He is still just as joyfully rotund and fat as he was before

xoxo - your favorite neighbor

p.s yes I did pick the lock to get into your place but it was for a good cause

Tearing the note off the note pad, you set it down on the kitchen counter and walk out, shutting the door behind you. Using your threads, they weave from your finger tips and wedge themselves through the small gap between the door and the frame, feeling around on the other side of door for the lock. Finding it, you turn the lock over, locking the door. Retracting your threads back into your fingers, and fish around your jacket pocket for your keys. Finding them, you unlock your door and go inside for the night.

Taking off your jacket you toss it and your keys onto the counter before turning around locking your own door.

Flopping onto your couch, you lay on your stomach and stretch. Grabbing a throw pillow you tuck it under your head and yawn.

You don't remember falling asleep, but that doesn't really matter seeing as someone's knocking at your door like they're a cop. "Ugh coming, coming!" Pushing yourself up onto your knees, you wipe the sleep from your as the banging on your continues.

Springing off your couch, you stumble in attempt to get to the door faster, "For fucks sake quit fucking knocking I'm coming!" Unlocking the door and ripping it open to see Robert, without his mask for once- looking disheveled with Beef and the note you left tucked under one arm, and his other raised with his fist still curled from knocking.

"I thought I fucking told you to stop breaking into my apartment"

"I told you it was for a good cause! What was I supposed to do? Ask the landlord for a copy of your key?!" Robert looks at you with a deadpan and nods.

"You and I both know he wouldn't have forked it over. Couldn't even get the hag at the hospital to do it." You huff and lean against your door frame with your arms crossed.

A brief look of shock flashes across Robert's face, before he gets that knowing smile on his face, "I thought you were crafty? You and I both know- if you had truly wanted that key, you would've found a way to get it."

You give Robert a deadpan look of your own, arms crossed and tapping your foot. "I am crafty! Which is precisely how and why I broke into your apartment! If you don't want anyone breaking into it, maybe Mecha Man should have better security and locks on his shit."

Robert's eyes narrow, and the hand that was raised shoots forward to grab at your face, palm pressed flat against your mouth, "Shut the fuck up! I thought I told you to be quiet about that?" You grunt as the force he grabs you with makes you stumble back a bit. Glaring at Robert, you open your mouth and deliberately lick a wide stripe across his palm, and giggle as Robert rips his hand away, shaking it and rubbing it against his jacket to get your saliva off.

Robert stares at you in disgust and horror, still wiping his hand. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Your giggles become hysterical, and it takes you quite a few moments to calm down. Wiping a tear from your eye and take a breath to steady yourself again. "What you should be asking is, what isn't wrong with me? Also, why are you bitching about me licking you, you didn't seem to mind it that one time-"

Robert's face turns bright red, and you watch as it creeps up to his ears and down his neck, “I- You-! We’re not talking about that right now. My point still stands, quit breaking into my apartment.”

You frown in an over exaggerated manner, “But it’s so fun! Do you not like seeing me, Bluey?” Robert sighs, “Thought I told you to stop calling me that as well…” Giggling, you smirk at him with a wink, “You did, but I don’t really give a shit about that.” You pause, and really look at Robert, noticing a he looks rough, well more rough than you would expect someone who just got out of a coma to look like. “You look like shit… Want a drink?”

Robert deadpans at you, clearly sick of your shit tonight. “Gee thanks… and yeah, could use a drink. I should be a more responsible adult and decline given I had some earlier…” Robert sighs, “But today's been a shit show…”

“Mhm, thought so.” Nodding you push yourself off the door frame, and walk into your kitchen. Pointing at a stool, you gesture for Robert to sit, he does. But not before setting Beef down. Beef hops up on your couch and makes himself comfortable. Behind you, you hear a bar stool scraping across the carpet, and the stool creak as Robert sits down.

A couple of threads extend from your neck, waving around in the air aimlessly for a moment before quickly moving to the door to shut it. As you grab two glasses, the threads grab a bottle of bourbon and set it on the counter where Robert is sitting.

Plopping yourself next to Robert, you set the glasses down and pour your guys drinks. “Soooooo you gonna tell me how and why you got your ass beat barely a few days out of a coma?” You finish pouring the drinks, you slide one over to Robert and take a sip of yours, eyes raking over Robert as he takes a few sips of his drink, watching his Adams apple bob as he swallows, and he swivels the stool to be facing you, knees knocking together.

“These guys, they were stealing TV’s. Shattered the glass of the display I was watching. Told them I was Mecha Man, they didn’t believe me.” Robert gestures at himself, “Told them it didn’t matter, I was enough to deal with a bunch pack of fuckin' skittles idiots like them.”

Giggling as you take another swing of your bourbon, and peer at Robert over the glass. “I’m going to assume they didn’t take that comment too kindly?” Robert downs the rest of his drink, “Not at all, got a few hits in before the rest of them jumped into… well, jump me.”

“Oh shit, how many were there?”

“About five of them.”

“Ya know, for someone who just got jumped by a bunch of skittles, you don’t look that bad.”

“I can thank Blonde Blazer for that, she saved my ass and then offered me a position at SDN.”

You set your drink down, and look at Robert in shock. “Are you gonna take it? I mean- Holy shit, congrats! I’ve heard good things about people that work at SDN, what’re they gonna have you do?”

Robert swivels back so he’s facing the counter again, folding his arms and resting his head on them, “They want me to mentor and dispatch some rookie heroes, and in exchange they’ll fix the suit. Pay for it and everything.”

Resting your arms on the counter, you rest your head in your palms, “And yet, you sound horribly depressed about it.” Beef sneezes behind you two, and Robert sighs, wiping a hand across his face. “The astral pulse is gone. I spent four days taking that suit apart, and never found it.”

“And the suit runs entirely on the pulse, right?”

“Right, I have the schematics for everything but the astral pulse.”

“Which is a massive fucking problem, Bobert.”

“Yep, sure is Reaper.”

You flick Robert’s forehead and grab the bottle of bourbon, topping off your glass, you hold it over Robert’s and he nods. Filling up his glass, you continue as you set the bottle down. “So what’re you gonna do about it? Got any leads on it?”

Sitting up, Robert grabs his glass, drinking half of it in one go. “Yeah, I’ve got a few. Gonna follow those until they run out and then…”

“Finally join SDN? Frankly, I think you should join now but-” You down your drink in one go before continuing, “I’m not the boss of you. Do what you will, I’ll see if any of my guys have heard anything, and let you know if they have. Mkay Bobby boy?”

Robert scoffs, “Yeah yeah, whatever you say… I’m too drunk to think of an annoying nickname for you right now.” Robert stands up, albeit bit wobbly stretches and then grabs Beef. “Thanks for the drinks, but I should get going…”

Opening the door for Robert, watching him walk out into the hall, you lean on your door frame again, arms crossed. “To get looking for the astral pulse, I get it, and you’re welcome. Been a while since we last talked. Have a goodnight, Bluey~.”

Robert opens his door, depositing Beef inside before scoffing. “Goodnight to you too, neighbor from hell.”

“That was fucking awful.”

“Yeah, I know. I regretted it as soon as I said it. Night.” Robert goes inside, and you wait to hear the lock click before going back inside your own apartment. Closing and locking the door, you check your phone.

Creep 1:07 am

Got a lead on your guy

where do you wanna meet?

You 1:08 am

the usual time and place

You 1:08 am

is it good?

Creep 1:10 am

Only the best for The Reaper

Turning your phone off, you flop back on the couch. “Fucking hell.” Dragging your nails down your face with a hiss. “What a bunch of bullshit… At least Shroud doesn’t have the astral pulse, for now…”

Tugging a blanket off the back of your couch, you cover yourself up and sigh. Martzi, your orange cat hops up on the couch and lays on your stomach, purring. You pet him a few times before closing your eyes with the intent to sleep this time.

Hunting down the astral pulse without alerting Shroud, or Red Ring is going to be a pain in the ass. But-

Self aware Robert! who initially doesn't realize he's in a game

it takes you playing the game for the third time for him to realize whats been going on. he could tell he was in a loop of sorts, but figured a villain had done it to fuck with him.

he can see you through his monitor when he's dispatching, other times there's just you're face in square floating around the world (think like a lets play face cam)

after that, he starts paying a lot more attention to you

what you say, what you quote, your reactions.

Your game has been acting weird lately.

It started off with certain cut-scenes lasting a few seconds longer than they were supposed to. You had chalked it up to lag. Your computer wasn't the best, but it's not bad. Certainly not bad enough for it to lag this often.

your first couple playthroughs went smoothly, and perhaps playing the game for a fourth time is a bit much, but in your defense- It's a good game!

This most recent one however.. No matter what you choose, it won't let you go through the Blonde Blazer or the Invisgal route. Hell, when episode 4 started. it looked like the fabric of reality was tearing at the seams, completely skipping the sex scene and starting at the Robert being pranked scene.

Tried to go to dinner with blonde blazer? same thing. this time you rebooted the game and tried to choose that option and the game just crashed. Your computer fucking reset itself too.

you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game, it was fine for a while and then everything started back up again. Eventually the game stopped letting you make choices. Now it just run on a constant loop that auto runs through the choices. picking the same options, so you get the same ending every time.

No Romance: Kept Romance Out of the Workplace

And you don't know why. You've sent so many crash reports, and according to the dev team, everything looks fine on their end.

You can't even turn off the monitor its been playing on, every time you do it just turns itself back on, and the last time you tried to unplug it, you got shocked by your outlet.

It took some time, but you ended up buying a new monitor. You like to stream to your friends from time to time, and doing that with one monitor is difficult.

You just let the cursed Dispatch monitor do its thing now. The one time you made a joke to your friend about destroying it, you swear up and down that you heard Robert yell "NO!"

and immediately after the game crashed, and your monitor was dead for like 4 hours.

Robert is at his wits end with you. Do you not realize what he's trying to convey here?

It took him ages to figure out how to hack into the actual game files and be able to over ride your decisions.

He doesn't understand why you're upset about your monitor being stuck on Dispatch. He could see and hear you talking to your friends on Discord about him, how 'down bad' you were for him (he had to look up what that meant and was happy to find it meant something good in-regards to him)

Could hear you giggling, and fawning over him. Watched you blush over him being shirtless multiple times. "No man should have a voice like that." was a comment he heard once, and heard you try (and fail) to defend yourself to your friends. Or his favorite comment thus far, "Now say that again, but a little lower, breathy and right into my ear."

You have to feel something towards him, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have replayed the game so much.

So why is it that when Robert makes the choices for you, so you never get any of the romance scenes or endings, it upsets you? You played the game for him, didn't you??

He has the game playing on a constant loop with the no romance endings to show you he's not interested in Visi or Blazer. Why can't you understand that?

Hearing you even joke about destroying the monitor sent him into a massive, multi-day-long spiral. That initial panic was so bad, it for a time, short circuited the monitor. Scared the hell out of Robert hours later when he finally came out of his spiral only to find the monitor wasn't working. It took him four fucking days to get it up and running again.

After that little incident, Robert was much better about keeping his emotions in check. He can't risk losing you for that long again.

It's been a few days since the monitor has come back on, and ever since then, it's felt like someones been watching you.

The game is still acting up. you had kinda hoped the monitor shorting out would've fixed it, but alas. A few times you swear you've made direct eye contact with Robert, and every time you do, his face tinges pink.

The first few times, you could call it a coincidence. Now? It's almost a daily occurrence, sometimes multiple times a day! You were telling your friends about it when it first started happening, and they jokingly advised you to come out topless or in a towel. Just to see if Robert would react.

You had forgotten about that little tid bit until you stepped out of the shower today, wrapped in a towel, you realize you'd forgotten to grab clothes to change into. Walking out of your bathroom and into your bedroom, you look over at the monitor and see the game's running like usual. It's at episode two when Robert is walking out of SDN with Blazer.

Remembering your friends playful advice from the other day, you decide to follow it. Walking over to your desk, you lean down so you're eye level with the monitor. Your towel moves with you, as it does it uncovers more of the tops of your legs.

And you swear to god you see Robert’s face turn bright red.

You have to be doing this on purpose, for only him to see, right?

That’s why you’re looking directly at Robert with your towel barely hanging on?

It has to be, why else would you do it?

Robert watches in real time as you realize he is in fact blushing, the look of shock that crosses your face, and how flustered you become.

He watches you quickly walk away, and hears you muttering something he couldn’t quite catch.