Chapter Text
Robert was seventeen when he realized what it meant to be a hero.
He watched with a blank face as they lowered his dad's casket into the damp soil. It was almost funny, how it rained the day of his funeral. Everyone carried black umbrellas as they gathered around the grave site. There weren't many people there. The only ones who really knew his dad were the Brave Brigade. It felt so cliché. Robert almost felt like he was in a movie, could almost pretend as if it wasn't real, that his dad wasn't really gone. He turned when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. Chase peered down at him, a look of sorrow on his face.
"You're going to catch a cold out here."
Robert didn't respond, just looked at the patch of dirt which his dad resided under. He hadn't even realized how long he had been standing there. Long enough for them to finish burying him, apparently. He heard Chase sigh before he walked away, the wet grass squelching under his dress shoes.
They had picked the spot next to Grandpa Bobby. It was fitting, that they were together. His grandpa's tombstone was well-kept. They had placed new flowers on his grave after placing some on his dad's. His eyes traced the single line next to his grandpa's name. He was the first, the original Mecha Man. An ordinary person who decided he could be a hero. Grandpa Bobby was good at it, too. They held parades in his honor whenever he pulled a particularly impressive feat. When he was buried in rubble before Robert was even born, they held vigils instead. He wasn't even fifty.
He looked back at his dad's tombstone. For obvious reasons, it was nearly identical, save for an additional line at the end of his name, and, of course, the dates. Shot in the chest and left to bleed by someone he thought he could trust, someone Robert thought he could trust. He never even made it to forty.
Robert turned his head towards the empty space to the right of his father's grave. There was enough room for another grave, for his grave. He could imagine it already. Here Lies Robert Robertson III, Beloved Father and Son. It would only be fitting for him to follow the family tradition. Then his son would take over, then his son after that. Robert Robertson V would likely be born after his death. Though, if he really follows tradition, there likely won't be a fifth. He would die before he was thirty, then his son before twenty. No one will know who they were or what they did. Mecha Man is mourned, not Robert Robertson. Even he couldn't mourn his father. He knew Mecha Man better.
That's what it meant to be a hero. You fight for as long as you can, save as much people as possible, and then you die. Your name will never be known by anything other than the stone it's carved into, and that, too, will eventually fade. The public will mourn, and then a new hero will come along to take your place.
Robert was seventeen when he decided he would never be a hero.