Chapter Text
It started with a door.
He hadn’t seen his dad in a few days, only in wisps when the man went upstairs for a prepackaged lunch, and even then, he couldn’t go into the kitchen with him in such a mood. He got like this at times, when the suit was particularly wrecked after a rescue operation. Water had gotten into parts it shouldn’t have this time, when he went to help a flooded neighborhood after a family argument turned into a villain rampage.
Chase had picked up the slack, as always. It was the weekend, finally, and he was independent enough to be left to his own upstairs. It was late, far later than he was meant to be up. Robert had spent hours of the afternoon just staring at the basement door. Maybe if he looked long enough, it would disappear, as would that fucking robot. His dad had gone to bed an hour ago, unable to stay up for a third night in a row. Robert pretended to sleep, but his skin was buzzing too much actually to do so.
He went back to the door.
It felt like it was staring back at him, like it was taunting him. That door, that basement, had more time with that man than he ever had or ever would.
He wasn't allowed down there, not because of any safety concerns, but because Robbie didn't want him to fuck up the suit or mess with his equipment. A child did not belong in such an important room, especially after the ear incident a few months ago. Robert tensed, took a deep breath, and opened the door. It was dark, though the staircase had a dim base light on for basic safety. Robert started his descent, closing the door behind him in case his dad got up for any reason. He was careful, one step at a time, in the cramped, dark space. The wood cracked underneath his feet once he made it halfway, and down he went as a plank broke, rotten through. He barely realized what was happening before he felt blaring pain and heard a nauseating wet crack, and then the world went dark.
He opened his eyes to a void, pitch-black and ice-cold. He felt dripping down his head, and when he reached up to touch it, his hand was wet and red. A splitting headache gripped him, and yet all he could think was a despairing “oh.”
Just his luck, he laughed, dying at nine to a staircase. He just wanted his dad, just an ounce of the attention that stupid suit got every day.
He got up, and upon looking forward, found the basement door in front of him again. It really was mocking him. he went towards it, the splitting headache only feeding his ever-present anger, and kicked it. Nine-year-olds aren't very strong, and it hurt him more than he could ever hurt it. Nonetheless, he took his anger out on it.
Pain is meaningless to the dead, no matter how real it may feel, right?
He fell to the floor, if there possibly was one in the void. His whole body ached, and spikes of pain raced up his leg to his spine from his meltdown. He tried to breathe, keeping tears at bay because Robertsons are strong men, and they don't cry goddammit.
He sits with himself for what feels like hours, feeding into his own pity party. What would his dad think of him? What would Chase do? He’d probably care a hell of a lot more than his father ever would. Suddenly, the handle on the door twists, and it creaks open. Robert looks up, and-
He wakes up on the concrete floor of the basement, soaking up the puddle of blood underneath him. The headache is still there, to spite him. He collects himself, taking in what just happened as he sits up.
Oh.
Oh fuck he needs to clean this up before his dad sees this.
(He doesn't think about the fact that he just met Death, or what that possibly means for him. The scar is in his hairline, so at least he can hide it. He ignored the leg pain, too.)
He decides to keep this “ability” of his to himself because the selfish creature in his stomach likes the idea of something that's just his. His dad would never believe such a thing anyway.
He becomes the only living Robertson at eleven, as his dad follows his grandfather's footsteps of dying in that damned suit. The funeral is intimate and straightforward; clearly, his father didn't just let his relationship with his son be the only one that rotted away because of his work. He accepts the kind words his father's colleagues offer when they pass, and he doesn't linger long after the event closes.
The cruel creature in his stomach is gleeful, screaming that the bastard deserved it. He got what he deserved for the way he treated a friend and a colleague, with no remorse for the loved ones around him. He ignored it, like always. He didn’t want to agree with the blood thirsty thing.
Chase drives him home, trying to get him to talk. He gives sparse answers, since Chase deserves a little effort for everything he’s done for him over the years. He tries to stick around once they make it back to the Robertson estate, but Robert closes the door on him after it gets to be too much. He didn't want company; he didn't want a reminder that there were people out there now relying on him to pick up the mantle of Robbie Robertson at fucking eleven. He went back to that basement door and leaned against it, dropping the floor much as he had 2 years earlier in the void.
He let himself cry, trying to ignore the weight of two generations of legacy, each leading to a short and bloody death. He didn't have a choice, did he? No matter what he did, it would always lead back to Mechaman, to that damned suit. he would never get peace if he were the one to drop the mantle and walk away.
The cruel creature in his gut told him to do it anyway, to abandon everyone and their expectations and be a goddamn recluse in the woods for all they cared. He ignored it, like he always did when it acted up. It grumbled, but quieted as his tears did.
At least, he thought, he might not follow their footsteps in death, if that damned “ability” wasn't just a one-time fluke.
It wasn't, he found out far quicker into being Mechaman than he would have preferred.
The California government doesn’t let eleven-year-olds fight crime, to his annoyance. They do let fourteen-year-olds, with a mild amount of bribery. He used those three years to learn the suit and how to at least attempt to fix it, since his father never got the time to teach him anything.
His first few fights as Mechaman Blue went ok, each with petty thugs. It stopped going so well after that point. He ran into the flood villain who had ruined the suit 5 years earlier and found out the hard way what it was like to drown. A broken femur into an artery, dropping down several stories (several times, he might add), gunshots to unfortunate locations, and a circus of monkeys (he cannot, for the life of him, explain that one) prove pretty quickly that death isn’t a fan of keeping him around. It makes his line of work easy, at least; otherwise, Mechaman would have ended within the first year.
With power comes drawbacks, and the greater the power, the worse they seem. He may stick to the mortal world like glue, but his body plays the part of a pincushion as a result. He's going to be more scar tissue than skin within a few years, he's sure, and the chronic pain to back that up.
Not that there was anybody to notice that anymore.
He followed his father’s footsteps, and outside of his work, he had nobody left. Chase had tried for the first couple of years, uncomfortable leaving him alone, especially at such a young age. He gave up a while ago, since a person can only be ignored so many times before they get the point. He still sent cards, though, the incessant bastard. It felt like too much trying to keep up with his father's previous workload, new villains, and everyday life. His father had people to fall back on, and he couldn't afford to take a break with the boom a brief Mechaman absence had caused in the underworld of Los Angeles.
At the age of twenty-six, his luck catches up to him. It took every cent he could scrounge up to keep Mechaman running, but Robert could only do so much.
He got cocky; everything was going too well for him. Kidnapping Toxic had been too easy, the information a glide to get out of the man when he easily could have survived the fall. The creature in his gut was too gleeful, enamored by the prospect of getting Shroud and a bloody fight that would surely happen as a result. He listened to it for once, egged on by his own want for that arc of his life to finally be over.
He got away from them, just barely, before he heard “foreign material detected”. Before he could even react, the bomb went off, and the suit hurled hundreds of feet to the earth, the impact like that of the bomb itself.
He didn't even hear the wet slerch of his organs spilling, let alone feel the metal skewer into his torso. The world went black the second he hit the ground.
Just like every time he's met Death in the past, he wakes up in front of the damned basement door. He sold the house years ago to keep up with the costs of being Mechaman, and yet the door stayed with him. Every death led him here, a voyeur on his life and the many failures he’s had, all because he was too stubborn to quit. He sat in front of the door, a custom at this point, and took a breather. His body was screaming at him, the tissue of his torso and organs feeling as though they’d been picked apart fiber by fiber. After dying nearly fifty times, you build a pain tolerance to such a thing, but it was edging the line of what he could handle. He's sure his spine was shattered, going by how it felt to bend forward when he put his elbows upon his knees.
That will be wonderful to deal with when he wakes up.
The creature of his gut was quiet. It always was in the void, up until the door opened again. He thinks the weird thing is part of this mess; maybe it’s behind the door. He’s never bothered to try to talk back to it, not that he thinks it’ll respond anyway. The quiet, for once, is nice at least. He sits for what feels like hours, mulling over what he would do, could do, when he woke up again. The suit wasn't built for such a fall, and it was already a mess beforehand from fighting Toxic and Shrouds' gang. He didn’t have the money to repair what was, at this point, a pile of loose sheet metal and wires. His father would be ashamed of him.
He can only sit in his own pity party so long, and he knocks upon the door.
He closes his eyes as it creaks open, and-
He wakes up in a hospital bed, the smell of antiseptic strong enough to make him gag.