Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~::~ Five Years Ago ~::~

    The idea of the heroes getting apprentices or sidekicks had been around, jokingly, since they first started the Coalition. Roman, coincidentally brought it up first. The colorful hero liked working with and around kids since he practically had Disney Prince slapped over his forehead anytime he went out in public in full costume. Logan was forced to reign him in constantly.

    Over the years many kids and teenagers had tried to be heroes but they lacked one thing or the other: the fact they were minors, parents understandably didn’t want their kids put against villains, and a real lack of an ability to protect themselves against the villains like Anti or Wil who were known to think weapon-first and consequences never.

    Eventually, a couple teens made the cut. The first happened during patrol when Mark was surprised and almost punched a fourteen-year-old’s head off. He was in a costume that reminded Mark of his first couple of costumes. It was clearly a blue sweater, a pair of jeans, and a blue face mask which barely covered his identity. He was in items pulled from the boy’s closet.

    Then, eager to prove his agility, the young would-be superhero did a backflip.

    Despite his invisibility gift, and a sweet backflip that he would be embarrassed about for years to come, Blank didn’t immediately get a license to become a superhero. He would get that through proving that regardless of having the right equipment or permission, he was going to be a superhero, come hell or high water.

    So there was a quiet agreement that Silver and the rest of the heroes would keep their eye on him and make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble.

    The Coalition’s second side-kick was a bit different.

    Robert Gravesly was much like any other teenager in Athlone, he liked to get into trouble after school. He tended to frequent areas that several gangs were in and got arrested by accident more than once. Robbie was a smart kid and over time had just ingratiated himself with the Septics, so much so that Henrik took the young boy under his wing a bit.

    Chase bonded with his as well, the young man helping to sooth the gaping hole in his heart that his divorce had left him in.

    The young fifteen-year-old had dreams of nursing school and at first he was more likely to be seen with Henrik and Iplier than the rest of the Coalition.

    Then Ethan met Robbie and there began to be a serious discussion: Robbie despite a couple schoolyard scrapes didn’t know enough self defense to really protect himself. Logan even admitted that a plucky attitude and intelligence only get you so far, even he had tech to augment himself.

    Eric and Randall were picked up shortly after, Randall more eager to be a hero but wanted to stay with his painfully shy friend. Iplier, by necessity, was more of a parent to them than a guardian.

    It was all going well, Ethan was coming up on his seventeenth birthday, Robbie was about to turn sixteen, and Eric and Ray were fifteen.

    But then Blank and Grave got a bit too confident in themselves.

    “You sure we got the right message?” Ethan asked Marvin.

    “Oh yeah, simple in an’ out,” Marvin smiled as he walked next to Silver. “Yeh two keep watch an’ we go in an’ talk ta the informant.”

    To Blank’s frustration he was sent with Robbie to a neighboring building to the one Silver and Marvin would slip into. Ethan, half invisible as he looked out the window of an office building that matched the one across the street.

    “Man I wish we could do something interesting,” Ethan grumbled. “I’m almost twenty, I know what I’m doing.”

    “In a couple years we’ll be laughin’ ‘bout it,” Robbie shrugged.

    Then they started to hear talking, the two sidekicks moved towards the open door to listen. Then they moved into the cluttered storage room right next door.

    The voices were unfamiliar, a teen about their age and an older man.

    “Why does the Old Man want me here again?” The younger voice asked.

    “I don’t ask the big guy questions,” the older voice dismissed. “It’s how I’ve stayed alive this long.”

    “Right,” the younger voice huffed out.

    “Shit!” Ethan hissed out, “is it one of those guys? Why are they in this one?”

    “We should go tell the others,” Robbie whispered.

    “I can’t take both of us,” Ethan reminded, his powers still weaker and shorter ranged than they would be when he became a full-fledged hero.

    “Yeh go, I’ll keep an eye on ‘em,” Robbie promised.

    “You sure?” Ethan asked.

    The younger sidekick nodded, “Go ‘fore I kick yeh out the window.”

    With that Ethan made one of the only decisions he would truly regret, leaving Robbie alone in the building.

    Carefully Robbie began to creep towards the voices, moving through the hallway until he had to duck behind a filing cabinet when the door opened.

    “What’s taking so long,” a young man with a metal bat groaned in frustration. His golden eyes almost glowing in the darkness. The end of the bat hitting the concrete floor loudly. “I have books to write.”

    “We’ve barely been here for a minute,” the older man followed the younger boy in, Robbie recognized him, it was one of Dark’s lieutenants, Lynel Bargs.

    He also noticed that he seemed a little tense.

    “Whatever,” the young author reached up for a bronze star something on his button-up short lapel and blew on it.

    “No!” Bargs yelled out but clamped his mouth shut when a rip in reality opened up and after a couple seconds Dark walked through. He was straightening up his jacket and fixing his tie.

    “Arthur? What happened?” Dark asked, and Robbie started mentally cursing as he clamped his hands over his mouth and hunkered down into the shadow of the filing cabinet, putting Dark out his line of sight.

    “Ugh!” Arthur groaned. “I don’t know you called me here and never showed up.”

    “Seems everything’s fine here Darky,” Wilford said, a giddy smile in his voice. “Maybe we should go back and—”

    He trailed off, Robbie fighting his curiosity to look.

    “Bargs, what are you doing here with him?” Dark asked, his tone almost dripping with accusation and threat.

    “You told me to bring him here,” Bargs responded defensively.

    The entire room seemed to chill as silence descended upon everyone in it.

    Finally Dark said, “Go home, Arthur, I didn’t call you here.”

    “Okay,” the normally caustic and belligerent teen sounded subdued and walked through the portal, it stayed open ominously.

    Dark walked closer to Bargs, someone that minutes ago he’d considered loyal. “What are you doing here?”

    “I told you,” Bargs said. “You called me here.”

    “I thought you knew better than to lie to me, Bargs, especially about them ,” Dark snarled angrily, his aura thrashing around, numbing into some of the objects in the room, including a filing cabinet.

    The filing cabinet toppled over and Robbie tried to get out of the way, but space was limited and he was afraid of revealing himself.

    With an audible crack, the cabinet’s weight landed on Robbie’s leg and snapped his fibula in half.

    “AHHHHHHHHHH!” Robbie screamed out in agony.

    Dark turned at the scream, he’d heard and caused thousands in the time he’d been sentient and been flinching towards them. But for the past fifteen years he’d been fighting with very parental instincts. And the scream of a young teenager almost struck him like a bullet.

    “Well what do we have here?” Wilford commented, the scream hitting his brain wrong. He pulled out his gun. “Let me dig the poor lad out.”

    “Wil!” Dark reaches out with his aura to stop him but the madman was faster and when Dark’s aura pulled him back, Wil shot the teenager in the chest instead of the leg.

    With another tortured grunt the young man curled on himself a bit.

    “Get out,” Dark ordered and threw Wil through the portal Arthur had gone through. It flickered closed before reopening and Dark haphazardly threw his traitorous lieutenant into it.

    He could be dealt with later.

    Dark rushed over to the young hero and was struck by the fact that he hadn’t seen this sidekick before. His informants in the police had told him the heroes had four, he’d personally been given three photos of children dressing up like vigilantes, but he’d never seen this one.

    An angry pit burned in his gut, the faces of the children he had helped raise with Wil flashing through his mind, as he watched the kid let out pained gasps. This was a child, the heroes had convinced a child to meet up with an informant! At least Dark had the good sense to keep his Lost Ones supervised, even around Wil.

    Trying to reign back his anger, Dark pushed the objects away and watched the boy flinch in fear when he saw him kneel down.

    Dark knew he should leave, he’d get blamed for the boy’s death anyways, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

    Robbie whimpered out when someone propped him up a bit and he looked up to realize Dark had gently set his head up on the Entity’s leg . . . his mask was gone.

    “No,” Robbie choked out in a panic, he hadn’t even noticed it getting pulled off.

    “Hush,” Dark said as he pressed all the buttons on Robbie’s watch, knowing one of them signaled the other heroes but not knowing which it was. “Save your strength, and hopefully they’ll get here in time.”

    Dark scanned his eyes over the boy’s wounds, already knowing it was probably too late. If he was in a hospital, he might survive, but he wasn’t.

    “The heroes made a mistake,” Dark told him, memorizing the boy’s face and brushed his messy brown hair out of the way. “They shouldn’t have let you into their world. Your death is a tragedy.”

    Robbie couldn’t talk, a mix of pain and fear robbing him of speech.

    “I have some boys about your age,” Dark admitted. “Maybe in another life you could have fought them as adults. But life’s not fair, least of all to children.”

    The boy’s breathing was getting quieter, more labored, and he had a sad, panicked air about him as his life was slipping away. His strength robbed from him by his wounds so that he couldn’t even call out, couldn’t even scream if he wanted to.

    And he wanted to.

    “Sleep, and hopefully the heroes will learn,” Dark told him gently as he felt the tension in the teenager’s body finally slip away. Dark waited a minute before he checked for a pulse.

    Nothing.

    Dark slipped the mask back on and got up, the young teenager lying on the ground.

    Before Dark could take a single step to go and find Silver or another hero, Silver found him first. He burst through the door and looked from Robbie to Dark and then went into a rage.

    “No!” Silver screamed and flew at Dark so quickly that the Entity barely had time to throw up his aura, burying him a bit into the wall. Dark had his aura shielding him as Silver clearly trying to cave his face in.

    “Silver!” Marvin called out, already starting to try and cast magic to revive what Dark knew was someone who was already dead. “He’s not breathin’, I can’t get him ta wake up.”

    “What did you do?!” Silver demanded.

    “What did I do?” Dark spat in outrage, his anger almost throwing Silver off. “I’m not the one that sent a child against a crazed gunman and hoped that he’d find mercy!”

    “You killed him,” Silver accused.

    “His death is on your hands, hero,” Dark shoved him away. “I am not responsible for the children you dress up and fill their heads with fantasies.”

    “Yeh fucker!” Marvin shouted at Dark, “yeh asshole! He was a kid.”

    “Yes,” Dark agreed, his tone terse and angry. “And how old was he gentlemen? Sixteen? Fifteen? Barely old enough to drive or try and get and job, and yet here he is, dead on the floor of some shitty insurance building. Clearly someone should not have entrusted their child to you.”

    “He wasn’t supposed ta die!” Marvin shouted. “No one was even supposed ta be in here!”

    “The rest of your sidekicks,” Dark turned his attention back to Silver as he opened up a portal into the Void. “Fire them and send them home. If he’s lucky, death has him. You should collect your dead and move on.”

    Then he left, Silver finally turning to look at Robbie, “Jackie already took Blank back to the base.”

    “Yeah, yeah,” Marvin’s eyes watering as he nodded desperately. “J.J’s still at the base, he’ll fix this. He’ll fix this.”

    Silver sighed, Mark had to have some type of hope but in the back of his mind he knew that they could never remember the times J.J turned back the clock.

    But Mark carefully picked Robbie up and cradled him against his chest. Death was already starting to permeate the room as he rushed to bring him to the base, calling ahead to make sure that Eric, Ray, and Ethan were safe at the base. Along with announcing the grizzly news: Robbie was dead.

Chapter Text

    Pretty much every hero rushed to the base, Chase and Henrik were waiting for them.

    Chase let in a broken gasp when he saw Robbie, “The fook happened?”

    “The whole operation went south, either we were directed to the wrong building or it was a trap, but . . .” Silver took a deep breath. “Wilford shot him, we found Robbie alone with Dark.”

    “Where’s J.J?” Marvin demanded. “I don’t know why he didn’t fookin’ reset us already.”

    “Jackie vent und looked for him,” Henrik’s voice choked as he approached. “Vhy? Zis never should have ‘appened.”

    The door opened and Ethan raced out, “Robbie!”

    “Get back inside!” Mark ordered. “Get back inside right now!”

    Ethan raced towards Silver, and he flew inside, pushing Ethan back in.

    “How is he dead?” Ethan sobbed, “I was only gone for two minutes!”

    “Don’t worry,” Marvin reassured in that same desperate panic. “J.J will fix this, he always fixes thin’s.”

    “Zen vey has he not?” Henrik demanded.

    Ethan was already in a panic, sobbing profusely as  Silver carried Robbie into the main room. Jackie was walking.

    “Where’s J.J?” Marvin demanded.

    “He can’t—” Jack started, pulling off his hoodie and running his hands through his hair.

    “The fook yeh mean he can’t!” Marvin shouted, and tried to step around Jackie to go and hunt J.J down. “Where is that motherfooker!”

    Jackie put himself in the hallway so the magician couldn’t muscle past him. “I tried ta ask him an’ that’s what he told me.”

    “He can’t just give up on him!” Marvin demanded, using his magic to force Jackie to the side and race down the hallway. “Where is he?”

    He got to one of the living rooms and tore it open to see J.J idly drinking whiskey.

    “Turn us back!” Marvin yelled at J.J, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. “This is what it’s fer.”

    J.J just brought the glass to his lips, seemingly ignoring Marvin and Jackie.

    “Marv,” Jackie warned, trying to pull him off.

    “No! Turn us, back, Robbie is dead!” Marvin demanded angrily.

    J.J leaned over and tried to pick up a stack of index cards.

    Marvin pulled him back, “No! Tell me yerself yah fookface!”

    “Tried,” J.J signed sloppily. “He always dies. Tried 20 times.”

    “How can yeh fail twenty times yeh gobshite!” Marvin demanded.

    J.J flipped him off, Jackie was finally able to pull him off, grabbing the cards and reading through them.

    “Jackie help me talk some sense into him,” Marvin ordered.

    The argument continued for a bit before Jackie forced Marvin out, J.J eventually just falling asleep and the other Septics reluctantly deciding that J.J while drunk couldn’t fix anything.

    Slowly as the minutes ticked by the others were getting less hopeful, only J.J really remembered what happened when he reset time, other people who were involved sometimes got the sensation that time had been messed with. But if the mute hero didn’t want to set back the clock, there was nothing anyone could do.

    J.J’s cards told a story in the hero’s elegant cursive, that his attempts hadn’t just drained J.J physically, but mentally. Robbie would either die by Wilford’s gun, or accidentally when Dark tried to protect one of his younger enforcers that was always present. Robbie and his overconfident curiosity. Or in the attempts they tried to keep the sidekicks safe in the base, Ethan would sneak out and he would die as a result.

    Marvin’s desperation turned to anger, and that then turned on Henrik when he and Silver brought Robbie to the hospital’s morgue, along with Marvin tagging along Chase was with them. Ethan had thrown a fit when he was forced to go home by the older full-time heroes, angry and sad and blaming himself for not staying with Robbie in the building. Even if that would have probably led to both of the teens dying instead of just Robbie.

    Robbie’s only family was his mother, who was supposed to be on a business trip until Wednesday.

    “Vat vould you ‘ave me do?” Henrik shouted in anger as they stood in the hospital Henrik and Iplier worked at, they were in a room, Robbie’s body on a stretcher next to them. “I cannot cure ze dead!”

    Chase was shaking and crying, completely taken over by his grief. Silver was trying to talk him into heading back but Chase didn’t want to leave Robbie. After months of treating the young man like a surrogate son, Chase was devastated.

    They all were.

    “I have a call to make, Marvin,” Henrik dismissed. “Zey vill make sure zat Robert’s body is safe.”

    “Hen,” Silver called out as he walked over. “We should have called her ages ago. You’ve got her number?”

    “I’ll make ze call,” Henrik sighed miserably, his hands smoothing over Robbie’s hair. “ Vergib uns, mein Junge .”

    Marvin glared at Robbie’s body, filled with furious indignation, “I’ll be back, Rob, promise.”

    The magician slipped past Silver and ran out of the hospital. Time was ticking and he had supplies to collect.

    It was late, 2 AM late when Marvin snuck back into the morgue with a bag full of things that would probably get him arrested on sight if the trespassing didn’t do the job first.

    Only the hospital’s late night shift was still here, and to Marvin the security at this hour was a joke. It was why he’d had to wait, even though he was aware time was starting to run out.

    Marvin walked into the morgue, quickly finding Robbie and sliding his tray open.

    The magician gently ran his hands over his frozen hair. “I’m not fookin’ givin’ up on yeh.”

    Walking back towards the door, Marvin locked it and began pulling things out of his bag to get the spell ready.

    There were a lot of misconceptions about necromancy. When Marvin had first studied the topic in his formative years, he had dismissed the whole field as evil or a guide book on how to be a scam artist. But the more he researched, the more he’d realized it didn’t have to be. He didn’t need to kill or hurt people to make the spell, all he needed was the components, it didn’t specify they had to be from the living and unwilling.

    Human souls were a tricky business, and getting one back into its body was even trickier. Mostly because you didn’t want to summon the wrong soul, or even worse a malicious spirit, and cram it into a body. There were all kinds of horror stories that Marvin had heard, but Robbie had barely been dead a couple of hours. He hadn’t been embalmed or cut open besides Henrik removing the bullet.

    All Marvin had to do was be careful, and so as he separated a bowl with a human heart he had procured from a hospital. The heart had been a donor reject, but Marvin didn’t need a perfect one or a beating one, he just needed a heart. Two pints of Marvin’s blood he’d drawn himself, because he didn’t want Henrik or anyone else involved, they could get hurt and he didn’t want to risk them stopping him. Then he started setting up the floor, taking Robbie’s much heavier frozen body and placing it in the middle of the floor and drawing a circle of salt around the body, and a circle for Marvin to kneel in as he worked. Runes and writing was carefully traced in Marvin’s blood and then he separated the remaining out with the rest of the ingredients.

    Finally Marvin sat with his legs folded under his thighs and tried to clear his thoughts from his blind, desperate hope, and his furious grief. He had to get Robbie back.

    He took out a box of matches, and struck the match and quickly blew it out before using his magic to reignite the match.

    Suddenly, all the candles in the room blew out at once and Marvin held his breath, trying to stay awake as his own magic was robbed from him. But he wasn’t trying to create a human from nothing, just wake up a long sleeping one.

    He began a series of long incantations, designed for the soul purpose of bringing a soul back. Marvin envisioned Robbie, and how his life had been snuffed out by the villains that had killed and snuffed out the lives of many like him.

    Marvin had power, he had magic and if he couldn’t use that to actually save Robbie, he figured he should back up his books, swear off magic, and go back to Offaly.

    Then, the candle in Marvin’s hands flared back to life, already starting to feel drained and lightheaded. The flame was a gentle, ghostly blue, something about just making Marvin feel giddy. He hovered the magical fire over one of Robbie’s shoes and waited for a reaction.

    Nothing.

    Marvin let out a nervous, tired, giddy giggle. “I knew it, I found you.”

    With extreme gentleness, Marvin touches the flame to the crown of Robbie’s head and the flame quickly erupted along the young man’s body.

    Then in one breath it snuffed itself out, and Marvin, lightheaded, held his breath. The room was spinning and Marvin felt like throwing up, but he’d made his circle a bit too small and if he disturbed his circles then Robbie would leave.

    He got distracted when for the first time in hours, the teenager’s fingers twitched, his eyes scrunched up.

    “Rob—” was all Marvin was able to manage before he threw up and collapsed onto the floor, out before he could think.

    Marvin didn’t know how long he’d been out, it felt like only a couple seconds and he felt like his body had been hit by a train. There was a pounding sound close to Marvin that was probably his awful migraine because his head felt like Marvin should take a bat to it.

    When he finally opened his eyes he realized the pounding wasn’t just in his head, Robbie was trying to break the door down.

    With his head still spinning, Marvin tried to pick himself up, but the nausea and his migraine were not helping and he fell back to the ground. “Rob, s’not locked on our side.”

    Robbie turned and growled at him, a low throaty snarl that was distinctly inhuman.

    Marvin struggled to pick himself up, wondering if somehow he’d read the flame wrong, he didn’t think he had the strength for another attempt.

    “Rob,” Marvin stood up, so relieved to see him. “It’s okay, yer back now, yer safe.”

    “Robbie” let out a grunting yell and went to grab or swat at Marvin but his hands contacted the barrier of salt and it was almost like an impenetrable barrier was suddenly around the magician. In frustration the teen slammed his fists on the ground, the linoleum splitting and crunching like glass with inhuman force.

    “Woah, woah, Rob, it’s me,” Marvin cautioned.

    Robbie made another inhuman yell at Marvin, clearly not recognizing him as anything other than something to fight.

    The door to the morgue opened and a security guard shone his torch into the room. “The hell is going on in here?”

    Robbie roared at him and then lunged, Marvin cast a quick spell to knock the door closed again. It didn’t work but Robbie slammed into the door instead of the unsuspecting human.

    He collapsed to the ground again, but the security officer was able to pin Robbie to the ground.

    “Don’t hurt him,” Marvin pleaded. “He’s been through enough.”

    “What is going on?” The officer demanded but Marvin succumbed to exhaustion, blacking out for the second time.

    When he woke up, it was to Henrik talking admittedly over him. “Regardless, vatever he has done, he vill not hear ze end of it.”

    “Can yeh turn it down?” Marvin asked, he was less nauseous but now he was lightheaded.

    Henrik was instantly leaning over him, looking furious, “Vat is vrong vit you‽”

    “I saved Robbie,” Marvin was struggling to get back up.

    “He vas dead!” Henrik shouted. “Und ve don’t know vat you have brought back to us.”

    Marvin picked himself up to see that Robbie was lying on the ground, bound with metal cords and Silver was holding him down. 

    “What did you bring back?” Silver demanded.

    “I did the spell right,” Marvin insisted.

    Everyone but Robbie flinched when a dull ringing came from the other side of the door, and Dark opened it. All the heroes freezes, as if hoping the villain would just go away instead of probably escalating the situation.

    Silver groaned, “Come on, Dark we got enough to worry about.”

    Dark stared at Robbie, looking at him in confusion before the anger rolled over his face.

    “You monsters,” Dark growled, slamming the door behind him. “None of you can let the dead rest, can you?”

    Marvin scrambled off of the table to get in-between Dark and Robbie, “No, fook yeh, he suffered enough.”

    “And that suffering is now ongoing,” Dark snarled resentfully. “He should have been allowed to rest. You filthy heroes just can’t let anything slip out of your control, can you?”

    “Don’t touch him,” Marvin ordered, he’d only just gotten Robbie back, and now Dark was back to finish the job.

    “How long has it been like that,” Dark dismissed, grabbing Marvin by the front of his cloak. “Don’t bother, you’re in no position to fight.”

    “I don’t care,” Marvin literally spat in Dark’s face and he was thrown to the side, Dark’s aura pinning him down.

    “Dark let’s talk this out,” Silver cautioned, trying to still keep Robbie pinned as the Entity walked over.

    “How long has it been in that body?” Dark demanded.

    “We don’t know, maybe a couple hours,” Silver admitted and Dark let out a groan of frustration.

    “Do any of you know if it’s the boy or not?” Dark asked.

    “Course it fookin’ is!” Marvin shouted.

    “He hasn’t really said anything, just growled,” Silver answered.

    Dark reached his aura down and started running it along Robbie’s teeth, as if checking, and Robbie was snarling before suddenly he froze up and started letting out a couple soft, huffed breaths.

    Dark seemed to be checking for something, his ringing pitching up and down. Marvin was desperately trying to kick free, a loud bang from Marvin putting his foot through the wall, probably breaking a couple toes in the process. He screamed in pain.

    Robbie however, flinched at the bang, looking around. Dark was carefully watching him for a bit longer before he pulled his aura away. Robbie didn’t start growling again, he was just watching Dark.

    “There’s no guarantee you’ve brought back the right person, but I’m sure you would know the boy better than I would,” Dark sighed, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. “This mess is now your problem. Do tell me you’ve discontinued your internships.”

    “We’re talking about it,” Silver actually admitted. “One or two of the kids have nowhere to go.”

    “If they try and face my network or other villains, they will die,” Dark reminded. “Oh and that Derekson kid you have, if you don’t keep him off the streets, I’ll take him back.”

    “How—” Silver started.

    “None of your business, but,” Dark motioned down to Robbie, “whether or not you’ve got the right person, he will never be the same. Also, he might be hungry.”

    Dark left through the door, only of the doctors nervously following him, which made sense for Silver how Dark even knew what was going on in the first place.

    Now that Robbie had been calmed, the heroes did their best to keep him calm, Dark had been right, he was hungry. Henrik ran out to get him something.

    After a short check up the heroes were starting to understand the problem: Robbie’s body had already started to decompose before he was brought into the morgue. A process that had now magically been halted.

    One of the doctors showed up with a couple notes, all written in Dark’s fancy, cursive handwriting. Dark was instructing them on how to get Robbie to act human again.

    It took several more hours to get Robbie responsive in a way that wasn’t blind rage, a full day to get him to recognize them. Silver mostly suspected that it was Marvin’s coaching whenever he was left with him, which everyone was hesitant to leave Marvin alone with Robbie again and would continue to be suspicious of Marvin for months.

    Talking would take weeks, and even then Robbie’s ability to form complex, long statements would never come back. He would speak and even smile again, but sometimes Silver would look at the young man and wonder if they were just wishfully hoping it was him.

    Dark had been right, they couldn’t be sure, and even when Robbie’s mom was allowed to finally see him again, a woman who had already been struggling to deal with her only child’s death, was heartbroken again when Robbie didn’t immediately recognize her. He needed several long minutes, and the woman calling out to him in desperate hope, to seemingly understand who she was.

    Even Jackie was suspicious, but there was nothing they could do, Robbie was back, he was slotting himself uncomfortably right back into where he had been before, but with much more supervision to all the sidekicks as Robbie was kept with the doctors more than he had been before.

    For better or worse “Robbie” was back and so far he seemed to like the real deal. All the heroes could do was hope he was.