The Problem with Heroes Chapter 10, a lazytown fanfic

Robbie was torn between chuckling evilly at the thought of the innocent little girl helping him with this particular device and a pang of guilt that had just lurched in his stomach. That was unexpected. He needed to get the girl away, of course, she couldn't be involved in something like this.

Wait, what was that? A conscience? How did he even manage to get one of those? Maybe it wasn't a conscience, and just that he knew Sportacus was paying more attention to the villain and now Robbie couldn't get away with as much. Yeah, that was it.

As much as a hard-to-repress part of him liked having the slightly-above-average hero around, it didn't mesh very well with Robbie in general. When he finally got to the point where he could wrap the bandages himself and function well enough, he was pretty much done with the whole 'being babysat' thing. He was still fairly grouchy over not being able to use his arm, and having someone (especially a health-conscious sportsnut who made it clear how he felt every time the villain went for something sugary) around so often was just not pleasant.

So a few days later he essentially banned Sportacus from coming down to the lair unless the crystal alerted him to trouble. He was a bit nicer about it than he usually was, but the point still remained. It was easier on everyone, anyways. Robbie didn't have to deal with another person for any longer, Sportacus got to be back in his element. See? Win-win.

The villain celebrated his half of the win via Death by Chocolate ice cream right out of the carton. Victory was sweet. And went well with milk. He would have to remember this.

A few hours later, sufficiently gorged on sugar, he went around his lair to figure out what to do with himself now. For the past few days he'd had that nagging feeling that he was forgetting something. This probably meant he was, and he now had the time, energy, and privacy to figure out what it was.

After rifling through some papers he finally came across an order form. Of course. Dammit.

The inventions of his that actually worked (aka- the ones not made to defeat Sportacus) were somewhat renowned among people with an interest in such inventions, and he was able to sell them and make a nice profit. Occasionally someone would also pay him to make something specific. As was the case now. And he had to figure out how to deal with this primarily with his left hand, and with about a week wasted. Asking the sports freak for help was right out- even if he wanted to, if the elf found out what this machine was actually for, Robbie would never hear the end of it and the machine would probably get smashed. Not worth it.

"Every challenge is an opportunity in disguise," he muttered to himself, eyeing his left hand uncertainly. If nothing else- this would be fun in the most infuriating and difficult way possible. He really needed to figure out robots so he could make an assistant for occasions such as this. That technophile, Poodle or something, would probably come in handy there- he could easily program the brain. But then he'd have to put up with one of those brats… Still not worth it.

He grabbed the tools he'd need to start this and slowly started to get the hang of what he was doing. With any luck the sports elf would remember his threats and leave him alone. This was not something that he wished to get into.

---

After a few days, Robbie had actually gotten the hang of using his left hand. He also barely needed the sling any more, as he was getting better at knowing what he could and couldn't do with his thumb still hurt. Al-in-all, he was making excellent progress.

And because of this, it was no surprise that someone chose then to interrupt him. It was one thing he hated about this town- as soon as he reached the point where he was fully in the swing of things and was at the peak of productivity something came up. He didn't even bother to look up when he heard someone land on his fuzzy chair- he knew it was the sport elf.

"Didn't I tell you to stay out?" he snarled, trying to regain the concentration he just lost.

"Actually, you never have." The sound of a high pitched and slightly pouting voice ruined all hope of concentration and the villain spun around, seething slightly. That blasted pink haired girl cheerfully sat playing with his chair, apparently enthralled by both the furriness and reclining nature.

"What are you doing here, Pinky?" he muttered, frowning at her and crossing his arms.

The girl got up from the chair at this and brushed herself off slightly before smiling up at the hero. "I wanted to make sure you were doing alright, no one had heard from you in awhile." At this point she noticed the bandage still on his left hand and gasped, "What happened to your hand, are you alright?"

Robbie was glad he wasn't wearing the sling as well and had started using the minimal amount of bandaging necessary or else it would have looked a lot worse and he'd have had to deal with another child trying to play doctor.

"Just a minor accident," he replied with a shrug, "Nothing I can't handle, it's only bandaged so I don't make it worse while I work. It's not even my strong hand." He sincerely hoped Stephanie had never seen him write so she wouldn't realize he was lying.

At this the girl noticed the screwdriver still in his hand and the contraption behind him. It didn't take much to come to the conclusion that he had been in the middle of inventing something. She giggled slightly, and walked over eagerly. "Is that part of your next plan to get rid of Sportacus?"

"No," he groaned, not wanting to have Sportacus's little helper snooping around his lair. "It's really none of your business. But you've verified that I'm still alive and well- so why don't you stop trespassing and go back to your games?"

The girl frowned at this. Was she trespassing? That meant she was doing something wrong, something she shouldn't have done, but she'd knocked on the entrance a few times with no answer and had to make sure nothing bad was happening.

She shoved thoughts of moral ambiguity away and instead focused on the positive. Robbie was hurt, and probably needed help with his project. It wasn't against Sportacus, so she couldn't imagine it was anything she wouldn't want to help with.

"Well- you're hand is hurt, so how about I help you with what you're building?" she offered cheerfully, smiling brightly up at the tall man and batting her eyelashes cutely. She was still pretty sure that Robbie was just a lonely person who didn't know how to be with other people, and now was a perfect time to help with that.

"Er…. "thank you" for the offer," he gagged out the pleasantry, to the girl's amusement, but he was hoping playing nice would get rid of her faster, "but no- I'm not going to babysit some dance happy, overeager brat so why don't you run along and find someone else to spread goodness and puppies to?" Not that 'playing nice' was something he was any good at.

"This is extremely complicated equipment," he continued, "It'd take more time to teach you what to do than it would to just do it myself. And I work alone," he snarled that last word before straightening back up, "and without an audience. So if you wouldn't mind?"

Stephanie hesitated, biting her lip. Leaving might make Robbie happy in the short-term, but maybe if she found a way to make friends with him he'd end up being happier in the long term.

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly, "There's nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it."

The villain growled deep in his throat. How was it this hard to get rid of a 10 year old? Even if he did need help, which he didn't, he certainly wouldn't be going to the pink tornado. She was almost as bad as the blasted elf. The only one of those brats who would be remotely useful was the one with all the computers, and he wasn't the type to go breaking into someone's house just to harass them. Poodle always had been the child he hated least for that reason.

"Pinky, I do not need help. I definitely don't need your help. I don't want you in my home, I never invited you here, so kindly get the hell out," he insisted again, raising his voice a bit more than he had intended.

Stephanie winced at the curse, she heard very little swearing so even something so mild was horrible vulgarity. She faltered in her resolve to save the tall man from himself, a bit scared. But she knew she couldn't let fear rule her, so she instead took a deep breath and gave him her most winning smile. "Even if you don't need help, working with someone else is always good. Team work helps things get done faster and makes it more fun, too!"

The sentiment was sickening, and she was clearly not getting the message. With his hand like this, bodily dragging her out of his lair would be even more difficult- and if he hurt a hair on that girl's hair the local hero might decide that pacifism isn't always the answer. Hollow threats, however, might be acceptable.

Sneering, he took a few steps and grabbed a metallic bat from behind his work bench and tapped it against his foot before narrowing his eyes and grinning at her. "Tell you what- you can stay here if you want. But if you do we'll find out just how much dancing you can do with those pretty little legs of yours in splinters."

Without a word, Stephanie started backing up towards the exit. She stumbled over her feet and decided to turn around and just run for it. Part of her was sure that Robbie was a nice guy who wouldn't hurt her, so she didn't run for dear life, but the glint in his eye was enough for her to get out of there. The cackling that followed her up the tube did inspire her to speed up a bit, though.

Robbie grinned to himself, proud. That should keep the little ones away from him for a few days, if nothing else. He'd long since installed a way to lock the entrance to his lair without having to climb all the way up, and he did so now. He didn't need an elf burning with righteous fury tearing up his lab. There just wasn't enough time to fix that sort of mess right now.

---

About a week later, it was finally time for the stitches to come out. Removing them was a bit painful, but he was glad to be able to start using his hand again. He had managed to make good progress on the machine he was building and figured he needed a break to help get his hand back to functioning.

After getting dressed in his usual, and now blood-free, outfit, he decided he might as well see if the sun was still the ladder was a bit unpleasant with his hand as it was, but the bright sun and fresh air was worth it. Or, it was supposedly worth it. It was just too windy to be comfortable and bright enough that it hurt his eyes. Robbie grumbled to himself. If he hadn't started noticing signs of cabin fever, he would head right back down and stay there.

Instead, he walked over to the town center and sat back on a bench there, stretching his left arm out over the back and examining the mostly-scar wound on his hand. Gingerly he tested how far he could stretch his thumb, and winced when it objected. It would take some time before he got full dexterity again, how aggravating.

A few moments later something blocked out the sun. He sincerely wished he could be surprised to look up and see Sportacus standing there with his eyes blaring. The elf was still calm and in control, as always, but the fury in his gaze was unmistakeable. So he was right, the brat ran crying to the hero about what the big bad villain threatened to do.

"You're in my light," he said coolly, annoyed. He wouldn't be in this situation if the damn brat had minded her own business or left when he asked her. It would take a lot more than an angry pacifist to make him apologize for that.

The elf's mustache twitched and he leaned down, placing his hands on either side of the villain's shoulders, "We both know I let you get away with a lot- but since you seem unclear on this one unbreakable rule, I think I need to make it clear that if you ever did anything to purposefully hurt one of the children or put them in danger, it will not end well for you."

Robbie took a deep breath before answering, not accustomed to having anyone this close to his face. He towered over everyone normally, and had since his early teens. The elf was a bit more threatening at eye level. "Let me guess, Pinky ran crying to you that I threatened to hurt you and left out the bit where I tried about 10 times to politely get her to leave?" he asked with a smirk. The villain's eyebrow twitched but he stayed where he was. "Do you mind backing off? You reek of apples, and I'm still feeling a bit sick from having to take the stitches out."

"I can't ignore you threatening someone," Sportacus said quietly, intently studying the villain's face. "That's one of the side-effects of being a villain," he spat the word out, "that you might've missed. You can't pick up a bat and threaten to break someone's legs without being taken seriously."

"Even if it's a plastic bat? If I tried hurting anyone with it- I might bruise them slightly. Even if you were using it it couldn't do any damage," he replied vaguely. "I only needed to get her out of my house. I tried to be nice to her, and she refused to leave. I don't hurt people, Sportacreep. I act out of self interest- what good would it do me to beat up a little girl?"

This seemed to be enough for the elf, who pushed himself up and shook his head. "That better be the truth," he muttered. "You know that if you ever seriously screw up no one will go easy on you."

Robbie shrugged, standing up. He had more than enough sunshine for one day. "Just tell the runts to stay the hell away from me and this won't happen. That's all I ever wanted- to be left alone."

Sportacus turned, about to say something but thought better of it.

A/N: I got the old-school Latibær, so I got to see an Icelandic Robbie Rotten being much more villainish than the newer version is. If he got a bit eviler this chapter, that's why.

Áfram Latibær made me feel better about all the dialogue with Sportacus, too, because it reminded me that he can be walking and jumping and such back and forth while having a conversation. Old-school Lazytown is freaking weird when you don't speak Icelandic, though.