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Robert stands outside the suit, looking up at it as he waits for the test to begin. It never fails to instill breathless awe every time he sees it.
After months of only catching snippets of it, of hours spent behind a welding mask and on his back as sparks fly past him. Of taking to the suit with a rag and elbow grease as he buffs out the numerous scratches and scrapes. The thing was nearly as scarred as he is.
He's amazed at how far they've come. Well, mostly Royd. How far Royd has come.
Anticipation wells in his chest, equal parts light and heavy. It has every reason to go sideways. It's the nineteenth test after a long line of failures. Robert may not be much of a gearhead but even he can see that the statistics aren't leaning in their favor. And yet, the hope doesn't leave him.
It's not a light, willful hope like the one kids have when wishing upon stars. It's the kind of a desperate animal. Of clinging claws and sinking teeth no matter how much blood wells because holding on is all he has. It's the end of all things if he lets go.
No matter how many times he's been hit. No matter how many times he dragged his bruised and broken body out of that suit he always gets back in it. It fits around him like a pelt, snug, warm and so acheingly familiar. He knows it better than himself.
It's always been there. In stories his father would tell him about his grandfather. In the ones he shared about himself to the numerous close calls throughout his childhood. Until it wasn't a close call anymore and his birthright was dropped at his feet seeped in the blood of those before him without so much as a warning.
He wonders if his clinging is visible, his grip so tight his fingerprints are impressed into the metal. Sometimes he swears he can see theirs too, long nail marks etched into the curves of the machine. The lines distinguished by their lengths, as long as their run as Mecha Man. How long will his be?
"Get in dere Robert," Royd's voice crackles over the intercom knocking him from his thoughts.
With a trepidation he dare not physically manifest, he opens the latch and climbs inside. Once settled into the seat, comfort comes rushing back as the pelt, his second skin, clicks and latches closed. Who knew cold metal and plastic coated wires could feel so warm?
This is something he knows. The seat, although new, feels as if it still houses the divet he had created over the years. His hands fly across the keyboard and the levers as he sets it into motion. He swears some of the key's lettering has worn off, the lever's handle indented with his grip, his father's and his grandfather's.
The test begins, and elation bubbles in his chest like a laugh. The team watches on mentioning something about their bet and commenting on his form. Robert notices the purple smoke but it doesn't fully register what it means until Courtney mentions it.
Alarms blare to life and red lights flash sending panic lancing through him. For a split second he is eleven and messing with the suit when he shouldn't. He half expects Chase to come barreling towards him, saving him like he had back then. But he is not eleven, and this is not then.
Robert initiates the ejection process. He knows the procedure, it's the first thing he learned and he has used it several times since. He flips the switches, types in the command and it doesn't work. He tries the emergency latch and it fails.
He is trapped, he's trapped with purple smoke rising all around him while the alarms and warnings screech in his ears. He can hear his team shouting for him, Royd shouting for him and all he can do is claw at the exit latch one last time before giving up.
He braces for the inevitable.
His imagined etchings in the metal, the non-existent wear and tear of the suit surges around him with the heightening alarm. The lines wrap around him holding him down as if his inability to leave wasn't enough. Despite it all, he feels a sense of calm envelope him. He's where he's supposed to be.
This is how it should happen. What should have happened months ago.
"I'm sorry," he says to his team and to Royd for having to see this. He doubts he's heard over the explosion.
___________
It's sort of funny that Royd tells him the same thing almost as soon as he wakes up. That and the suit might never be able to run again. Robert tries to breath around the crushing weight that seizes his lungs but he assures Royd with platitudes that he can't feel and a fist bump he does that it's okay.
It's not his fault that Robert is all kinds of fucked. And that's not counting the last fourteen hours he's been comatose.
Royd moves to leave but stops in front of the door, his forlorn gaze meeting his for a brief moment. The beginnings of a smile tugs at his lips. "I'll send em in," he says before exiting the room.
Robert doesn't have time to ask what that means between catching his breath and the door opening once more as nearly his entire team crams themselves inside the hospital room. He catches Bruno's dark outline through the door's frosted glass. Even Flambae is here, silently leaning against the wall closest to the door.
Turns out his grudge doesn't extend to near death experiences.
There's a palpitable silence, rare for his team, as they take him in. Their eyes roam over his bare chest and the tubes and wires stuck in him. Relief floods every single pair of eyes. He shivers with a sudden burst of cold, goosebumps rising on his skin despite the numerous bodies shoved into the enclosed space.
He tries to pull the blanket up but his arms remain heavy and useless at his sides. The muscles aren't listening to him. He suposses it's a good thing. How awkward would that be? Immedietly covering himself up as soon as his team enters as if he has something to be ashamed of.
Plus he doesn't want to fuck up the infusion lines in his elbows. The last thing he needs is some poor nurse having to try and shove their way through the crowd to correct his mistake.
The team stares and Robert stares back. He's reminded of when he told them he was Mecha Man. That tense moment between action and inaction. Robert should be the one to break it as they're clearly holding back for his sake but he can't find the words.
The only thing he can think to say is some variation of, Mecha Man is dead. Do you realize what that was? What it would have been if the suit had succeeded? Over and over in his head. Air trickles into his lungs as he forces himself to take subtle steady breaths, the same he had to stumble his way through when Royd was here. The weight on and in his chest stubbornly remains.
God he's so tired.
"Is now a bad time to say that your scars are just as hot as they were the first time?” Courtney says, breaking the silence and the tension that came with it.
The team groans as chatter starts up between them. As that is happening someone to his left, which his brain latently registers as Colm standing on a chair, carefully covers him with the blanket. Colm doesn't look at him and Robert appreciates that. Even if it's only because he's busy glaring at Courtney in a pointed manner. Leave it to his team to make an act of compassion into a petty slight.
The act goes unnoticed as all the attention in the room has shifted from Robert to Courtney. He catches a knowing look in her eyes even as she verbally defends herself.
"What? I'm right! You guys were-" Courtney cuts off with a grunt and a wince, her hand flying to clutch at her ribs from Malevola's elbow.
The chatter transforms into laughter and the demon's voice is heard over the noise. "Any new ones we need to be concerned about?”
Their eyes feel less heavy this time around and the weight on his chest almost eases. The lightness of their laughter ebbs away as he can see them change with the mood. Their bodies straightening, bracing for whatever it is that he'll say.
“Yo-you took quite- quite a hiii hit,” Herm prompts.
“Nothing new and before you ask, I’m fine. This isn’t the first time the suit has malfunctioned," Robert assures but he knows as soon as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say. Interest flits across their faces, overtaking the concern because his team is nothing if not gossip mongers.
One of Victor's ears flicks as his head perks up at the sliver of new information. "It couldn't have been this bad."
Robert knows a probing comment when he hears it. He's spent enough time hounded by journalists to pinpoint the exact tone they take to adopting. He knows but he gives in anyways. Give and take, right?
He doesn't need to say anything and they don't need to know. But something within himself is begging him to show them, show them how deep the suit runs, in an insidious whisper.
An even smaller unamed part of himself simmers in anger for what his father had inadvertently put him through. What only Chase, himself and a dead man share.
He can't force himself to stop. Nor does he want to. He inclines his head, brandishing his notched ear towards them. The weight on and in his chest lessens with the movement, even more so when he opens his mouth to speak.
"I was around eleven…"
___________
The sky was bright blue and cloudless. There was a good breeze going providing some welcome relief from the endless sun. It's the perfect day for a barbecue and despite this Robert is bored.
There are no other kids at this party. Only him. Chase is here, his dad and Elliot along with the rest of the brigade but they're pretty boring. They're doing that adult thing where they stand around and talk while drinking beers pretending it's any fun. Robert would rather be anywhere else.
Chase had played catch with him for a while but then he got tired and joined the others. Robert thinks he's just being lame and another word he can't say around his dad. Shitty, the word is shitty.
Robert sits sprawled out in a plastic lawn chair watching the adults around him talk. They're in little groups here and there scattered across the yard. His dad is manning the grill, burgers sizzling with pops of heat he can feel from here. Elliot and Chase are right there with him, standing a little ways away to give his dad room as they talk about things Robert can't be bothered to decipher. It just sounds like noise.
A breeze passes by and it carries the scent of the grilling meat. His stomach rumbles and gives a painful twist. His soda isn't providing any relief.
He gets up and walks over to the group, not one of them acknowledges his approach. They're too absorbed in one another talking about strategies. It's all dad ever talks about, Mecha Man. Annoyance wells within Robert, it's so sudden that it overpowers his hunger and feels hotter than the flames of the grill.
"Dad," he says and his dad ignores him.
Chase notices him though, giveing him a tiny nod before turning his attention back to his dad. It absolves him from being shitty but he's still firmly in the lame category.
Robert weighs his options. Dad hates it when he yells, and he also hates it when Robert tugs on his clothes. He says he's too old to be doing that. But he also knows that dad hates it even more when he interrupts his guests. Robert's stomach growls and it fuels his growing agitation.
Dad also doesn't like quitters.
"Dad," he says louder than before with a tug on his sleeve.
His dad yanks his sleeve out of his grasp and glares down at him. The conversation stops, a moment of silence in the sea of senseless chatter. Robert watches his dad's jaw clench, containing the stern talking to he would be getting if guests weren't present. Robert wouldn't be attending the party at all if it weren't for Chase.
"What?" His dad says. His voice is measured, even, and it sends fear racing down Robert's spine.
Robert swallows down the fear along with the strange mix of guilt and annoyance that rolls in his gut as gently as a fist. "Is it ready yet?"
His dad's jaw clenches and his moustache trembles with the movement. Dad is pissed at him, and it makes the fear worse but satisfaction surges. He's being stupid. Poking and prodding when he shouldn't but sometimes it feels like this is the only time dad talks to him about anything besides Mecha Man.
It makes Robert wish he was small again. Back when dad was around more. When he was the one playing catch with him and making him laugh, not Chase. The mustache trembles and Robert holds his breath.
"It'll get done when it gets done. The adults are talking," he says, turning away from him as he flips a burger that looks ready to eat from where Robert is standing. "Run along now," and the words that's an order go unsaid but Robert hears them plenty clear.
Robert doesn't push his luck despite everything in him wanting to kick the grill over. He walks back to his seat and past it towards the house. Chase doesn't even wave at him when he leaves, he's too busy talking.
Robert looks back, just in case Chase is doing it now, and what he sees makes him want to cuss. It makes him wish he had kicked the grill over because then this stupid party would be over. Chase is laughing, his head knocked back with the sound. His dad is laughing too, an arm slung around Chase's shoulders.
When was the last time that was him?
Anger married with the bitter sting of jealousy swells within him. It settles as a heavy weight in his gut and his chest. He hardly feels the tears falling down his cheeks.
Robert isn't hungry anymore.
His feet take him into the house and to the garage without his input. He stops in the doorway, some of those ugly feelings waning in the face of familiar fear. He's not allowed in here. But Chase is. He steps into the garage.
The garage is huge. Big tables and high cielings with blueprints plastered to the walls displaying things he is barely beginning to comprehend. Metal gleams in the lowlight, from nuts and bolts to screws and tools he can't name.
In the center of it all is the suit. He's seen it before, in passing and on the television mostly but rarely this close. Dad won't let him. He'd be pissed if he found him in here. Good, he thinks and the thought surprises him less than expected.
The suit looks impossibly large standing there. He doesn't like looking at it, it's unsettling. He thinks he hates that thing. It steals dad away from him, it gets him hurt and it makes him too tired to pay any attention to Robert.
And one day Robert will do that too. He'll be the one in the suit but he isn't stupid. With how much time his dad spends in it he won't leave it unless he's dead. It scares him to think about, and it scares him even more that sometimes he thinks it wouldn't change much when that does happen.
Robert will still be here; alone in the house while the adults talk.
The suit stands there, it's blue metal gleaming and uncaring about Robert and his pitiful tears. What's new? He tears his gaze away and scrubs at his eyes. The fabric of his sleeve does little more than sting his eyes. When he opens them again he's staring at a hammer.
This is so fucking stupid, he thinks but he makes no move to stop. If he gets rid of it maybe…maybe dad will have time for him.
Maybe those long nights alone will be over. When Chase has left because dad said he'd be home within the hour but he doesn't show up until the next day. When Robert is in the quiet dark of the house feeling like a ghost in his own home. When he settles on Twinkies for dinner because dad hasn't had the time to go shopping and there isn't anything else.
It could be over, he just has to do one thing.
Anger, jealousy and fear makes for a jackrabbit pulse as Robert picks up the hammer. He puts everything he has into his swing. Every lonely night, every hour he's spent alone and the tears he's shed over it. The suit dents with a clang and something comes loose in his chest. He swings again and again.
He doesn't account for the suit itself.
It comes to life. He doesn't even have the chance to put down the hammer before an alarm is ringing as red lights flash. Cold terror grips his heart and his limbs, freezeing him in place while he trembles because the thing is moveing. It shouldn't be possible. His dad isn't in it, he's still in the backyard grilling burgers that Robert won't get to eat now.
He's seen on TV what the suit can do to concrete. He watches as it raises an arm.
Robert screams.
Something or someone barrels into him, knocking him off his feet as he's painfully pulled by his arm. That's nothing compared to the searing heat that grazes past his head. A blip of blood and the foul stench of burnt flesh.
They slam into the floor and warm arms wrap around him, holding him close as they shield him from the suit. Chase, it's Chase, his mind supplies as he clings to his shirt but all he can focus on is the suit. The alarms and the lights still blaring as it takes a step closer. Chase's arms tighten around him, his weight shifting as he prepares to run.
For a terrifying heartbeat Robert thinks that this is it. He is going to die here at the hands of the suit because he was stupid enough to believe that he could get away from it. That he'd be the only Robert Robertson to never have to sit in that seat. Selfish, selfish bitchboy.
The suit freezes and the alarms and lights shut off as his dad runs into view. Worry is etched into the lines of his face. He reaches for him, touching his shoulder and if Robert wasn't already crying he would have burst into tears.
"Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
Robert can only stare, taken aback that his dad is asking him at all. Beneath the throbs of pain radiating from his shoulder and his ear is elation. Dad is talking to him without anger. He just sits there and breathes, basking in the sparse touch allowed him.
His dad's hand is heavy and warm, an anchor point that lets him know that this is real. That he's not imagining it in order to make himself feel better.
Chase answers for him, dragging him back to the here and now. "His arm…I think I dislocated it when I grabbed him."
The hand moves from his shoulder to his ear. His fingers gently touching the wound but gentle isn't enough for the throbbing ache of bleeding viscera. He can feel his heartbeat in the torn bloodied flesh just as he feels it radiating from his shoulder.
His dad says nothing as he inspects the damage done to him. He watches as the concern gives way to something far more familiar. His face wrinkles as anger scrunches it together a frown slotting in to place as if it had never left.
Robert doesn't feel any satisfaction in seeing it now.
His dad rises from his crouch. A tall, impossible figure. "Get up," he says. None of his earlier concern is present, thoroughly squashed by the blatant anger.
Robert's limbs still shake, and Chase's hold is warm and safe. He wants to stay wrapped in his arms forever, to allow himself the care he nearly never gets. But dad hates quitters.
He does as ordered.
______________
Robert makes a conscious effort to look at them now that the story is finished. He owes it to them to at least see how his words settle. He may be on the denser side but even he is aware that this story is messed up. There's a beat and then when it's clear that he has nothing more to say the questions start.
"That's from the suit?" Alice says, pointing at his ear. "Boy I had thought it was from a gun."
"As had I," Janelle says as several others nod in agreement.
The room oddly feels lighter than it had. Maybe sharing holds more merit than he had previously thought.
"You're dad's a dick," Flambae says from his spot by the door.
Eyes flicker between Robert and him at the statement, the tense atmosphere returning with a vengeance. Robert can feel anger flicker to life in his battered chest. He can't place as to why, his words aren't untrue but it burns all the same.
"Excuse me?" and his words are cold and harsh, a warning as subtle as the fist Flambae threw at him last night.
Flambae's face is on the wrong side of impassive. His expression as blank as he's ever seen it. He shrugs, "It's true."
The anger flares within him and Robert swears the room grows hotter. The blanket carefully tucked around his chest turns stifling. He pauses, reminding himself to breath but Flambae's lips curl into a satisfied smirk and the breath doesn't calm him. It fans the flames.
"Get out," he says and he sweeps his gaze across the room. They should have just left him alone, let him lick his own wounds and face them when he was ready. The attention is stifling and confusing, unearthing things he had long since put down and buried.
The team has a special power of drudgeing them up and he can't deal with that right now. Fear churns as a prickling cold beneath the anger, his body at war with himself and that more than anything forces his hand.
"All of you," he clarifies and he wills himself not to wince at the hardened hurt unfurling on their faces. "I won’t tolerate disrespect for the dead and I’m sure you have more important things to do than attend to me.”
They grumble and groan, several glares turned toward the fire user but they file out. Flambae however, stays, leaning against the wall as if he's said nothing. Brown eyes meet orange and if Robert didn't feel exhaustion down to the bone he would have said something more.
Flambae says nothing, just stares back but his gaze softens and he sighs. "I'm Akhtar," he says.
It takes a moment for Robert to understand what he's saying, what those words mean. It's his name. He'd forgotten that he hadn't learned it.
It feels like an olive branch but Robert lacks the strength to grab it. He has nowhere to put it, his mind is busy churning with all that has happened. What almost happened and he would have allowed.
Akhtar doesn't say a word as he finally follows one of Robert's commands without comment or complaint. He leaves the room.
As soon as the door clicks shut Robert closes his eyes and sinks into the mattress. He allows himself to stew a little longer. To let the discomfort wash away as the blanket returns to being warm and cozy. He breathes in, holds then breathes out.
Get up.
Pins and needles shoot through his limbs, his body sweats with the effort and his toes are numb but he moves.