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"I wish you were better... or worse. Just... not what you were," Robert whispered into the midsummer night air.
He was 32 now, one whole year had passed since his life had completely flipped upside. One year since he gave up his father's and his grandfather's legacy to be a dispatcher for SDN. He doesn't regret not going back to being Mecha Man, especially when he can change his mind and pick up the suit whenever he wants, but despite that, a quiet gnawing guilt seeps in through the crevices of his brain, telling him to go back to the suit. It’s quiet most days, loud most nights.
Recently he's been thinking of his dad more than ever. Maybe that stupid reporter got into his head, but he can't stop thinking about what he'd say if he were here, what he'd do.
In all his contemplation though... he can't answer it. He never knew his own father well enough to be able to say how he'd feel. Maybe he'd be disappointed- not even be able to look at Robert for forsaking everything they lived for. Everything they died for. But maybe he'd be happy; maybe he'd celebrate that after over a decade of solitude and depression, Robert finally had friends and people he'd call family. But he can't say. He really can't.
"I had another nightmare. You were in the mech and I was a kid again standing outside of it. I don't know how but I knew I was a robot. Like I still looked like me but underneath my skin it was just parts and scrap metal from the mech. You asked me for a wrench and opened up the cockpit to take it from me. I gave you my hand for some reason... but.. uh.. when you asked for the wrench the second time, I gave it to you. You closed the hatch and then I just stood there while you worked." He didn't know why he was whispering. The plot they buried his dad in only had his family in it, and even if it didn't how many people go to a graveyard at 1 AM?
"I really... wished when I was standing there that I could be mad, but I couldn't since you were working on the mech to save people, so I just felt nothing." Pain, cold and grounding, radiated up from his tailbone, hard ground and spiky grass making for a less than pleasant lounging experience. If he was going to keep coming here after every bad nightmare maybe he should invest in a lawn chair. Would that be disrespectful? Kind of felt like it would be. And his dad didn't deserve disrespect. He was a great hero after all.
"I... I feel robbed... of like... my emotions. Every time I wake up from a nightmare about you, I should be able to feel something. But you were of such little importance to me that I don't. I don't miss you. I don't hate you. I'm not scared of you. I-" Robert cut himself off mid sentence like if he said it out loud it’d be blasphemy too great to come back from.
After a moment he said it anyway, needing this dead man- this captive audience to listen. "I don't know if I loved you. I wanted you while you were alive, but you're not anymore and I still just want you. It's different from missing you I think. I'm... I'm not really sure."
Sitting at his father's grave evoked such a strange feeling within him. On one hand, there he was. Finally still. Not going anywhere. On the other hand he wasn't there at all. Dead and absent from this life while his body slowly decayed. How much of his father was even down there at this current moment? What had the earth claimed? Was more of his dad in the ground beneath him or in the leaves of the trees that rustled next to him?
"When I die I don't want to be buried here." The small plot barely felt like it was attached to Torrence. The sound of the traffic and most of the lights from the city didn't reach here. "It's too lonely…. I can’t be alone with you when I'm dead."
He had never given what happens after his death much thought. For most of his life he expected to die alone in the line of fire. When you die like that what happens to your body is kind of everybody else's problem. Maybe he'd be put in a hero cemetery or get his own memorial if he died valiantly enough. That was of course presuming there would be a body.
When he dropped the suit he stopped thinking about death for a little while. It wasn't until Chase mentioned 2 weeks ago how he was preparing for his own death that Robert even considered how he would want to be disposed of. In the end he'd prefer whatever is easiest and inexpensive. He's dead, it's not like he'll need anything special. He'll just make it easy on whoever is there left to clean up his mess.
There was one stipulation though. "I want to be buried with Chase. No offense but he was more of a family to me than anyone buried here," he huffed with melancholy amusement as he patted the gravestone. It could use a wash, the face of it was starting to get dirty again.
He paused, long enough that the crickets who had quieted near him when he first approached began to sing again. "I don't have to wonder if I love Chase like with you.”
And oh so quietly, like his dad might answer him if he heard him from six feet under, Robert murmured, “I don’t have to wonder if he loves me like with you.”