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He’s never been particularly religious.
It’s not something that he feels is baked into his psyche, or that inherently decides every move he makes, or that is an unchanging part of him.
He doesn’t believe in God.
And if that isn’t the biggest load of horseshit he’s ever spewed, he doesn’t know what is.
Because the fact of the matter is, when the going gets hard, he turns to God, and when he doesn’t know what else to do, he mutters prayers under his breath, and lives and breathes knowing of Him.
Frankly, he doesn’t know what he’d do without the constant pressure at his back. Somedays he can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad thing, all he knows is that he’s not going where he wants to anyway. Something about eternal damnation and isn’t that a funny word?
Damnation.
If you break it down, the word goes into these silly little parts, the Latin part being: damnatio, or condemnation, which stems from the root: damnāre, or, to doom. The etymology of the word isn’t that important, it’s Latin, at any rate. That’s not the point.
The point is to end up back at dam, not damn. Because at the end of the day, they’re the same thing.
Dams stop the flow of water from one part of a river, or lake, or whatever, to the other side.
Someone must’ve thought they were funny when they were naming that.
He feels a bit like water in a dam on a good day (on bad ones too, but more like a rock at the bottom of the assorted body of water), he’s stuck on one side of this and dammit (ha!) he’s not getting to the other.
He tries not to care.
He remembers the kind words of Sunday school teachers - kind, they were supposed to be kind - the sounds of hymns played across the choir's voices, he remembers singing in one, once. Dad said it was important, and who was he to deny that?
But, Dad’s gone now, and he’d taken his mantle as Mecha Man.
How the hell do you do both?
How did Dad do both?
He recalls the first few weeks in the suit as some of the worst of his life. He’s taken over Dad’s job with none of the support he had, he’s had to repair it, clean it out, completely remove his father, all the while trying to understand why a merciful God would let his Dad’s light be extinguished like that.
Why’d he let the Devil take over Shroud’s Elliot’s soul?
Why’d he let Robert be born into this heap of bullshit.
He guesses the answer lies somewhere in the book he’s neglected reading for years, and years, and years, but he remembers when Dad would sit by him at night, the few nights they got together, and read to him out of Matthew. Because they never managed to get to Mark, or Luke, or John.
But he thought it was important enough to read it to him.
Or maybe he just didn’t have any kids books. Who knows.
What he does know is that when he sorted through Dad’s things after he died, he found the Bible he remembers his dad holding on those very few, hazy nights. The tabs that lined the sides, the passages he’d set aside for his kid, and moreover, the notes in handwriting that looked like Grandpa’s.
It’s a family heirloom, like everything else, the name, the suit, whatever is wrong in the head with all of them, he guesses. He doesn’t feel worthy of this one, or any of the others for that matter, but this one more than those. He feels like it’s something that’s been thrust upon him, something he never asked for, something he doesn’t want.
But it’s here.
When he was younger, he remembers attending church, helping the widows of his congregation clean their yards, and he remembers learning early on that he’s supposed to give, and give, and give, and taking any form of help soils his father’s reputation, and Dad can’t let that happen, not that he really has time for church, or the congregation, or God anymore.
Distinctly, he recalls a pastor asking for his thoughts, to know what was troubling him, and he recalls telling the pastor he was fine, that nothing was amiss, and all was well, but-
He’s heard somewhere before that the soul has weight to it.
When you die, you lose a bit of your weight, someone’s done a study, somewhere, surely.
So it makes sense that when people say:“Oh, that’s a weight off my shoulders” after talking to their priest, or pastor, or bishop, or whatever the hell you want to call them, there’s an actual, physical weight being lifted.
The soul isn’t part of the body as much as the body is an outer representation of the soul.
If God really intended us to be spiritual beings living a mortal experience, he’s positive God would make the soul weigh something. It has to.
You wear this, you do this, you act like this, and eventually you might be accepted into His church.
Robert sincerely doubts that, at this point. He’s done too much wrong in his life, there’s a ledger somewhere with all the sins he’s ever committed and he’s not good enough to blot them all out, no matter how many lives he saves. Eventually really is the key word of that.
He feels like a net-negative on the world at times, all the good he does, all of what he strives for, is never going to amount to all of the awful things he’s brought into the world.
His rage, his hurt, his- whatever you want to call it, all things that aren’t “of good report”, they make his head spin and guilt well in his stomach, they make him want to purge all of the bad out of him, the root of all evil, the root of everything good, everything that makes him, him, the fundamentals, and start a new.
That. In retrospect, is probably not the healthiest way of thinking about his sin, or his wrongs, or everything wrong with him and what he is and what he does. Still, it’s one of those thoughts that lingers in the back of his mind, one of those things that waits to make itself known until you’re at your lowest, so as he lays back in the shitty green chair of his, freshly showered, and not feeling fresh at all, do those thoughts strike back again.
He recalls the old leather book, sitting in a box or at the back of a closet somewhere, the cross necklace that lays hidden somewhere inside of its pages, and all at once he feels the familiar ache of guilt.
The weight of never amounting to what his father was, what he wanted him to be, even.
It’s a bit to grapple with, he supposes, not that there’s much he can do about it.
When he gets out of Sunday school that week - his hands are small, he still has so much to learn about the world, and - wanders around the building, sits in the chapel, and searches for answers to his questions through clasped hands and a solemn pleading voice. This habit hasn’t changed much since he was a child.
At every turn there’s another picture, another reminder that he cannot measure up to what God would want him to be, measure up to what his father wanted him to be.
Pictures of a Saviour he’s sure isn’t meant for him.
Some days his guilt is palpable, it’s something able to be swallowed, a full feeling in the bottom of his gut that keeps his mouth shut and his hands folded, silently mouthing prayers in between shaky breaths.
His prayers feel both hollow and like the very last things he has to give, he is the cruse of oil that’s run out, that keeps giving despite being empty, but it really doesn’t feel like a miracle to him, unlike the widow. Maybe he’s just not grateful enough.
He hasn’t asked to be healed, hasn’t touched the bottom of Christ’s garment and begged to be saved, released from the issues plaguing him. He hasn’t kneeled at his feet, or been washed, or anything of the sort.
So when he sees the rosary wrapped around the mirror, hanging loosely as he tries to find a way to respond to Blazer, he’s reminded of his God. The way he still feels Courtney’s hands tracing his, the sick feeling he gets when he’s reminded of how unworthy he is of everything he works to embody.
He prays that night, when the going gets hard, because what else is he supposed to fall back on? It’s a Hail Mary into a sea of forgotten pleadings. He hasn’t answered Robert’s pleas like this before, what stops this time from being any different?
He feels like he’s wasting time when his hands curl around each other and words fall seamlessly and practiced from his lips. He’s worried they’ll fall flat like every other time he’s begged for help, for God to step in, to do something, a God of miracles only when they can be written down and passed on in stories through text for years and years.
He misses the simplicity of how it was when he was a kid, when the biggest issue was having to wake up early to put a stuffy outfit on, before he understood the implications of the cross, of the sacrifice, of everything he can’t be.
A world before he understood the light, dark, knowledge of good, and of evil. Sometimes, between pleading and cursing (and the incredible levels of mental whiplash achieved from this habit), he finds a way to place the blame on his father’s habits, his father’s insistence to bring him up in the church, his father’s stern hand and absent glare.
It’s achingly familiar, to be forgotten by a father, regardless of which one he’s implying.
He wants to leave, he wants to forget that his every action is tied back to something that rests in God’s will, because no matter what he does, his own personal Wormwood is ready to heed advice from his blasted uncle Screwtape, and he can only hope that he gets the same fate as their Patient before he completely damns himself.
It’s rather morbid.
He doesn’t think God has an issue with the morbid things in life though, given the entire crucifixion thing.
From time to time he recalls the cross, the way he felt with it as a child, the pure ache of someone who understood exactly what he’s going through. When he was a kid it made him feel less alone, all it works to do now is remind him of how much he’ll be judged.
While he never ended up getting to this part with his father, he remembers tracing his finger along the bottom of the line reading words he couldn’t possibly have grasped at that age, the way “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”, made him feel - and really the depth of the words uttered there.
Why would He take his sin, why would he?
“As thou wilt.”
Robert doesn’t have the faith for “as thou wilt”, he barely has the faith for his own will, let alone God’s, regardless of eternal wisdom, or knowledge. It’s not something that comforts it’s something that damns him once more.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”
He doesn’t recall being a sparrow (let alone two), but he knows the intent of the verse all the same.
“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
It’s a mortifying ordeal to be known.
“Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
A farthing in those times was equal to about one sixty-fourth of a worker’s daily wage. That is to imply, not worth a lot.
It’s something that weighs on him, potential. That shitty little speech he gave about potential was more of a call to himself, a reminder of everything he gave and all he lost, a reminder that he was meant for more, he could’ve been more, he should’ve been more.
He was made, to be more.
His father - and dammit, it always really comes back down to him - would scold him for “casting his pearls to swine,” but he can’t find it in himself to really be mad for that because the pearls are faux and the swine aren’t really all that bad anyway.
He feels like the disapproval of his father’s spirit rests on his soul, in for a penny, in for a pound, and if the penny is a petty sin, the pound is whatever he really wants to be doing about Elliot Shroud. Maybe Screwtape got to him.
It’s a distant, almost funny thought, something to mellow out the levels of insignificance he feels against everything that’s ever been offered to him.
He’s able to recall the first time he sins, it starts out small, it always does.
He’s lied to one of his father’s friends - whichever one was babysitting him at the time, it’s not Chase - about eating his vegetables at dinner and as soon as the high of being able to leave the table not having eaten his vegetables is over, a sinking feeling overtakes him, it lingers in his every action and he’s not able to sleep that night or the nights to come as he wonders if God’s going to kill him, or his father, for the lie he’s told.
It never leaves his lips, this lie, this sin, he never admits to it, to hiding kale in his napkin or the corners of his mouth to spit out later, but it stays at the forefront of his mind for years to come, as he gets older. He’s able to justify sneaking a sip from anything in Dad’s liquor cabinet, able to justify breaking into Dad’s workshop to snoop, or beating some kid up at the playground.
He feels that if he’d been able to resist that lie, that one, little lie, he’d be fine now. It wouldn't have tracked across everything he’s ever done and soil any of the good works he’s managed to make. He’s able to do good things, that’s not a question - the question is if they’re able to overcome the dozens of people he’s picked fights with (turn the other cheek, forgive seventy times seven), the times he’s done things deliberately to hurt himself (a temple of the Lord, a blessing, a gift from Him), or the blasphemy that leaves his mouth every single day (do you remember not the Lord your God who art in Heaven? “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the coming one”).
All of it, the ache, the guilt, it leaves a sour taste in his mouth when he sees street-preachers and recalls the lines of text that leave him in a sad state and desperately alone.
Still, his father’s legacy rests firmly in his grasp, he’s probably somewhere in heaven (or, maybe not) cursing Robert for everything he’s done, for everything he refuses to do, what he refuses to be. For as much as Dad was never around, he sure has seemed to leave an impact on his life through the few things he insisted on.
He can’t help but feel that if he’d never taken over the role of Mecha Man, or if the lineage had stopped with his father, it would’ve been better than where he is now, where he rests with the several 6 foot holes he’s dug for himself through his life. Mecha Man is the reason he lives, and it will be the reason why he dies.
He’s tied to the depths of emotion and set free by God all in the same sentence; he’s constrained and held down, chained to the deepest valleys of the sea, and above the clouds, flying free. The juxtaposition does nothing to help the raging eternal conflict that simmers deep in his soul.
He goes back to the thin gold plated pages, the cross laid across a leather back, long forgotten, sometimes. It doesn’t ever bring him as much solace as he would hope for, but he doesn’t hope for much these days.
He holds a prayer in his heart throughout each day, a prayer that changes when he feels the breeze on his face, the sound of rain pattering down across a rooftop, or sees another monstrous act and wonders, ”how could God let this happen?”
The questions always end in the same root, “why?” over and over again, it’s always been the same question, he sincerely doubts it’ll ever change at the rate it’s going and yet, if God’s so merciful, why wouldn’t he grant Robert the comfort of knowing why.
It’s just his luck, he guesses, and if you’re really religious, you probably don’t believe in luck, or fate, it’s all predestination, preordination, and “God’s will” that keeps the world spinning. Fate.
What a stupid concept.
It doesn’t change the way he’s drawn to it, the way it changes his every action, the way it bleeds into what he does, how he thinks, acts, dresses, fate and destiny, he decides, are things not meant for him. They couldn’t be, his life was planned out before he was born - sometimes he thinks it's the only reason why he was born - and it’s supposed to go this way until he dies.
He wants to ignore fate, destiny, predestination, preordination, whatever the hell you’re so inclined to call it and be himself, but himself is an inherently divine thing, (as is everyone else, he’s not special here) and it’s impossible to escape from.
The eyes that course his back at every action he makes, every minute detail, every thought, all of the violent urges to slam someone’s head into the table, to make them hurt, to even out his pain on the inside and outside, something to level it out, the way he wants to strangle Shroud, (his name is Elliot, it’s Elliot, the man who was like an uncle to you) make him hurt the same way he has for years and years.
It’s not something he thinks God would be proud to hear.