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plotdevicedFandom: Transformers Prime
Title: Six Words
Rating: PG
Characters: Knock Out, Breakdown
Word count: 1124
Chapter Summary: Knock Out doesn't like when Breakdown's damages come from both friend and foe. Written for a tumblr prompt: "They don't deserve you."
▶ Crossposted to AO3
---
Chapter 1: Reinforcement
"Some days," Knock Out began, voice misleadingly conversational as his claws plucked through the tangle of shredded cables and peeled back plating. Breakdown's shoulder was a cratered mess, the scent of fried circuitry and over-torqued metal sharp in the air. Knock Out had his work cut out for him tonight.
"Some days?" he prompted, when the medic didn't continue and the silence stretched, interrupted only by the hiss of the cutting torch and clank of warped armor hitting the floor as its damaged sections were removed.
"Some days I'm not sure whether I'm patching more of the Autobots' hits on you, or Motormaster's."
It was an ambush question; there was no right answer. Breakdown offered a non-committal sound from the back of his vocalizer that turned into a pained grunt when Knock Out wrenched loose a stubborn bit of plating that had been digging a cleft against his protoform. Gripping the edge of the medberth with his one still functional servo, he ex-vented steadily through the worst of the pain. Knock Out had dialed down his pain receptors partway, but Breakdown's neural net had suffered damage during Motormaster's subsequent discipline, meaning they couldn't be turned all the way off without risking a systems failure.
"We won though." It came out more mulish than he'd been aiming for, offered as aegis against unspoken disapproval.
"I believe when both sides retreat, that's considered a draw." Knock Out would not be so easily appeased. He guided what remained of Breakdown's left side into a different position, surveying the ruined structure and deciding the whole assembly was nigh unsalvageable. "Gyral toroid up. Higher. Hold there so I can pull the actuators." The cutting torch bloomed to life again, casting cold light across the medic's white faceplates.
"At least Superion's going to be out of commission for a while," Breakdown defended. "Motormaster was just... you know how he is. He doesn't like it when we get called off before the fight's done. Wildrider wasn't helping either. Kept distracting us when we were together, it was hard to focus. Almost came apart twice."
Knock Out scoffed hard enough that there was a crackle of static to it. "You're the only one of that whole group who's not severely unhinged," he bit out. "You shouldn't have accepted the assignment. You shouldn't be dragooned into this—"
"You know I volunteered."
"You know I objected." Clinical. That had been a bad night for them.
"Menasor is an important asset," Breakdown fell back on. A recitation, words not his own. He may as well have been Soundwave replaying some vocal clip.
"Menasor is a menace. Do you want to know how many of our own that thing managed to dismantle this time around?" The question was caustic, calculated to hurt. The other Stunticons had never expressed any kind of remorse or regret about the 'friendly fire' incidents that came with Menasor's deployments, but Breakdown didn't have their indifference. He'd made the mistake of asking once. Now he knew better. He let the silence drag out again until Knock Out turned back to his tools, deprived of the chance to hammer his point home.
His mangled sinistral actuator hit the table, the ovoid bearing following a moment later, and the gouging pain dominating his left side eased finally. With Knock Out's servos still buried in his socket cabling, he did his best not to sag with relief. "It's fine. I can take it. Drag Strip's in way worse shape than I am, and he's gotta deal with Hook. He'll be three days - easy - before he gets cleared. Maybe more. It's practically vacation. The gestalt's—"
"I wish you wouldn't call it that."
Breakdown vented long, engine-warm air ghosting across the medic's red plating, and sought conviction to put his thoughts into words. "It's what we are. Look, my team doesn't have the smoothest running engine yet, I get that. But the only way we're going to get better is if we keep at it. I'm not going to quit."
"It wouldn't be quitting," Knock Out refuted. With practiced ease he was stripping out blackened wires, dropping clumps of them to the table tink-tink as he went. "Is that what this is about? You're trying to prove something? Breakdown, you don't have to prove anything to them. They don't deserve you."
"Now you're just sweet-talking me, Doc."
Sharp talons grazed over an exposed patch of tender fuel line, refusing to be mollified, and Breakdown's digits imprinted the metal berth. Ow. "And maybe I don't like people telling me what I can't do. You didn't."
"This isn't about—"
"You studied medicine because people told you that a racer couldn't do it. You proved them wrong."
Knock Out stared hard at him, optics narrowed nearly to slits. "That is a ridiculous over-simplification of what happened and you know it. And even if it wasn't, this is hardly comparable. My studying medicine never put me at risk of getting my circuits shredded or my plating melted by some lucky fusion missile strike because that deranged contraption you form up into can't tell the difference between Autobot and Decepticon—"
Breakdown waited. Knock Out's concerns were hardly founded in the ongoing safety of their Decepticon fellows.
The medic's engine downshifted, fans cycling, composing. "I can't— I can barely feel you when you're part of that thing," he finally yielded. "You stop being... Breakdown. I lose you."
"You don't lose me here," Breakdown replied, splaying his good hand across polished red chest plates. "I come back out of it. I'm still me."
Knock Out lingered an extra few kliks into the touch before he pulled back. He retrieved a new spool of wire, ready to rerun nodes and controllers, his transducers buzzing with irritation but without further vitriol. "I could get us transferred," he said, quieter. Something not quite an entreaty. "Get you out of this program. Let them find someone else for Motormaster to beat on when he's in a bad mood."
"You'd burn every favour we've got to make that happen."
"Is that a no?" It was Knock Out's half of their partnership, three of the six words, his end of the bargain: keep us together.
"Uhh... let's call it a 'wait and see'," Breakdown offered him a diplomatic grin, felt his partner's disgruntled ex-vent on the back of his radial, knew he'd been equalized for the moment. Until the Stunticons were deployed again, no doubt. "How's my shoulder looking, Doc? Am I gonna make it?"
Knock Out clicked his vocal synthesizer reprovingly. "Complete rebuild. If I didn't know better, I'd say you got scrapped just to submit yourself to my tender mercies. Lay back on the berth, let's get started."
Breakdown obeyed, optics shuttering, and let him work.
Title: Six Words
Rating: PG
Characters: Knock Out, Breakdown
Word count: 1124
Chapter Summary: Knock Out doesn't like when Breakdown's damages come from both friend and foe. Written for a tumblr prompt: "They don't deserve you."
▶ Crossposted to AO3
---
Chapter 1: Reinforcement
"Some days," Knock Out began, voice misleadingly conversational as his claws plucked through the tangle of shredded cables and peeled back plating. Breakdown's shoulder was a cratered mess, the scent of fried circuitry and over-torqued metal sharp in the air. Knock Out had his work cut out for him tonight.
"Some days?" he prompted, when the medic didn't continue and the silence stretched, interrupted only by the hiss of the cutting torch and clank of warped armor hitting the floor as its damaged sections were removed.
"Some days I'm not sure whether I'm patching more of the Autobots' hits on you, or Motormaster's."
It was an ambush question; there was no right answer. Breakdown offered a non-committal sound from the back of his vocalizer that turned into a pained grunt when Knock Out wrenched loose a stubborn bit of plating that had been digging a cleft against his protoform. Gripping the edge of the medberth with his one still functional servo, he ex-vented steadily through the worst of the pain. Knock Out had dialed down his pain receptors partway, but Breakdown's neural net had suffered damage during Motormaster's subsequent discipline, meaning they couldn't be turned all the way off without risking a systems failure.
"We won though." It came out more mulish than he'd been aiming for, offered as aegis against unspoken disapproval.
"I believe when both sides retreat, that's considered a draw." Knock Out would not be so easily appeased. He guided what remained of Breakdown's left side into a different position, surveying the ruined structure and deciding the whole assembly was nigh unsalvageable. "Gyral toroid up. Higher. Hold there so I can pull the actuators." The cutting torch bloomed to life again, casting cold light across the medic's white faceplates.
"At least Superion's going to be out of commission for a while," Breakdown defended. "Motormaster was just... you know how he is. He doesn't like it when we get called off before the fight's done. Wildrider wasn't helping either. Kept distracting us when we were together, it was hard to focus. Almost came apart twice."
Knock Out scoffed hard enough that there was a crackle of static to it. "You're the only one of that whole group who's not severely unhinged," he bit out. "You shouldn't have accepted the assignment. You shouldn't be dragooned into this—"
"You know I volunteered."
"You know I objected." Clinical. That had been a bad night for them.
"Menasor is an important asset," Breakdown fell back on. A recitation, words not his own. He may as well have been Soundwave replaying some vocal clip.
"Menasor is a menace. Do you want to know how many of our own that thing managed to dismantle this time around?" The question was caustic, calculated to hurt. The other Stunticons had never expressed any kind of remorse or regret about the 'friendly fire' incidents that came with Menasor's deployments, but Breakdown didn't have their indifference. He'd made the mistake of asking once. Now he knew better. He let the silence drag out again until Knock Out turned back to his tools, deprived of the chance to hammer his point home.
His mangled sinistral actuator hit the table, the ovoid bearing following a moment later, and the gouging pain dominating his left side eased finally. With Knock Out's servos still buried in his socket cabling, he did his best not to sag with relief. "It's fine. I can take it. Drag Strip's in way worse shape than I am, and he's gotta deal with Hook. He'll be three days - easy - before he gets cleared. Maybe more. It's practically vacation. The gestalt's—"
"I wish you wouldn't call it that."
Breakdown vented long, engine-warm air ghosting across the medic's red plating, and sought conviction to put his thoughts into words. "It's what we are. Look, my team doesn't have the smoothest running engine yet, I get that. But the only way we're going to get better is if we keep at it. I'm not going to quit."
"It wouldn't be quitting," Knock Out refuted. With practiced ease he was stripping out blackened wires, dropping clumps of them to the table tink-tink as he went. "Is that what this is about? You're trying to prove something? Breakdown, you don't have to prove anything to them. They don't deserve you."
"Now you're just sweet-talking me, Doc."
Sharp talons grazed over an exposed patch of tender fuel line, refusing to be mollified, and Breakdown's digits imprinted the metal berth. Ow. "And maybe I don't like people telling me what I can't do. You didn't."
"This isn't about—"
"You studied medicine because people told you that a racer couldn't do it. You proved them wrong."
Knock Out stared hard at him, optics narrowed nearly to slits. "That is a ridiculous over-simplification of what happened and you know it. And even if it wasn't, this is hardly comparable. My studying medicine never put me at risk of getting my circuits shredded or my plating melted by some lucky fusion missile strike because that deranged contraption you form up into can't tell the difference between Autobot and Decepticon—"
Breakdown waited. Knock Out's concerns were hardly founded in the ongoing safety of their Decepticon fellows.
The medic's engine downshifted, fans cycling, composing. "I can't— I can barely feel you when you're part of that thing," he finally yielded. "You stop being... Breakdown. I lose you."
"You don't lose me here," Breakdown replied, splaying his good hand across polished red chest plates. "I come back out of it. I'm still me."
Knock Out lingered an extra few kliks into the touch before he pulled back. He retrieved a new spool of wire, ready to rerun nodes and controllers, his transducers buzzing with irritation but without further vitriol. "I could get us transferred," he said, quieter. Something not quite an entreaty. "Get you out of this program. Let them find someone else for Motormaster to beat on when he's in a bad mood."
"You'd burn every favour we've got to make that happen."
"Is that a no?" It was Knock Out's half of their partnership, three of the six words, his end of the bargain: keep us together.
"Uhh... let's call it a 'wait and see'," Breakdown offered him a diplomatic grin, felt his partner's disgruntled ex-vent on the back of his radial, knew he'd been equalized for the moment. Until the Stunticons were deployed again, no doubt. "How's my shoulder looking, Doc? Am I gonna make it?"
Knock Out clicked his vocal synthesizer reprovingly. "Complete rebuild. If I didn't know better, I'd say you got scrapped just to submit yourself to my tender mercies. Lay back on the berth, let's get started."
Breakdown obeyed, optics shuttering, and let him work.
