#BreakCee | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aquilegiaformosa · 8 years

Text

for @kitchengremlinbakura

...this blood on my teeth, it is far beyond dry and I’ve captured you once, but it wasn’t quite right still, I’m telling you that you’ll be safe with me

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

No matter how much he wanted to, Breakdown couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the huddled ball of barely-contained fury that sat curled on the other side of the electrified bars. An intense sensation of wrongness prodded him in the spark every time the blue femme moved, and so he continued to watch, letting the feeling tear at him like sharp digits probing a festering wound. She wasn’t supposed to be here, and yet it was his fault that she was.

Behind him hovered the dark, gloating form of Megatron. The warlord had already made it clear how pleased he was with Starscream and Breakdown’s ‘joint’ capture of the Autobots’ second-in-command; no doubt there would be peace in the medbay for weeks, possibly months. Breakdown watched the femme’s winglets fan gently with her every careful, seething breath, and couldn’t find it in himself to celebrate.

“No doubt she will have vital information on the Autobots’ next move regarding the Iacon relics,” Megatron purred, his EM Field roiling with morbid humour. “Starscream has informed me that use of the Cortical Psychic Patch has proven effective on her in the past; however, Soundwave feels that a second Patch could possibly prove damaging, and we cannot risk whatever information she may carry.” Scarred lips pursed thoughtfully, and he turned, one brow ridge raised slightly, to consider the mech in front of him. “We’ll give her a chance to settle in – we are not without manners, after all – and then perhaps you can try your hand at persuading our guest to talk.” Breakdown swallowed against his dismay; Megatron gave a dry chuckle. “Undoubtedly your experience as both a Wrecker and a medic will be put to good use. I leave you to it.” And with that, the pewter mech left. Heavy pedesteps faded out into the hallways of the Nemesis, and Breakdown felt something cold and slimy settle in the pit of his tanks.

Funny how he had forgotten what guilt felt like.

Slowly, carefully, he walked over to the glowing bars of the cell and crouched, his processor racing and leaving his frame behind to mind itself. This was a mess, a terrible mess, a wrong mess… “I’m sorry.”

“If you were sorry you wouldn’t have let this happen,” came the immediate reply, still sharp and biting even from within the curl of limbs. “So don’t give me that scrap.”

His mouth opened briefly, even though he knew there was nothing in the world he could say to make this any better. She was right; he had finally screwed up enough to get someone killed, even if it was going to be eventual and not immediate. “I don’t…” He sighed, roughly scrubbing the back of his knuckles over the patch where is right optic used to be. “Tell me. Tell me what I should do.”

“Go back in time and let me get away before Starscream showed at the relic site,” she snapped bitterly, her helm still buried in the hollow where her crossed arms draped over her bent knees. “Do something besides freezing and looking mildly horrified. I know that turning on another Decepticon is risky, I appreciate the danger, but did you think I wouldn’t help?” Her winglets wilted ever-so-slightly. “It doesn’t matter; it’s too late for any of that, anyhow.”

‘Too late’: he simply hadn’t been able to make himself speak, to move his pedes fast enough or to bring his servos up to pull Starscream’s vice-like talons from around her shoulders (how lucky she was that the Seeker hadn’t seen fit to dig the sharp tips of his digits into her plating to make her stop struggling!). But it was also too late to accept all those offers to come back to the Autobots, all those forgiving servos that had been held out to him, invitations that he had been too complacent to accept. Not two weeks ago, hers had been the most recent offer; a plea for him to come back with her, and not for the first time. It was just the two of them that day, with no one to stop him; he couldn’t even remember whatever weak excuse he had given her for why it wasn’t going to work out. Maybe next time…?

He’d been the only one in danger then, the kind he’d known for most of his life, and so it somehow hadn’t seemed to matter all that much.

It was silent for a long while, the sound of their vents slightly ragged against the even hum of the cell bars. Finally, there came the soft shuffle of plating, and Breakdown looked over only to be met by a fierce, foxglove glare – bright and venomous.

“I’m not going to tell them anything, no matter what they have you do. You know that,” she said, her voice dangerously soft.

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied miserably.

“Then why don’t you just save us both the trouble,” she continued, “and skip to the end. I’ve been interrogated before; it doesn’t work on me very well, but I don’t particularly enjoy it either, and I’m guessing you could give it a pass yourself. So how about putting us both out of our misery and just—”

“Stop.” He couldn’t even look at her any more, too ashamed and too horrified to bear it any longer. Something inside of him twisted painfully at the irony of his begging her for mercy when he was hardly in a position to need it. “That’s not – Arcee please, I don’t think you –”

“What, you think I don’t want that?” She sighed suddenly, heavily, and her entire frame seemed to unspool, leaving her slumped against the cell wall with her legs in a loose crisscross and her arms resting limply at her sides. Lavender-tinged optics sought the ceiling. “Nobody wants to die, Breakdown, of course not. Not when they think about it. Most of the time, what they’re looking for is a reset-button.” She let her optics close as she settled further against the wall, winglets flattening against the slumbering ship’s lukewarm metal. “But right now I don’t really have a choice about dying, not when Death is keeping me company. And if that’s what I’m faced with, then… I’m sorry, but I’d rather not spend a lot of time suffering for other people’s poor decisions.” Her helm lolled slightly to one side, tension slowly easing out of her shoulders to be replaced with resignation. “I need… I just wanted you to give me an escape route…”

Breakdown shuddered, his gaze fixed helplessly on his trembling servos, and tried to focus… but his processor kept sliding away, playing unshot footage of the next few minutes, the next hour, the days and weeks ahead… how he knew she wasn’t going to tell them anything, just like he knew she wasn’t going to cry, or plead, or do anything but fix him with those bright, accusing optics that hadn’t left him the entire trip back to the Nemesis. If only he hadn’t been so slow to react… he buried his helm in his servos and tried not to think how he was left with a choice between the immediate and the inevitable, and how either one would haunt him regardless of his decision. There had to be a third door somewhere…

“Wait.” His quiet murmur bounced softly off the walls of the prison room like the slant of sunlight through a keyhole. “Wait, I know what we should do,” he whispered earnestly, moving from his crouch to sit down right next to the cell bars. “It’s going to work, too, because I can actually help – I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”

“What,” she replied dully, unmoved by the sudden brightening of his tone.

“You want an escape? I’ll give you one – a literal escape. I’m going to break you out.”

“Pits of Kaon,” she said slowly, a grin beginning to form on her lips. “We’re both idiots. I’ll take your offer – help me off this smelted, Primus-forsaken barge.”

“Glad to be back in your good graces,” he laughed softly, relief trickling through his systems as he banished the dark visions of the once-definite future from his processor. “But keep it down. Soundwave uses the ship’s dormant neural network as part of his surveillance system. The walls literally have audials.”

Arcee snorted – a soft, amused sound – but shrugged her shoulders away from the cell wall anyhow. “I’ve never had inside help before,” she muttered, scooting over to sit directly beside him. “It’s going to take some getting used to.” The glowing bars between them lit her face with their sickly pink light as she tilted her helm back to speak nearly in his audial. “Really, I should have considered— well,” she amended, “maybe not. I know the frequencies to comm the Autobots for a rescue, but my personal line’s been jammed, and it’s not like I actually know where we are.”

“I can help you with that.” Maybe he’d used up all his chances, but at least there was one still left for her, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Not this time. “I can get you to a comm station, and then hold off any response team long enough for you to contact the Autobots and send them the Nemesis’s coordinates.”

“Excellent.” A look of intense determination had replaced the burning apathy of minutes before as she rose up on her knees, servos subconsciously moving to clasp the bars of the cell before quickly dancing away as memory caught up to movement. “And you have easy access to those?”

“Yeah.” He nodded once, then again, vigorously. “Yeah, of course. I gotta be able to help bridge in miners. But listen,” he whispered, “we’re gonna have to wait until the night shift.”

The look on her faceplate was one of hesitant agreement. “I just want to know why.”

“There’s less guards, less foot traffic, and Starscream will definitely be in recharge. Probably Dreadwing, too. We’ve been on this planet for almost four years now; it’s hard not to let your recharge cycles match up with the rhythms of the planet.” He gave her a small, crooked smile. “Especially for Seekers, it seems.”

“Fair enough.” She sank back to sit on her heels. “It’s the same for us, so.”

“The chances of escape will be much better, and it’ll be easier to fend off the smaller teams.” Never mind the fact that, once she was safely off the ship and back with the Autobots, he would have to face the collective fury of the Decepticon Command Triad alone; right now he had a plan to fix this, and the opportunity to act on it. “We probably won’t be detected until you comm out anyway. You should be off the ship without too much trouble.”

“Sounds g—” She paused, her optics narrowing. “’We’. You mean ‘we’ should be off the ship.”

He frowned uncertainly. “I do?”

“Yes! What –” Her expression abruptly flattened out into a dreadful calm. “Breakdown. You actually thought—?” There was a moment as she studied his face. “You did. Primus in the Well…” One small pede slid gingerly between the cell bars and kicked him sharply in the thigh. “You’re coming with me, you idiot!”

“I—”

“No! You really thought I was just going to waltz off the ship without you? I—” She broke off, yelping, as her shin brushed against the bars with a crackle of static. Carefully the singed limb was slipped back into the cell to the tune of muttered curses, and she folded her legs beneath her with a sour expression. “I don’t leave people I care about behind; not if I can help it. And I told you, I’m well aware of what it can cost a Decepticon to turn on his faction, and there is no way in Pits I’m going to leave you to face that. It’ll be hard enough just getting a Groundbridge up here; why wouldn’t the Autobots take you after going to all that trouble to begin with?”

“That’s not quite what…” Breakdown attempted to gather his thoughts, still a bit startled by her outburst. “I figured you’d need a rearguard,” he concluded lamely.

“Rearguards can shoot while retreating,” she sighed exasperatedly. “And everyone will be there to help us.”

“Well, yes. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it like that. But,” he added, holding out his servos placatingly, “it wasn’t anything about whether or not you cared; I just assumed we both thought that would be an acceptable risk.”

“It’s not,” she replied flatly. She looked up at him, expression torn between sympathy and frustration. “You really think you’re worth that little?”

He paused, considering, and after a moment said, “It’s more that… that I think you’re worth that much.”

Whatever words she’d had for him died on her lips, her winglets lowering to lie almost flush against her back as she struggled to look anywhere but at him. “Hardly,” she managed at last. “And I’ve come to realise that first-hand.”

Neither said anything for a while, and this time the silence grew long past the point at which it turned agonizing. Breakdown was the first to speak again.

“Since we have plenty of time while we wait…” Hoisting himself to his pedes, he carefully punched in the four-glyph access code, and the cell door opened. “You might as well let me look at that burn.”

“It’s fine.” Still, she scooted over to make room for him in the small cell. “I thought you said Soundwave was listening – this hasn’t exactly been sounding like an interrogation.”

“It won’t matter as long as we’re quiet.” He settled down across from her. “It’d be a few days before anyone started paying attention; no-one’s really interested in what would be going on at this point. Threats and intimidation,” he clarified when her helm tilted curiously to one side. “An offer to switch sides, maybe.”

“So that’s what ‘settling in’ is.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then we’re right on track,” she muttered, stretching out her left leg for him to see. “I have a medkit, if you need it.”

Breakdown unsubspaced his own kit and bounced it lightly in his servo. “I’ve seen your lousy Autobot field kits. Mine has burn gel.”

“So do ours.”

“This kind is better.” Taking out the little ironglass container, he cupped her calf carefully in one palm, digits gently exploring the blackened edges of the burn on her shin guard. “Not too deep. It only looks bad – probably feels bad, too.” She nodded, idly biting her lip but seeming otherwise unconcerned as she watched him work.

“Won’t be trying to kick me again anytime soon, I bet,” he remarked, scooping a generous dollop of clear, greenish goo out of the jar.

“I’ll kick you clean onto your aft, if you keep giving me this much trouble.”

“Can’t say I wouldn’t deserve it.” He carefully spread an even layer of the gel over the affected area with slow, smooth strokes. A moment of rummaging in his kit produced flexible repair mesh, which he began to wrap firmly over the treated burn. “Arcee…” He glanced up to find her optics on him, open and inquiring; he quickly looked back down at what he was doing. “I am sorry, you know.” He separated the roll of bandaging from the wrap and smoothed the self-sealing material together. “For all of it, not just what happened today.”

Her leg slid from his grasp, only to be replaced by one delicate servo. “Oh, Breakdown…” she sighed, brushing her free servo along the side of his helm. He caught it gently, digits still tacky with burn gel. “Of course I know,” she said softly, leaning in to let their forehelms gently rest against each other. “I know, and it’s all right.”

#Mana #BreakCee #Arcee #Breakdown #maccadam #EagleFic #general warning for wartime imprisonment and darkish themes #hurt/comfort #Transformers

8 notes · View notes

aquilegiaformosa · 8 years

Note

tell me all the things about breakdown/arcee verse let's talk about hercules and murderpixie

hERCULES AND MURDERPIXIE OH MY GOSH

i still need to draw fluff for them

basically, the idea i had of Breakdown and Arcee started (only a few months before we started talking) as an extension of a reversal-fic i wrote, in which Knock Out went with Dreadwing to kill Airachnid, and so he died instead of Breakdown. this turn of events was a bad blow to Breakdown, especially since TFP had been giving us hints that maybe he was considering leaving the Decepticons (and then Crossfire shot that all to heck but oh well).

but with Knock Out dead, he was now ship’s medic (not doctor; never doctor), and so began hanging back from battles so that he could provide cover fire and take care of the injured mechs more easily. this gave him a lot of time to think, as well as get a better idea of the Decepticons as a whole; between these two things, he was able to figure just what it was about his faction that rubbed him the wrong way.

but he didn’t leave. even without Knock Out keeping him there (and it wasn’t like Knock Out had wanted to stay; it was just that escapes were always harder with two, and they’d had each other…), Breakdown was having a hard time working up the courage to just go. on top of that, he really had no place to go: his main rival served with the opposite faction, and he did not feel safe going it alone among the humans of Earth.

so he stayed. and he fixed Vehicons, and he kept his head down, and he tried to make things better for himself and others without being noticed.

he even sorted out that spot of trouble with Silas.

but even with all of this, he was unhappy. Megatron’s presence and intentions chafed at him every moment he was among the Decepticons. he didn’t want a part in this side of the War any longer.

so great was the wear on his mind and conscience that, when he found himself wounded in an isolated corner of the battlefield with the business end of a certain two-wheeler’s fusion-cannon pointed at his face, he discovered that he really didn’t care anymore. it was fine… he was tired, and there wasn’t much that mattered to him anymore save for a handful of Vehicons that probably wouldn’t last the month anyway.

she didn’t shoot.

of course, she made it very clear that she would; possibly even soon if he didn’t cooperate. she wanted information first, and she was willing to trade Decepticon intel for his life. it mattered very little to him that he didn’t have any intel, and he didn’t care what that meant for him.

“Just… get it over with already,” he snarled, “I don’t have anything for you, and even if I did, I wouldn’t care enough to exchange it… for anything.” Bright blue continued to seep between his digits, no matter how hard he pressed his servo against the rend in his side. “I’ve got no loyalty to my faction, but I’ve also got no love for you; in fact, all I’ve got right now is one pede in the Well and no medic to patch me up but myself.”

She blinked, then frowned disbelievingly. “What happened to Knock Out? Job get too difficult for him?”

“He’s dead.” Breakdown shifted, and the pool of energon grew slightly. “He’s dead because Megatron needed Airachnid out of the picture, and so I’m the medic now.”

The small femme seemed to stiffen. “She… Airachnid killed him?”

He looked up at her with his one good optic. “Yeah.”

She fidgeted, pedes kicking up puffs of desert sand as she grounded her stance. “You do anything about it?”

“Like what, hunt her down? No,” he barked, not quite laughing. “I’m not stupid.”

“Stupid?!”

Her gun-arm moved, and he flinched, optics squeezing shut in anticipation of a head-shot. Instead of a blaster-bolt, however, something small but appreciably heavy bounced off his chestplate, and he looked down to see a field medkit lying in the dust at his pedes.

“You don’t think I have one of these?” he growled.

“I don’t,” she snapped, and transformed into her alt. “You seem like a lousy medic!” And then she was gone in a blur of thrown sand and smoking rubber.

The fact that they kept bumping into each other after that was something Breakdown chalked up to his seemingly chronic bad luck.

She was on patrol; he was scouting for mine locations. Mistakes were made, and he’d nearly ended up broadsiding her. She’d spat venom in three Cybertronian dialects and two Earth languages, and somehow in all of that mess she managed to tell him that her name was Arcee. His audials had buzzed for days afterward.

A gang of Vehicons had gotten their skidplates handed to them by Bulkhead and Arcee; she was apparently ‘cleaning things up’ while Bulkhead secured the perimeter, and Breakdown had lost his temper for the first time since he’d killed Silas. “Once they’re down they aren’t going to mess with you!” he’d shouted, faceplate nearly touching hers and servo clasped around her activated cannon too firmly to be comfortable. “Don’t. Shoot. Downed. Troopers.” He’d unremorsefully knocked her on her aft and swept the Vehicons onto a hastily-summoned groundbridge before Bulkhead even knew he had been there.

Not two days after, she caught him unawares during one of his few shifts off, coming at him from behind and tackling him to the ground. Through his surprise, he heard her hiss, “I wasn’t shooting them, idiot. It’s called ‘guarding downed enemies’. You should try it sometime, as opposed to slaughtering your prisoners.” He’d thrown her off and demanded to know who he had executed lately; she had evaded answering him, muttering something vague about Starscream while looking noticeably forlorn. They’d stood in awkward silence for the rest of his shift off.

By time they met again, Breakdown was feeling less like it was bad luck and more like they were trying to find each other. In the heat of battle, he made a forgettable joke about getting her comm. frequency; she returned with a snipe about not flirting on the battlefield before kissing him - briefly, but full on the mouth. After that meeting, it was his spark and his processor that had been buzzing.

and so it continued. and each time, Breakdown felt a little more able to consider leaving the Decepticons and finally changing sides.

#under the cut bc looooong #kitchengremlinbakura #Breakdown #Arcee #BreakCee #the OTP #Transformers #tay #there is more??? but so long???#I think i'm gonna reblog a pairings meme #EagleFic

6 notes · View notes