Written for a soulmate drabble prompt on my June Darby rp tumblr ( nursejunedarby) hope you enjoy!
June had thought she'd had a pretty good idea on which of her Names was her enemy, and which was her soulmate. I mean, Optimus Prime (on her right wrist) meant "best first" and if that didn't sound like a villain name, or at least a very egotistical person, she didn't know what did. Leland Bishop (on her left), however, now that was a respectable name, and she just felt the man behind it would be like that.
She joined a Soulmate Matching group, and eventually they found a potential match. Lieutenant Leland Bishop, most recently of Nabraska. She took her nursing certificate and her VW Rabbit and went to meet him. He had been shocked to see her, but he accepted her word, and they shared a kiss. It was good, but it made her feel like a sparking wire had been exposed.
It was the happiest two years of her life, until the day she took a test and confirmed that she was pregnant. She excitedly told Leland about it when he got home, and he seemed excited too, proposing right there, and they had a courthouse wedding the next Monday. But he became much more restrictive of her too, not wanting her to got out with her friends or even to the store, asking her to get on maternity leave as soon as possible, and even restricting her to the bedroom during the last two weeks of her pregnancy, despite the fact she was at no higher risk than any other first time mother.
This did not abate after Jackson Thomas Bishop was born. June did not mind being a stay at home mother, Leland was now a captain, soon to be a major, and made plenty to support them. But she needed to get some time to herself, and with her friends too. She ended up sneaking out one day with Jack, just to visit a friend who had a daughter the same age. She had intended to return home before Leland, but she lost track of time. When she came back, he was waiting, and once she put Jack in his crib, he started berating her for going out, saying how he was terrified something had happened, that it would kill him if something did. June, freedom a fresh taste in her mouth, told him that if he let her out of the house, she wouldn't have to sneak out. He told her she needed to do what he said. She told him she wasn't his soldier or his property, she was a grown woman and could do what she wanted.
He hit her. She fell. He fled. She stayed.
He came back the next day and apologized, and she accepted, but the words tasted of ash in her mouth, and the make up sex was more mechanical than passionate. As he slept, she finally took a look at his wrists, the wraps around them for once loose enough to peek.
Neither wrist held her name. But one name was shared on hers. Optimus Prime.
The next morning, she acted the demure housewife Leland wanted, not complaining and seemingly focused on taking care of her family. When he left, she called her friend Cheryl, whose husband was a lawyer, and they spoke for hours. When he left for annual training a week later, June and Jack were out the door an hour after him, all their things packed in the Rabbit, and divorce papers on the table. Reason: Falsifying a soulbond and domestic abuse.
She drove straight back to her parents' house in Bolder City, only stopping to take care of Jack and eat. After a tearful confession, she and Jack moved into her old room and the nursery. When the papers went through, June changed her and Jack's names and went back to work, slipping into her old routine and avoiding thinking of her heartbreak. She saved enough, and she and Jack moved to the small town of Jasper. Jack was told his dad left them for his soulmate, and he seemed to understand. She told him to never make assumptions of the names on his wrist, even if one seemed clearly evil (for all she knew, Megatron was just eccentric, and Miko Nakadai could be a serial killer), and he listened. He let his words fade to the back of his mind, while June tried to do the same.
When she was abducted, she swore she heard a familiar voice on the radio before she blacked out, then the next thing she knew, she was waking up wrapped in something sticky, Jack yelling at a terrifying robotic spider-woman who tried to kill her, before Jack's motorcycle saved them. That night, Jack and Arcee explained best they could, and the next day, she went with them to the base, where she met both Jack's soulmate, and her own.
Optimus was the exact opposite of a villain, she found, but she refused to let herself fall too fast. She learned her lesson, and waited until she was certain he was the genuine thing. She almost lost her chance, first to her own fear, then to Megatron.
When he left the medbay after Ratchet restored his insignias, she asked for a private talk, and showed him her wrists. He listened as she explained everything, then showed her his own wrists, which held hidden screens. His left was cybertronian glyphs she couldn't read. The right was her name in English.
"I was waiting until you were ready," he said.
June smiled, and motioned for him to lean closer. She pressed a kiss to the side of his lips. "Thank you for that. I'm ready now."
He smiled, then activated his holoavatar, and gave her a proper kiss. It felt like fireworks.