Failure
By SMYGO4EVA

Even in any attempt to redeem himself, Breakdown knew that he would always be weak in Lord Megatron's intense optics. Ever since he let himself get captured by the disgusting fleshlings, MECH as the leader called it, insects that were weaker than him, yet able to pull him apart. He hadn't forgotten the look of disgust and anger that the Decepticon leader had given him when he returned to the Nemesis. He still didn't know that the bot Bulkhead, of all bots to help him, it had to be Bulkhead to come to his aid. Bulkhead was his to fight and beat the shrapnel out of, and he knew that the day would come; just being helpless because of those humans, the ones who took his right optic for their own sick games, was enough to endure at the time. Nor would Megatron ever find out, thanks to Starscream, who also asked him to make a choice in the near future. Breakdown would have to choose between Lord Megatron's leadership and Starscream's, and he still didn't have an answer.

Breakdown hated herself for failing in such a way and now so often. It was enough that he had failed Lord Megatron: no, he hated that he was weak enough to he had to be debt to Bulkhead and the Autobots, the Decepticons' natural enemies. The eye patch he wore afterwards reminded him of his debt to his enemy, the last bot to truly owe anything to, especially their own beating spark. Then again, he didn't really want to know what would have happened if they didn't arrive when they did, Bulk especially. He did lose something besides his right optic, something that was torn out of him so viciously, even for a Decepticon like him - it was his pride, now only a façade of his brute strength and who he once was.

Now every time he remembers the loss of his pride, he knew that he could never regain the bot he was once before; the imposing and most brute of the Decepticons. Breakdown wears the eye patch as a constant reminder to this day, to remind himself of his place, of his failure, and of his pride, something that cannot easily be gained back.