And I'm back.
Breakdown feels that he has a pretty good handle on what makes Ravage tick.
She's loyal, deeply devoted to those she decides to befriend. Has a strange sense of justice that could only have come from living in the city of Kaon, growing up around violence and pain and finally inflicting the same when she's old enough. She's violent and brutal in combat, and more than happy to tear a mech apart. She'll turn on comrades who push her buttons in all the wrong ways, and haunt her enemies like the Shadow she is.
And despite the violence, she's still willing to get between him and a bullet on the field, taking out a sniper aiming at his head, or stay nearby when he's wounded to eliminate threats until she can accost a medic and steal him supplies. She'll sit beside him on a quiet night while he falls on old vices and tries to forget the stories and confessions that bubble out of him about life before the war, what he wants after the war, about what he thinks of his life now. He remembers the few bits and pieces of herself she's allowed him, just pieces. The mention of her brothers, the neighbourhood she grew up in, the fact she doesn't see an after the war for herself.
"I wanna settle down someplace quiet in the end. Want some peace, want a life that ain't killing for a while. Maybe with someone, have a kid. What about you, Rav?" He'd asked, buzzing and giddy from an earlier victory.
"I dunno. This is all I've known, don't think I'll ever be able to remove what's hardwired from the start."
"Aw, c'mon Rav. Nothin'? No planet to go hide on, no little someone you wanna settle with? Gotta be something."
She shrugged. "If I'm honest, Break, I think if there's an end in sight, it would be better if many of us didn't see it. I think," She said flatly, "That no matter who wins, some of us will never be able to stop."
"And you think you're one of them?"
She hadn't answered.
The quiet knock rouses Breakdown from recharge, and he sighs, glancing at the mech next to him in the berth before getting up and answering his door.
Ravage sits there, the slight droop in her frame the only outward sign that she is exhausted and looking for a place to hide.
"Don't wake Knockout." Break warns, the only words spoken before she stalks in and takes up residence in the corner. He sighs again, an argument they've had a few times ready before he drops it. He loses every time, and he's too damn tired tonight.
He goes back to his berth, and is woken hours later by Knockout's irritated voice.
"Breakdown, the creature is in our room again."
The ex Autobot can feel his lovers ire from here, and all he can do is groan. The medic fragging hates Ravage, and the assassin gets a perverse kick out of riling the flamboyant mech up.
"Can you not this morning, please, babe." Breakdown pleads.
Ravage snorts from her corner, still curled up like she's asleep. A pointed audial twitches, and a brilliant green optic slits open in amusement.
"Why here?" Is all Knockout asks, before storming off to begin his morning routine, leaving the two friends to lay in companionable silence.
"Wanna talk?" Breakdown asks at last.
"Heading to Outpost Zeta today for a mission." Ravage says. "Anything on your plate yet, or do you want to join me?"
"Skirmish today." He says. "Which I should probably get ready for before one of the big wigs comes headhunting."
"Pity. Could use the company."
He translates that easily as "need a distraction" and he knows that she's in that place again. He gets up for the second time and frowns in her direction. "You avoiding 'Wave again?" He asks. "I mean, the last time you stopped by in the middle of the night you and he had tried to kill each other."
"Hyperbole." She hisses. "And yes. I am avoiding him."
"Okay. If I ask why will you tell me?"
"No."
And now she's sulking. Primus, between her and Knockout sometimes-
"Break, if something happens to me, would you be concerned?"
The mechs attention is now undivided. Normally, that kind of question is a part of his vague, substance induced ramblings. Ravage never asks things like this, about their friendship. Maybe when she asked him why her of all Cons to befriend, but this…
He feels something isn't right.
"Rav. Are you alright?"
"Answer it, please."
"Of fraggin' course I'd be worried." Breakdown tells her. "What kind of question is that?"
"Curious." She says. "I'll leave you two to your morning. Thanks, Break." And Ravage slinks out, leaving a concerned Breakdown to puzzle out this particular Ravage moment.
"This will sting a bit."
Breakdown never could stop the morbid fascination he felt when watching Ravage interrogate someone. It was like walking down a familiar street, and seeing a dead body just lying there, and the alienness of it making you pause and stare.
The sadism Ravage displays in times like these is also awe inspiring, and not in a good way. She's almost lazy as she sends the first jolt of energy through her victim's body, though her face is deceptively neutral in its strange, imaginary mask.
"Where's the Hammer, big boy?" She purrs. Cool, dead green optics stare down at the Autobot. "Tell me and this all goes away."
"Frag you!" Snarls the mech. His teal optics are defiant, bound servos clenched into fists.
Ravage tuts, and the energon rod is pushed into exposed protoform again. The mech screams, and his back arches in agony.
"Wrong. Answer." She grinds out. "Spin again, slag sucker." Her voice slowly becomes more soothing as she continues, like she's coaxing a frightened sparkling. "If you tell where they put the Hammer, the pain will stop. You can go back to your friends. Your family."
He's silent, features contorted, denta clenched.
She sighs, and another jolt through the mechs body sends him writhing. "Or you can suffer here and never see them again. Your choice."
"Y-" The Autobot begins weakly. "You won't let me go. I'm a loose end."
She holds the rod over him a moment, those cold optics unmoving. "Oh? Are you so sure you'd throw away a chance to return home?"
"Your kind took my home!" The captive spits.
A new look briefly crosses Ravage's features, a little flash of rage breaking through. Breakdown feels a wave of pity for the mech, as this time the femme applies her claws to sensitive joints. "There are ways of getting what I want, friend. And they are far more unpleasant than this. Breakdown."
Break's surprised to be addressed. "Yeah?"
"Ping Dreadwing. Ask him if there's anyone else alive on this station who I can glean this information from other than this glitch." She snarls. "He refuses to be useful."
"I dunno Rav. The warriors got a little zealous."
"Hopefully they had enough common sense to leave some of these worms alive." Ravage is regarding her captive like prey. "Otherwise this one won't be the only scrap left on the floor today."
Everything about her is downright sinister, so different from the femme who seeks him out to talk, who creeps to him for help instead of her deployer, who escorts him to his and Knockouts room when he's overcharged and vulnerable. He isn't sure what secrets he's given her in his moments of weakness, but they've never returned to haunt him through her. That Ravage, and this Ravage are two different femmes, both dangerous, but this time she is different. As he attempts to get ahold of Dreadwing, he watches her discard the energon prod. Those claws are going to be stained blue after tonight.
Ravage sits in the corner of his room. Might as well be her corner, it's always where she is, and he considers jokingly putting a note over it, making it official.
Breakdown has to admit, lately he's been wondering whats going on, but sharing feelings isn't their things. Mainly Ravage is the one who refuses to get slag off her chest, and all she does is seek company to keep the thoughts at bay. He knows the feeling.
Finally, he speaks after who knows how long. "So, somethings up. What'd he do? Try to get you to use a gun, or what?"
Ravage snorts. "Break, I don't know why you try."
"Me neither." He grumbles. "Primus, KO's gonna try and kill me tonight."
"Shiny little rich mech can suck it up for a bit. I'm leaving soon and I'd like to say goodbye." The assassin growls. Her posture is slumped, and her armour is even more damaged than usual. What little care she does for herself obviously has been neglected, and recharge too.
"Rav, you look like scrap." Breakdown says. "Whats going on? Is it because of 'Wave, or was it a kill?"
She sighs and her tail twitches, frowning as she obviously formulates a patented Ravage answer. "I don't know, Breakdown. I really don't know how to explain this one."
"Or don't want to." He says. "Can't blame you, I guess."
Her silence is heavy, and when he looks toward her corner he sees something he hasn't seen in awhile.
"Slag, Rav. What's wrong?" He asks, leaping over the berth to check on her. "I swear to Primus, if you got hurt and avoided a trip to the medic I'll break your leg."
She shakes her head. "I have to go early, Break. Soundwave just commed me." She heads off towards the door. Before leaving, she gives him a thin smile.
"See you, Break." She says. "Thanks."
And she's gone.
She's dead.
The words ring hollow in Breakdown's processor for hours after Soundwave first delivers the news. The thin, silent mech had located him and quietly informed him that Ravage had been killed by an Autobot. Shot, her body irretrievable in enemy territory.
The purple mech had then left a startled Breakdown to process what had just happened. Ravage. Dead.
When he got into his room that night, Knockout was waiting. "You heard." The red mech asks, his arms crossed as his lover sits.
"She was just a kid." Breakdown says quietly. His optics are drawn to the floor, and he doesn't look up when Knockout sits next to him. The medic leans against him.
"They couldn't even get her body."
"I know." Knockout murmurs. They sit like that, Breakdown allowing himself a little mourning for awhile.
It was like she'd been expecting something to happen the past few weeks. Like she'd known.
Just a kid, and now, just another sparkless husk outside some Autobot base, instead of here tormenting Knockout from her corner, asking about Break joining her on a mission.
She'd been right all along about her after the war, he thought with a grimace.
:)