Miko goes to Knock Out instead of a therapist. Wheeljack and Ratchet confront issues with responsibility and in doing so touch on the same regrets the human and young medic in a different room are discussing concurrently.
AN- A few references to the IDW 2005 continuity and discussion of the theory of cognitive dissonance (although no knowledge of the latter should be necessary to understand the chapter).
This entire day sucked.
It had been bad ever since he'd first faced all the disapproval over letting Smokescreen run off with Jack into what turned out to be a combat zone.
It had gotten worse when he'd had to see Soundwave face to face again.
Dropping into the sky screaming somehow managed to top the terror that was seeing the decepticon 3IC again. The two speedsters grappled midair in panic, letting the relics fall out of their reach as they dropped. Raf was no help at all, failing to get the groundbridge open for any of them. Flightframe vehicons swooped around them, shooting through their bodies while the phase shifter remained activated; obviously the sheer amount of fighter jets was Soundwave's fault. Knock Out figured his spark would gutter out when they were never bridged back. He wasn't exactly a flyer himself (out of his own volition; he was an automobile enthusiast after all) and as such had absolutely no desire to ever see the ground loom up at him. Or hit it, for that matter. Even if apparently the phase shifter did not have proper grounding to keep its weilder from simply sinking through the ground...really, what were the stupid thing's limits? Next time, that relic was his and Smokescreen could take the immobilizer. The very broken immobilizer. Maybe he should just not touch that relic again. He seemed to have a penchant for getting it ruined.
And then getting yelled at by Ratchet cut even deeper than any of the horror on, or below, the Nemesis had. Luckily, he'd had Breakdown there and the two of them had managed to bid a speedy escape away from all that disappointing disapproval.
But seeing the human waiting for him in his room with crossed arms and a frown?
Somehow that was just the proverbial cherry on top of this disaster of a day.
There was a moment of silence while the two cybertronians looked down on the little human.
Then Miko nodded her head at Knock Out. "Yo. Let's chat."
All he wanted was to be left alone.
And Ratchet wasn't even going to be allowed that.
If Primus was watching, instead of dead in the center of a lifeless Cybertron, then he'd probably be laughing at the medic's misfortune. As it was, fate was laughing at him regardless of the presence or absence of a similarly amused deity.
"Couldn' help but notice you pouting."
Really? He very much could have helped but notice. At the least, the wrecker didn't have to bother talking about whatever 'pouting' Ratchet was supposedly doing.
"Busy!" he tossed back without turning around from his desk.
A moment later and Wheeljack spoke again. "You're organizing and reorganizing those wrenches. That's not you being 'busy'."
At the least, the wrecker could keep quiet about that fact.
Ratchet spun around. "I'm busy thinking."
"No," Wheeljack interrupted what was about to be the command for him to get out. "You're just thinkin' too much."
Maybe that was because the medic had to do all the thinking for every mech at this base of younglings and optimistic idiots.
He shouldn't be thinking like that. That was harsh and he didn't mean it.
"Oh, because you're such an expert in that field," Ratchet rolled his optics rather than address any of his tired thoughts.
The wrecker shifted where he was leaning against the partition wall.
"Somethin's is eating you. Why let it?"
Was he just supposed to let all concerns float away? That may work for irresponsible wreckers, but a medic had too valuable a job to ever stop analyzing his own ability-
"The humans have you upset," the wrecker cut off Ratchet's thought processes again.
"P-le-ase." Ratchet scoffed again. "I don't know wha-"
Wheeljack didn't change expression.
"The one we were sent to rescue. You're worried 'bout her. You wanted to help her when we got everyone back here. But you weren't letting yourself."
Enough of this. Ratchet was trying to work here.
The more he worked, the less he thought. The less he thought, the further away from all the guilt he felt over June's disappearance and injuries he got-
The medic...could've done better
With Bumblebee. With Orion Pax. With Drift and the other addicts of Rodion's Dead End. With so many mechs and worlds and aliens over the ages...
"I'm nothing of the sort! W-wh-why would I be worried over something I-something I couldn't do anything about-"
Scrap. That was not what he'd meant to say.
"Exactly. You couldn' have done a thing more to help. You did the best you could," Wheeljack frowned. "'s not like you were there when she got those injuries."
The medic let his mouth hang open without a biting reply for a moment. Then a part of him began to laugh. Oh no. No, this ruffian was not allowed to have this talk with him. Optimus tried it enough times and Ratchet didn't even tend to listen to those talks.
"These accursed scanners still do not work. I'm still unable to truly help if one of them gets hurt. I should have let nurse Darby groundbridge home and here that night. I-"
"Stop takin' responsibility for everythin' that happens," the wrecker cut him off. Ratchet flashed him a glare full of anger; a mask to hide just how deep that cut.
"W-e-ll, I will when you start taking responsibility at all!"
That response elicited a cycling of expressions from the other. Amusement and anger and something hurt that made the medic's spark squeeze in brief guilt.
"This song again?" Wheeljack said with subdued emotion. "The record's broken, doc." So they were back to doc, were they? He supposed he couldn't be surprised after what he'd just said to the other. "Put a new one in and stop tellin' me what everyone else already does."
Trying to maintain his own irritated demeanor, Ratchet scoffed.
"It hasn't seemed to work yet," he retorted.
There came that anger, and there it left again just as fast.
"You know, my old commander?" the wrecker started up.
Judging by the way he was speaking, the medic should just sit down and make himself comfortable for a long story containing some lecture or other. Really, couldn't bots just pick times to talk his audials off that he wasn't busy during?
"He wanted us to be responsible," the small mech kept on going, "All the time, for everythin'. We weren't allowed to so much as step outta place. The bots and I, one time we got him good. Snuck a tasteless brand of high grade into his energon; double potent. We just wanted to see him get embarassed and humiliated for once."
Whatever bitter history there was waiting back there kept Ratchet from thinking it was just sheer insubordination.
"Worked, too." Wheeljack laughed humorlessly. "Guy sang for us real good that night. Went off on everythin' we'd done in past. Knew each track record we had and shared each one with the gang. Told us we were a disgrace at the end. All of us, the group and the individual, disgracing the autobots and everythin' they stood for. Said we were no better than those con teams we wreckers were supposed to fight. Let me tell you somethin', doc," the wrecker leaned his head forward and bared his dentae. "I don't like cons. I fraggin' hate 'em. Being compared to 'em?"
In all fairness, wreckers were a...gray area in autobot history. A blotch of necessary evil, not that Ratchet would ever say that to either of the two at the base.
But it was pretty well known that whatever unhappiness they felt at doing the hard things, the things no other bot wanted to do, collided with their sense of self. Every questionable thing they did, they would throw at the cons for responsibility. Obviously, they'd never have killed that one neutral hostage if the decepticons hadn't forced their servo. Obviously, they'd never have executed that prisoner with all that vital intel for the other side if the cons weren't pressuring their base defenses at the time.
Obviously, obviously, excuses-
It was hard to hate a group when you did the exact same things they did without starting to hate yourself as well.
And wreckers didn't have time for doubts or weaknesses. So any self hate fueled by hypocrisy they felt got redirected. They built up mental shields, social walls; questioning one of their decisions meant they had to think about it and doing that threatened to bring in debilitating cognitive dissonance.
It meant they had to strengthen those barriers.
It meant they had to compensate and grow closer to their units and never, ever, address how they could feel good about doing the very things they hated decepticons for doing.
For a wrecker commander to break that unspoken deal?
"I hated him right then," Wheeljack admitted. "I hated him more than I'd ever hated him before. But he called me out; I couldn' ignore it. I tried to think 'bout what he said and I just...I couldn't. I couldn' be what he wanted. I couldn' be what the autobots were but I loved the autobots. I couldn' face what he said and I couldn' just leave my brand behind either."
After a moment's pause, Ratchet spoke up lowly. There was no doubt that the quiet was intentional; that it was meant to prompt him forward. But the medic fell for the prompt regardless of knowing its tactical presence.
"...was that when you left?"
The wrecker looked away.
"Yeah," he answered. "Alot of the bots, they'd already gone. I'd stuck it out longer than I should've. Maybe if I'da left sooner, I wouldn' have heard the commander call us all 'disgraces'. Slaggers that couldn't bother to take responsibility and hid their faults behind useless bravado or angry excuses."
All of which was true.
But if Ratchet understood wreckers as much as he thought he did, hearing that hadn't gone over well with any of them.
"He was right, I guess," Wheeljack spoke up again when both had gone quiet.
"What do you mean?" the medic shook out of his reverie.
There was another short laugh, just as devoid of mirth as the last one.
"I'm not good enough to wear this badge. I'm just a slagger playin' nice with the wrong team and facin' that fact would break me apart. For a while, I thought us wreckers were doin' good for the world. Then Bulk walked out on us 'cause he wanted to be part of somethin' bigger, somethin' softer, and Magnus pranced into the hole he'd left. I blame him for the rust setting in, but in truth-"
The glare directed at the floor sharpened. Plating tightened down audibly.
"-he just shone a light on the rust that was already there."
She had the nerve to kick Breakdown out.
Granted, it wasn't like the teen actually could kick the big mech out. But Knock Out was curious enough about this visit to allow it. Breakdown shut the door behind him after leaving; if the blue mech was anything like the medic, then he'd be sticking around to hear the gossip from the outside. But Knock Out wasn't sure the blue mech was like him in that way. He'd certainly never noticed Breakdown caught in the act with one of his weird vehicon pals before.
"Alright," the speedster said as soon as the door shut. He slid down to sit on the berth and looked down at Miko. "You've got my attention-", no easy feat itself, "-now what do you want to do with it?"
The human stayed where she was. Not that she had anywhere to go or sit down.
"You're a bad guy, right?" she asked.
Knock Out did a wordless double take.
What?
"Beg your pardon?" he spluttered.
The 'untouchable' airs Miko had been trying to carry left when she let her arms uncross. The teen walked closer to the berth.
What was he supposed to do now again? Knock Out wished he gotten just a tad bit more time on Earth with the humans before he and the rest of the team had been cut off from the organic planet. That may have given him more practice with how to deal with this.
"I mean, that's why Bulk and Wheeljack always act all weird around you," Miko 'explained'.
Really, he wasn't sure whether to feel insulted or complimented or just plain confused.
"Isn't it?"
Well, if she was going to be so blunt...
"We've all butted heads in the past," Knock Out acknowledged with an unconcerned wave of his servo. "Breakdown and I...used to do things Optimus would not be proud of, that much I admit. I'm sure we're all very regretful of those times though-"
"But you're not, right?" the human interrupted.
Once again, he had to do a double take, arms extended mid-gesture.
"Excuse me," he said, "What?"
"It's an act, I mean. Isn't it?" she asked and there was something almost desperate in the question.
Insolent, squishy little child-
"If it's an act, it's lasted a few months longer than it'd need to, wouldn't it have?" Knock Out answered with a rhetorical question of his own, just as she'd been doing.
This time it was his turn to cross his arms and her turn to look confused.
"No, that's not-" she ran her hands through her hair and growled. It was far more disheveled than usual. The medic didn't think he'd ever seen it released from its little hair containment clip things before now.
The word unraveling came to mind.
"I've heard you talk with Arcee."
Oh, the little spy-
"Now, now, that's not very polite a thing for you to have done." His smile grew dangerously wide. "I didn't think you had it in you."
Miko scoffed. "What, overhearing things? That's nothing like-...that's. Ugh."
Ugh? How very cultured.
"I'm not saying you're secretly a con still or you want us all dead or even that you don't wanna be part of the team," she finally started up again. "But I'm pretty sure you don't regret doing bad stuff in the past."
Stupid kid was digging a little too close to home. Knock Out resisted the urge to forcibly eject her from the room and leaned over his knees instead.
"Okay, answer this: do you wish you could undo that stuff?" she glared up at him unwaveringly.
Or as unwavering as a misty eyed teenage human could.
"You want me to be honest?" the medic leaned further forward and watched her slide back just a bit. "Fine. We can have a little truth circle, all to our lonesomes. But you're going to be disappointed in the answer; I would take it back. I'm more than willing to go back and undo mistakes. Believe me."
The little human bit her lip instead of replying. Her eyes were still misted over.
Scrap, was he going to have to deal with a crying human? Bulkhead's crying human?
The wrecker was going to be furious if he walked in on this without understanding it was her doing the real harassing.
But Miko didn't get more upset as the seconds ticked by. "...Alright. But do you actually feel bad about doing it? Like...I don't know how to put it." The admission seemed to make her angry. She was chewing her lip again.
In complete honesty, Knock Out had no idea where any of this was going.
He tried to sound a bit less condescending when he spoke up next; had to give the kid the benefit of the doubt, after all. Wouldn't that be the autobot way?
And he really was curious under all the confusion.
"I feel bad about how my friends would react to it-" he answered.
He was going to say more but that seemed to be enough for Miko. Her entire face lit up, not with a smile but with some sort of vindication or relief. Who was he to say? It wasn't like he was used to reading humans or anything.
"That's what I thought! I knew it!"
Now he was even more confused about where this was going.
Since she didn't elaborate on the enthusiasm, Knock Out figured the conversation was over. But the human didn't move from the spot she'd rooted herself to.
"Soo..." he finally tried, hoping she'd leave and Breakdown would come back from where he was eavesdropping outside. "Good talk and all, but are you done?"
Miko returned from her reverie and glanced at him. "Not quite." She took a few trudging steps towards the berth and then slumped down into a seated position by his pede. The medic scooted said pede away from her organic reach discreetly.
"I just wanted to check my guess," she said, poking at the ground she was sitting on distractedly. "I had to make sure. I need to talk with someone who's gonna understand what I've got to say."
...wait. What? This talk was going in all sorts of directions that threw him for a loop.
"Um. I'm not real into the whole 'good listener' gig-"
"Yadda yadda-" Miko opened and shut her hand in a motion seemingly meant to mock a talking mouth. "You're not a psychiatric doctor, all that disclaimer jazz, whatever. But you'll get it. You'll get it."
Once again, curiosity prompted him forward. Knock Out found that he was still looking down at the seated human, even if she hadn't bothered to look up at him.
Or hadn't wanted to.
This entire motion- was it hiding?
Was she hiding?
"Color me interested," he purred, leaning so far that he was practically folded against his knees at this point.
There was a pause when Miko took in a long breath. Silly human engineering and their need to breath.
"You know that con that was out there tonight?"
"Dreadwing, yes. We're unfortunately acquainted," Knock Out replied.
She seemed to catch his air of distaste and shook with a single laugh.
"You know how he likes to use bombs, like Wheeljack?" she asked.
Of course he knew that. He did have to work with the mech at one point.
"'cept his aren't grenades like Wheeljack's. They aren't timed. They're remote controlled. There was a big fight tonight with the bugs; he lost the controller during the fight."
Miko had returned to picking at the floor. Knock Out made himself clean at his claws to try to mimic the expression.
"I was trying to help Jack and his mom get away from the fight but it kept on following us. And then the con dropped his little remote and we were near it and-"
Like that fragging subway in New York, her point hit him dead on. She hadn't finished the story, but he had already frozen into place upon realizing where this was headed.
No...no way.
But then again, this human had killed Hardshell in his old world.
"There were alot of the bad guys flying around. We knew we needed to help the bots. Mrs. Darby was moving to push it, but she wouldn't."
"So you did." It wasn't even a question.
Her hands fisted on the concrete floor instead of continuing their neurotic movement.
"Yeah," she confirmed.
And the normally bright, if annoyingly suspicious, voice sounded so very hollow.
Knock Out's spark didn't pang with sympathy, but his mind felt something akin to the emotion as he pieced together why she'd come to him and not her usual partner.
"You helped them win the fight," the medic made his voice lighthearted, uncaring. "Certainly the others aren't going to be mad about that."
"Not mad," Miko scoffed. "Just worried. They're going to get all concerned. I really-" her voice broke. A moment later, she tried again "-I really don't- I can't hear that anymore."
"Anymore?" he prodded.
The teen let her head fall back against the foot of the berth and grinned a little.
"They've been worried about me since Bulk came back with half his face gone. They're gonna be worse if they find out. I want them to know 'cause it's tearing me up inside to think about but...I don't want them to."
It struck him that this scenario didn't seem all that far off from conversations he'd had with Arcee.
Except, for once, it was him playing her role.
He tried to do what he figured she would've have: "Why's that?"
The grin was gone. The hollow voice returned with all its torn frequency.
"Cause I feel like scrap after doing it but I don't feel guilty. I should. I'm waiting for it to hit. But all I feel is wrong." She shook her head and a track of gross organic fluid slid down to one temple. "I've been so mad since Bulk got hurt. I've just wanted to hurt M.E.C.H. and that vehicon and everyone else responsible. I got that chance tonight, I took it, and I don't feel any better. Just..."
Any pretense at paying attention was gone at this point. Though he hadn't consciously noticed, Knock Out was listening motionless to a young human he barely knew- fully captivated.
"I don't feel better and I don't feel bad. But I can't go back..." Miko grimaced. "I can't go back to school. I can't go back to my parents in Japan. I can't go back to everything there was before."
She slammed her fists on the ground in brief frustration. "If pulling that trigger is gonna keep me from going back, I could at the least feel guilty about it!"
A bit uncertain, Knock Out let his servo fall in slow, jerky motions until he was scooping the human up. The feeling of something so small and breakable and full of nasty fluids made him frown, but the medic dealt with the discomfort and set Miko down on the berth near him.
"Do you get it?" she muttered out and brushed an arm under the few tears she'd let fall.
Knock Out kept his claws near the teen that was slowly wavering back until she was leaning against them.
"Yeah," he told her, watching as the youngling who no longer felt like she could be young started to succumb to exhaustion.
"I do."
He waited a few minutes until she'd fallen asleep before picking her up in one servo and standing up (keeping the servo, with its organic passenger, at arms length away from his chassis). Maybe the bots were mad at him for running around with Smokescreen, but at least bringing back their missing human would probably garner back some of that old acceptance.
When he opened the door, there was no Breakdown waiting on the other side. Some muffled voices came from the direction of the main room. He knew that's where he should head with the sleeping human then. No reason to dally about.
Knock Out wasn't sure what to do with the offense he felt at the empty hallway, with how it seemed to signal that he wasn't important enough to wait for or listen to secretly, and so he did his best to ignore its presence.
