Breakdown begins his character development arc by stepping backwards into old roles.
Or else, the one in which Bulkhead and Breakdown have an awkward talk and Knock Out doesn't realize the problems he's created

AN- First part occurs during the end of chapter 37. The second part occurs in the present relic hunt. Some IDW references (specifically the name drop of Ferak) ahead, nothing major though.

After the squishy had kicked him out of the room, Breakdown had walked to the one place he really could.

At that time, there was only one other bot in the main room. And it was far from the first bot he'd like to see.

Apparently, Bulkhead was in here to wait for his pal Wheeljack to leave the separate medbay. Well, Breakdown just happened to be waiting for his own 'pal' to let him back in their room so...

So they had leaned against the wall together, with a good distance between them, and stared at the medbay because anything was better than acknowledging they weren't alone.

It had been fragging awkward. He hadn't been in the right headspace to psyche himself up for a friendly talk with the green wrecker.

But eventually, the rivals had tried to make small talk.

It lasted a while, however haltingly.

"You, uh," Bulkhead was currently saying, "You think you'll recharge better with them gone?"

Ah yes, wrecker small talk. It was blunt and anything but innocently inane.

There wasn't any question as to who 'them' was. And there were only a few uncomfortable ways that Bulkhead could've noticed that Breakdown was waking up startled from fluxes with M.E.C.H. and their drills; none of which he liked to consider.

"Dunno," Breakdown growled, clenching his fists together. "Not like I got to play a part in getting rid of them anyway. But that's business as usual; I get in a bad situation and then someone else deals with my problem while I lay around doing nothing."

Not that squishing Silas had made that guy stop showing up in bad fluxes. He ground his fists together tighter.

There was a long pause before Bulkhead had talked again.

"Speaking of not getting rid of them..." the wrecker started, even more haltingly than his last question. "I've been wondering about why you stopped showing up in fights for a while before you and Knock Out showed up again going solo. What ever happened to that team?"

That team. Funny how Bulkhead put it. Not your team. It acknowledged the past was the past and maybe...

Well, the Stunticons really were his past. They were just that team. He was made to have brothers, but he had no lost love for Motormaster's goons. This team of soft-sparked younglings were more like a 'my team' than that unit had been.

Still, bringing it up? Didn't seem like the greatest of plans. Breakdown grimaced.

"Knock Out happened," he answered flatly.

The wrecker's optics widened. Or one did while the other lazily halted in the attempt; the new optic was still adjusting. Understandable. Even if Ratchet had done an undeniably good job with it.

"Wait-" Bulkhead started up. "Really?"

Didn't he know? Infighting as practically a ritualistic playtime for cons.

"Yeah." Breakdown glanced away, feeling nervous talking about Knock Out when the medic wasn't present. "After the fight at Viscosi Ridge, he just about killed Wildrider and Dead End. We thought he had killed them, but heard later on the comm lines that they'd been critical and sent to Shockwave's labs to be fixed."

The blue mech cast a level stare on the wrecker.

"Mech's don't get 'fixed' at Shockwave's labs."

There was definite disgust on Bulkhead's face, but honestly Breakdown understood that reaction. And shared it. That cyclops was a nightmare.

"And Motormaster?" the other asked.

This time the disgust was on the ex-Stunticon's expression; disgust and a stupid touch of fear at that old name.

"Knock Out tore that slagger apart," he answered. "Not dead, though. Last we heard, he was trying to recruit new young guys to the old team, relive what he thought were glory days. Or he just wants newbies to tear into."

It had always seemed like he'd gone after unstable young cybertronians the first time, after all. Why else would he have picked the neurotic messes he had for the gestalt?

"The battle at Viscosi..." Bulkhead turned his gaze away while his optics, or one, narrowed.

The already fragile mood grew to a darker shade of awkward.

"I remember it."

I remember you-

What you specifically did-

At least he had the tact not to say that, even if the silent words were still heard by Breakdown. The neutral shifted to his other pede.

"Yeah; me too."

What was he supposed to say now? He was sorry?

He didn't really think he was. Sure, the memory wasn't fond anymore, if just because what had happened after. Not really because of what it had cost the bots. This bot in particular.

No one could call him sparkless, but that didn't mean he was soft enough to regret killings.

Or so he was pretty sure.

"I got no lost love for your old team," Breakdown said instead, as if replying to those unsaid things the wrecker was thinking. "The team I used to be on hurt yours, and yours hurt a lot of guys I knew. This one pal of mine early on, Ferak, he was gonna take me out of the Stunticons when he got the credits to retire."

And every wrecker had to have known what happened to Ferak and the rest of his squad. Didn't they? Or did Bulkhead live oblivious to the fact he and his old crew were practically as brutal as the Stunticon team themselves?

Well, "practically". They tended to not draw out their murders as painfully long. That probably put them a step up on the moral ladder.

Bulkhead was sneering again, though not facing him. For all he knew, the guy was sneering at the wreckers and Stunticons and Ferak's crack team and all the madness of a war that the universe considered over.

Except for here on this backwater planet built atop a dead god.

"Fact is, I don't miss them and I don't miss the wreckers. Really, I..."

...what? Did he really even know?

He'd spent the last few vorns as a virtual neutral roaming the galaxy cluster with his partner before coming here and becoming a literal neutral.

He'd spent the last couple orns living with people he was supposed to hate and just...didn't anymore.

It'd been hard to truly hate Bulk after the guy had saved him from being autopsied-to-death. Their rivalry dynamic had transformed even before they'd become allies here.

If Knock Out decided to go decepticon again and slice open everyone on this team, he'd do it but... he wouldn't want to. Why hurt Bumblebee? The kid was just that: a kid. Just a kid that liked his weird cowboy movies and pulling pranks on the base's neutral and laughing in primal vernacular because it was the only vocal ability Megatron had left him with. The new guy was just as young, if not even more so. You probably had to be smart to make it into the elite guard, but so far Breakdown was left very unimpressed. Still didn't mean he had any vitriol with the rookie. Wheeljack wasn't really around enough to make him mad, which was probably a benefit. Even though Breakdown hadn't managed to find the old hatred for Bulkhead in the more recent days of their well practiced rivalry, the smaller wrecker was a different matter. But the swordsmech hadn't caused any problems between them and he had brought high grade for them all. Breakdown did like his high grade. Arcee hadn't talked with him much, but he'd seen her spending time with Knock Out. And anyone important to Knock Out was important to protect. Ratchet was a good medic with a biting temper that he couldn't help but feel impressed by. Anyone who managed to keep this base in order needed an award. Plus, there had been that whole thing with...Breakdown still hadn't found out the details, but there had been that time the medic beat the scrap out of him, used him as a shield, and then dropped him to go punch Megatron. Really, there were only two words there needed for the neutral to feel impressed: "punch" and "Megatron".

And the Prime was something. No, he didn't understand why Knock Out acted like such an enamored fan, but he was really starting to see the appeal of having Prime as a leader. He'd accepted that Breakdown wasn't comfortable being an autobot and acted merely as the leader of an ally group that requested his assistance at times. He hadn't publicly beat down any of his guys like Motormaster would've or killed anyone for being a failure like Megatron would. A part of him still saw that as proof that the Prime was soft and that being soft made him both weak as a bot and as a leader. That part of him really didn't get as vocal a presence in Breakdown's mind as of late. Sure, the bot leader lacked the loud charisma, the thrilling passion, and the deadly threat that Megatron basked in. But Prime still managed to keep his team together to the point where they were winning. Somehow.

Breakdown wasn't inspired by charisma or threats to follow him in battle, but he did see why others thought a mech so soft was worth following.

Pit, even the humans weren't all bad! He'd even been worried when the squishy nurse had gotten nabbed by Airachnid-

-pulling her servos along almost intimately while they left behind a trail of agonizing green acid-

No, nobody deserved to get nabbed by that glitch. Least of all some human that had never caused a problem for Airachnid before in her life (or so Breakdown was pretty sure). He called Motormaster a slagger, but the femme was really on another level of sadism. It was hard to believe he'd spent a short time fantasizing about her. The autobots shouldn't have ever left the nurse anywhere near that psycho. Not that they'd been able to do much, but it still had been surprising in how it had bothered him.

The human with the ball bearings of steel and trippy voice had enough guts that Breakdown couldn't help but feel impressed. And it was amusingly familiar to watch him be so exasperated while he tried to get the bots at this base to listen to his, or his supervisors, orders. As someone who'd had to relay orders to vehicons and watch them ignore basic intelligence, Breakdown could relate to that human's exasperation.

The tiny human younglings were far from being as bad as he always figured they would be. He almost felt bad for trying to crush Bulkhead's with a pillar that one time in Greece. Almost- except Breakdown didn't look back and stew in waiting for regrets to hit.

All in all, he didn't want to kill any of them.

If Knock Out said they were going to, they would. He was pretty sure they would. But he didn't even like to think about killing any of the bots or humans at this base. It was like asking him to kill Bulkhead right after the wrecker had saved him from M.E.C.H. or asking him to kill some of his former troopers.

"...I'm pretty sure this is the best I've ever gotten to feel about any specific team. So I'd really rather not look back at all the scrap left behind. It ruins what I've got in the here and now."

Primus, that was disgustingly sappy to admit. Bulkhead could hold that over him forever.

The wrecker didn't seem like he was going to just jump on that sentimental scrap. The other mech's optics were still narrowed in the direction of the medbay, but he didn't look ready to attack or anything. Maybe they were just too tired to get mad.

"I shoulda left it that way," Bulkhead stated.

In confusion, Breakdown asked a slow "...left what?"

The green mech seemed to collapse a bit against the wall behind them. As he'd thought: tired. They had been in a fight not long before and there'd been a whole lot of stressing even before that.

"I shouldn't have gone fishing for remorse," the wrecker elaborated. "I shouldn't have assumed any would be there."

So that was what he'd been doing.

"Probably shouldn't have," he frowned.

No, he definitely shouldn't have. It made Breakdown feel inadequate when regret over what happened at Viscosi didn't come and...

A bunch of other feelings he really couldn't put a name to.

The decepticons had made him feel out of place because he was too sympathetic: to the lower ranks, to the occasional neutral, to certain ruined colonies.

The autobots could make him feel even more out of place by asking where his empathy and remorse was and he'd struggle for an answer.

So no. No thank you was going to go to Bulk.

Because the autobots could make him feel that way...but they hadn't really thus far.

Bringing up the killings at Viscosi was the first real incident where a bot had dredged up his track record and waited for him to start asking for forgiveness.

"Guess the best we can do if we wanna stick to working together is to pretend all that history doesn't exist."

Something told him that wasn't the best they could do, but the blue mech nodded at Bulkhead's suggestion regardless.

They went quiet again.

There were some raised voices in the medbay, but that wasn't distracting enough to fill the awkward silence between them.

"Hey," Breakdown moved to change topics, pointing at the left side of his own face. "He did a good job with that optic." Bulkhead lifted his own servo to tap at the barely visible welds absentmindedly.

"Oh, yeah. Ratchet always does."

A moment later and: "Wait, how can you tell? I can't figure out what his plan with this is at all."

That made Breakdown chuckle, however briefly.

"I was an assistant in the medbay since leaving the Stunticons behind," he said.

In a way, he kind of missed being a medical assistant. It had always let him feel important for more than just his ability to smash stuff.

"...listen." The quiet word brought the wrecker's attention over. He had to resist his frame's decision to begin heating procedures (trying to drive fast while the engine was cold was never a fun thing to do). "About what we were saying earlier...maybe there is some scrap we shouldn't always try to ignore. Maybe we do need to-"

Whatever he was going to say (and he didn't even know what it would have been) was interrupted by a familiar voice nearby. Both big mechs lost interest in each other to look at Knock Out. The red mech was currently holding one of the squishies at arms length away from him.

"Well?" the medic prodded. As if that broke Bulkhead from his stupor, the green mech jolted forward to retrieve his pet-er, friend, from the clawed servo of Breakdown's partner in crime.

"Thanks," Knock Out muttered to the green mech before landing his now free servo on his assistant's arm. "Now, what were you beautiful mechs talking about without me?"

It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a reprimand.

He shouldn't be feeling guilty.

Wasn't Knock Out the one who wanted them both to be 'bigger' mechs and work for the feel-good autobots? He should be glad to see his partner making awkward small talk with a former enemy.

If Knock Out decided to go decepticon again and slice open everyone on this team, he'd do it but...

he wouldn't want to.

Breakdown shook the thought off.

"Um, just...talking," he tried.

"Yeah," Bulkhead made a painfully fake looking innocent smile. "Nothing important."

But it was. But this, whatever this awkward mess was, needed to be worked through. It shouldn't be left hanging.

"In that case-" Knock Out matched the wrecker's stretched grin with one of his own, "-I think we'll be going."

No arguing with the tug on his arm. Breakdown followed the medic's lead towards the hall, most likely to the room situated further down it, and only managed to spare a glance back at the now single mech in the room.

He felt like he should say something.

Even as inane as a stupid 'goodbye'.

This entire team deserved to hear something.

A goodbye. A regret. A compliment.

He was right about everything he'd thought when he'd considered this team earlier. They were all decent, at the least. And some of them really made him happy to be around. He hadn't come here to make friends, but he may have done just that with some of them. The urge to offer them some sort closure over the allies he'd killed in the war or continue on some irritating conversation was strong. It just felt like what he should do. It felt right.

Breakdown was tugged down the corner and let his gaze move away from the wrecker to the back of the red mech in front of him. He'd never tried to tug out of Knock Out's grasp even as the medic interrupted something important.

It would feel right, but he couldn't let himself do it. It wasn't his place to pick out his unit.

Well, they'd found the relic before Laserbeak had found them.

They had also been attacked by an airborne Soundwave right after catching sight of it.

It wasn't really a fair trade off.

"Do we drive?" Breakdown asked urgently after shoving both of them behind impromptu cover.

For a nano, Knock Out looked tempted. Then he shook his head.

"No. Can't risk tall-dark-and-freaky getting ahold of that key," the medic answered.

Fair enough, considering what that key could do.

But they still could just charge out there-

Well, Breakdown could. He liked to just charge down his problems. But he didn't want Knock Out to risk it no matter how pretty the other looked in combat. Sure, they'd taken on the Prime that one time without much of an issue, but Prime had all these issues with an honor system and slow movements.

The one time he'd seen Soundwave fight Airachnid, there hadn't been either of those handicaps in play.

Overhead, the con streaked by and then looped up around for another go. The cover they'd had to the east no longer would be cover when the attack was coming from the west.

"Then what-"

Knock Out slapped his servos away. "I'm thinking! Wait, no- I'm calling for back up-"

Once again, Breakdown had to tug the other to the side when a few blaster shots started to get uncomfortably close. Somewhere in the air, Laserbeak was buzzing and giving out her own short zaps. Having had that drone in the medbay for check ups before, he had no plans of letting those stasis inducing shots come near either of them.

At the coordinates of their now destroyed cover, a groundbridge tore open. Running out from it came only one single reinforcement. The scout sprinted towards them even as red beams traced behind his path.

"What's the issue?" he asked, sliding to a stop before the partners.

"The issue?" Knock Out spluttered indignantly before pointing up. "We've got those two on us and a relic that we haven't been able to get near!"

As if a battlefield was a great place to sit and think, Bumblebee waited too long for a response. A new groundbridge opened closer to the key and out ran a group of vehicons whose immediate focus was the relic itself. If they grabbed it and carried it through their nearby bridge-

Bumblebee spun around and started firing into the squad. Soundwave circled over again, laying down a blanket of shots that made all three of them dodge around. Breakdown brought his single gun, mounted on his shoulder without much mobility for aiming, out and, despite his grimace, shot into the group of vehicons as well.

Cybertron needed that key.

They pushed forward closer, though it was difficult with the distractions around them (read: being shot at). With a whir of transformation, Soundwave dropped down between the three. It was the scout that he was nearest and the scout who reacted the quickest.

"Grab it and go!" Bumblebee screamed at them.

But that was-that had to be done fast- speed, speed, he wasn't built for-

Knock Out tore past him in altmode. The red mech spun around the relic, transformed enough to reach and grab it, and then folded into a vehicle once more; this time, with the key inside.

Perfect. Breakdown continued to shoot at the surveillance drone screeching to and fro above them while the yellow scout shot bolt after bolt at Soundwave, who moved closer and closer to the small grounder.

An autobot bridge tore open in front of Knock Out's path. The medic drove through without a second's hesitation and then Bumblebee was looking at him.

"Go! I'll cover you-" he promised.

Why did Breakdown feel the need to say no and demand the more fragile mech return first?

Instead of arguing, he did charge from the groundbridge and landed on the floor besides Knock Out. Immediately, he moved to check over his companion. After visually seeing he wasn't injured, Breakdown glanced at the still open bridge.

Every con knew how dangerous Soundwave could be. The scout wasn't a bad fighter, but he wasn't even warrior class. He'd never stand a chance. Would he?

Behind where he was crouched staring at the portal, Knock Out transformed. He was laughing in relief. The guilt Breakdown felt at ignoring him in favor of worrying over the kid grew.

And just when he was ready to up and charge back through the bridge (or at least demand it be closed before Soundwave decided to come through), a flash of yellow and black appeared. Bumblebee rolled over the ground to a stop by the other two cybertronians.

"Ratch..." the young mech mumbled. "You gotta close that bridge."

The vents that had moments before decided to overwork calmed down to an inaudible hum.

There was smoke lifting up from the scout. Breakdown moved towards him, letting his training as a medical assistant assess where the smoke was coming from.

"You okay?" he asked while Bumblebee's vents coughed up soot.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you for worrying," Knock Out said before the scout could answer. Bumblebee whirred out a laugh even as Breakdown felt his spark flop. He should've asked his partner first. What was wrong with him?

He kept checking on others before the medic, kept ignoring the red mech's interests in favor of his own, kept, kept, kept-

Without realizing it, he'd turned away from Bumblebee to check on Knock Out. Behind him, the scout pushed up to a stand and offered a servo to the two crouching mech's; a servo they ignored.

"Don't worry 'bout me," the kid sounded jovial beyond the limits of his voice box. "Nothing a good doctor's appointment and a fun movie with Raf won't fix. What about it? We got the relic; wanna celebrate with me?"

It wasn't an invitation for them both. It was...it was for him. Even though Knock Out was the one with a similar alt-mode and hobbies. Even though Knock Out was the one who wore an autobot badge like the scout. Even though-

Even though Knock Out was the one worth spending time with.

Breakdown shook his head.

"I don't think so," he muttered, not looking away from the medic to see what disappointment was on the scout's face. "Maybe Knock Out wants to watch one with you?"

There was a moment of confusion where the medic's optics flickered between the assistant and Bumblebee.

And then Knock Out grew a wide smile.

"Oh Breakdown," he purred, "You do know how to make a mech feel important."