Chapter Text
Title: What You Wish For
Rating: K+
Continuity: G1
Characters: Cliffjumper, Mirage
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Prompt: 4. A character works up a fantasy about another character. This may be of friendship, love, lust, capture, revenge, hurt, torture, anything. Lo and behold, an opportunity presents itself for the fantasy to come true. What happens?
I hated him. Loathed him. I always imagined him crawling up to me, injured, alone, broken, and me turning away, leaving him, like he left me.
Some people would say that I was over-reacting. That he hadn't left me broken on the dirty ground of Earth, but... he had. He had left me alone, broken, bent and busted and not wanting to go on. Perhaps it was more metaphorical than they could imagine, but the injuries he left me were just as valid, just as hurtful, as any physical wound.
Mechs have died of broken sparks before.
Because we had once been together, as strange as that may sound now. Then he had decided that we weren't right for each other, and that he belonged to someone else.
And he left. Left me for the scout, for Hound, who, as much as I tried, I couldn't hate. Jealousy, yes. Hate, no.
Because it wasn't Hound who had left me alone. Broken. Lying in the dirt with no one there to help me back to my feet, while he was off cavorting with the mech he loved, the mech who wasn't me.
So I had struggled up on my own. I had learned how to do things again, to not rely on anyone or anything but myself.
But now that it was happening, now that my wish was coming true...
Mirage was there, vents stuttering, sounding ragged and broken, plating more dents than armor. His optics flickered with intermittent charge.
He was injured, alone, broken – just the way I had wished him to be...
And I didn't like it. It was wrong. So, so wrong.
He lifted a hand. "Cliff," he stuttered, and his gold optics dimmed.
"Slag it all, Mirage," I growled as I stepped forward and took the offered appendage. I opened a comm link. ::Ratchet. Mirage needs you.::
::Frag it all to-! I'll be right there! Slagging-:: Ratchet snarled, and the comm link closed.
Slowly, I sat down next to him. Silence filled the space between us, only the sounds the distant rapport of blasters and explosions and Mirage's broken vents.
"Why?" he asked after a moment, voice filled with static.
I glanced down, my blue optics meeting his gold. "Why what?" I asked, already knowing what the answer would be.
"Wh-hy would y-you help m-me?"
Offlining my optics was easy. Speaking, however, was not. "I... You..."
I felt his hand move slightly in mine; just the barest hint of a twitch.
"It felt wrong!" I finally said, voice low and urgent. "I wanted it for so long! I wanted to hurt you! That's why I called you a traitor, that's why I... I... Mirage, I..."
"I know."
And that... I suddenly felt... peaceful.
"I know, Cliff. What-t I did was w-wrong. I h-hurt you. I... I'm sor-rry."
With those words, I knew that all was settled between us, and I onlined my optics again. "I hurt you, too."
The former noble just shook his helm.
Silence stretched between us once again, all the way up until Ratchet got to us. But it wasn't awkward. It was comfortable. We would never be the lovers, the Intendeds, that we had once been, but... the hurt, the painful barbs that had been separating us... they were gone.