[Crown the Empire] These Small Hours
Feb. 2nd, 2018 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: These Small Hours
Universe: Crown the Empire, Pre-Undaunted
Characters: Mirage, Cliffjumper, First Aid
Rating: T
Warnings: References to NonCon, References to Suicidal Ideations, References to Assassination/Murder, References Character Death
Description: No mech left behind, Mirage decides, even if all he can do is sit by Cliffjumper’s side as a friendly face.
There’s not much else he can do. His capabilities have shrunken to the bare minimum, and even taking care of himself is a trial these days.
He isn’t even sure what brings him here. What takes control of his feet one day, and why he wanders into the stark, cold bunker. But here he comes, and here he continues to visit.
Every moment he has to spare. Every quiet hour. When the silence in his head gets too loud, and the ache in his spark too heavy, Mirage comes here. It’s not technically a brig, but it is where they are keeping Cliffjumper. For his own safety, they say. And the safety of the surviving Decepticons.
Mirage doesn’t say much. His silence speaks volumes. He recognizes the dark despair in Cliffjumper’s gaze, but he doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t have to.
They both know the state of their universe.
Sometimes, people don’t need words. Or reassurances. Or empty platitudes. Sometimes, they just need someone who understands, to sit there with them and wait. To be available without pushing. To know they aren’t alone, when they are ready to acknowledge it.
Mirage isn’t much good for anything right now. But this… this he can do.
“Why?” Cliffjumper finally asks him, a month later, when the silence stretches long between them, until it grows into a camaraderie no longer uncomfortable or tense, but peaceful and consoling.
He doesn’t have to clarify what he’s asking. Mirage already knows.
Mirage’s fingers work diligently around the metalmesh weave – the humans would have called it knitting. Mirage found he has a talent for the work, which requires nimble hands and light focus. It gives him something to concentrate on that he can’t possibly fail, and he enjoys the way the dyed metal twists and winds together.
It takes a moment for Mirage to answer, mostly because he’s not sure what to say. His first visit had been driven by mystery, as had the subsequent ones. He thinks he has an inkling now, or at least, a partial truth.
“Because if I were any faster, I would have gotten to those monsters before you could,” Mirage replies without looking up from his work.
Cliffjumper makes a noncommittal noise. Peripherally, Mirage sees him sit back into the bench, much more comfortable accommodations than the brig, but still very much a cage. One for his own protection.
Or so they say.
“I don’t think it was the right thing to do,” Mirage continues softly, “but it wasn’t wrong either. Pain is… not so easily assuaged.”
Cliffjumper snorts. His hands drape over his knees. His head thunks against the wall, optics dimming.
“You’ve got that right.”
He doesn’t say anything else. He appears, for all intents and purposes, to slip into a light recharge, a victory in itself.
Mirage is safe, Cliffjumper has decided, and Mirage returns his attention to his weaving, a thin strand of copper tucking under a thin strand of bronze.
Maybe tonight he’ll manage some recharge of his own.
~
“You going back?” Cliffjumper asks the next day as Mirage sits in his usual chair and pulls out his weaving supplies.
He’s still not sure what it’s going to be. Blanket perhaps. One can never have enough blankets. It’ll feel more like home, to have such a simple comfort. Unnecessary, but also, very much so.
Mirage looks up as he blindly arranges the strips of metalmesh, patting out any tangles. “Hm?”
“To duty?” Cliffjumper clarifies.
“Oh.” Mirage vents a soft sigh. He bends over his blanket, he’s decided. “No. The war is over. I need to find out what that means for me now.”
He’s never wanted to fight. It has only been a matter of necessity. He doesn’t want to do it anymore. He just wants peace.
“Without Tracks, you mean.”
Mirage flinches. He can’t help it. He knows he should be better, that he should have mastered his emotions, as he’s been raised and taught. He knows it’s a weakness, to be so blatant.
His spark, however, hurts. It yearns. There’s a raw, aching silence inside of him, places where Tracks used to be and still is. He’s dead, but he’s not gone, and Mirage still swears he can hear his beloved’s voice sometimes. It tells him to get up, to keep moving forward. That he’s loved and cherished and worth it.
Mirage’s head bows lower. “… Yes.”
Cliffjumper’s field reaches out, wavers, and retracts, as though he doesn’t feel qualified to offer comfort. “You ever thought about following him?”
He knows what Cliffjumper is really asking.
Mirage works his intake, hands stilling on his blanket, as he looks up at a mech who had once been a great bully to him. “Would you be disappointed if I answered yes?”
“Might’ve. Once. Now...” Cliffjumper shrugs, but it’s far from dismissive. It’s helpless, and tormented, and yielding. “Living’s hard.”
Mirage’s fingers tremble around the coiled metalmesh. “Some might say it is a coward’s path.”
Cliffjumper snorts. “Yeah, well ‘some’ can go spend a month in a Decepticon’s tender loving care.” He’s bitter, so bitter, and Mirage can’t even blame him. Can only sympathize.
He braces himself. Cycles a ventilation. “… Have you ever considered it?” Mirage asks, fearing he already knows the answer.
“Not in the way you think.” Cliffjumper shifts on the berth, pulls his back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. “The best revenge now is to live, I guess. Well, unless I get to finish my list.”
“You think it’ll help?”
Cliffjumper smiles, crooked as it is. “Can’t make me feel worse.”
~
“Could I ask a question?” Mirage asks a week later, the curiosity gnawing at him, prompting him to speak first, when he usually lets Cliffjumper lead the conversations.
The minibot stirs from his berth, emerging out of the shadows to come closer. “That’s a first,” he says. “As long as you don’t ask me how I’m doing, feel free.”
Mirage’s lips quirk. “I know better than to offer such a pointless query.” He cycles a ventilation and steadies his hands over his weaving. He always brings it now, to give his hands something to do when Cliffjumper’s silence is oppressive. “You said you had a list.”
Cliffjumper’s optics darken. He scowls. “Yeah. Not that it does me any good. No one will tell me anything about it. Like I have any chance of getting out of here and doing anything with the information anyway.” His fist strikes against the bars of his cell, powered down as Mirage is visiting.
Mirage glances up at the camera. It records video only, he knows. Or perhaps it records audio without his knowledge. Either way, it is nothing difficult for someone trained by Jazz to broadcast a little white noise.
“Would you share it with me?” Mirage asks. “Perhaps there is something I can do.”
“So you can end up in a cell next to me?” Cliffjumper snorts and flops back down on his berth. “While the company would be welcome, it’s not a good idea. Optimus doesn’t need the political flak.”
“You think so little of the skills Jazz gave me?” Mirage lifts an orbital ridge and pointedly flicks his cloak, shimmering in and out of visibility.
“I think that if someone on my list turns up dead, they’ll wonder why. It’s not worth it.”
Mirage’s frown deepens, but he lets the matter rest. For now. Cliffjumper is not the only one who has a list. And if there is someone Mirage can handle in his freedom, then he will.
Not everyone out there deserves a second chance.
~
The conversations turn, eventually, to the future. It’s a topic Mirage is careful to avoid, aware that they are on two different sides of the cage, but when Cliffjumper mentions it, he is honest.
If Cliffjumper can ask about Mirage’s choice of future, perhaps it means he’s considering his own. Or maybe he’s desperate for a distraction. Either way, it gives Mirage something to ponder that isn’t upsetting.
“A bar?” Cliffjumper echoes when Mirage answers. His tone is almost gleeful, amusement lurking in the gleam of his optics.
Mirage finds his lips curving into a soft smile. “Is it so strange?”
“For you? Frag yeah!” Cliffjumper laughs, though it’s little more than a chuckle. “Prim nobles aren’t supposed to own bars!”
“I am neither prim nor a noble, not anymore,” Mirage replies, more amused than offended. “Besides, it’s less a bar than it is a lounge.”
Cliffjumper’s chuckle is genuine and all the better for it. “A lounge. Yeah, that sounds more like you. There’s the Mirage I know.” He props his chin on his fist. “Tell me about this lounge then. You’re gonna have booze at least, right? Not tea and crumpets?”
Mirage’s lips twitch. “Yes, I will have various flavors of engex and high grade.” Tea and crumpets. Honestly. Though he isn’t surprised Cliffjumper drew the parallel. Nobles are – or were – a bit like British royalty. “Smokescreen has also suggested I include several game tables.”
“For gambling, of course.” Cliffjumper laughs again, his lips stretching wider into a grin. “Good old Smokey. I guess some things never change.”
“Yes, he is a sorely needed burst of stability right now,” Mirage agrees. He looks down at his metalmesh blanket, which he hasn’t found need to weave right now. “And you? Did you have plans for the future once?”
Cliffjumper leans back and crosses his arms behind his head, unflinching in the face of what had to be a painful query. “Yeah. Once. It isn’t possible now, but I used to think that I’d have a life after the war.”
“It’s not impossible,” Mirage replies quietly.
“I’m stuck in here.” Cliffjumper knocks an elbow against the wall. It makes a low donging noise. “And I’m never getting out.” That he doesn’t sound particularly disturbed by this is more worrisome than anything.
Mirage plucks at the weave of his blanket, finding a spot where it isn’t as tight as he’d like. “You never know,” he says. “If I can find peace and open a bar of all things, perhaps there is still hope for you.”
Cliffjumper makes a noncommittal noise. “I guess you’re right,” he says and shutters his optics, as though he intends to recharge then and there, though Mirage knows better.
Night purges, he assumes. They get the better of most survivors.
“Guess we’ll just have to see,” Cliffjumper adds.
~
“What about before the war?” Cliffjumper asks.
It’s another day, another moment sitting with the minibot during his captivity. Only now Cliffjumper’s been moved, out of the brig and into a secure ward in the medbay. All the better for his recovery, Ratchet claims.
It’s a brighter space. Welcoming. Better for healing.
There aren’t any bars, just locked doors. Mirage has to be buzzed in and out, through several passcode-protected doors. It reminds him of an asylum on Earth, the places the humans kept their mentally ill. Perhaps the comparison suits Cliffjumper well.
They sit at a table. Cliffjumper has some kind of puzzle game spread out across from him. Mirage works on a scarf as he’d finished his blanket. Smokescreen, upon seeing the finished product, had immediately demanded a scarf. So he can look more dashing, he claims.
“You know what I was,” Mirage replies as he carefully straightens out the different colors. Smokescreen has no sense of color and has picked out several obnoxious shades.
“I know you were a noble. But what did you do?” Cliffjumper persists. He focuses on his puzzle, a three-dimensional model of some vehicle, but his field is curious.
Mirage sighs. “Decoration.”
Cliffjumper blinks. “Come on. Be serious. It’s a legit question.”
“And it is a legitimate answer.” Mirage can’t lift his gaze. He feels heat in his cheeks. He hasn’t told anyone the truth of his past in a long time. “My spark and frame were both commissioned by my caretakers for the single purpose of being bonded to the heir of another noble house. We were pledged to be bonded before I even warmed my frame.”
“That sucks.”
“Mmm.” Mirage weaves the shiny copper in with the soft aluminum. “My Intended was not a bad mech. He was as trapped by the situation as I was. Though his caretakers treated him better than mine. I was considered a commodity, and while that meant I received the highest of care, there was no emotion in it. I was meant to be beautiful. A trophy. A gift.”
Cliffjumper scowls, as though outraged on Mirage’s behalf. “Noble houses are slag,” he says and waves one hand in the air, fingers wrapped around a piece of the puzzle. “What kind of fragged up slag is that?”
“The way things were.” Mirage shrugs, but it’s hardly as dismissive as he wants it to be. “I was originally a monoformer, you know. I didn’t even have a transformation cog until the war broke out. Trophies, you see, had no need to transform.”
His tires twitch. He remembers far too many days spent being carried or escorted, not because the ground was too dirty for his dainty feet, but because they dare not risk injury to such a valuable commodity.
“Damn. That sucks.” Cliffjumper shoves a thumb at himself. “Me? I’ve always had wheels. Couldn’t do my job without them. What a terrible transport specialist I’d be if I couldn’t do any transporting, right?”
Mirage raises an orbital ridge. “Aren’t you a little, err, small for such a task?”
Cliffjumper, for once, laughs rather than get offended. “Not everything that needs to be moved is large and bulky. Sometimes people just wanted something small delivered very quickly. Other times huge shipments needed guards to make sure they reached their destination safely.” He smirks. “I’m a Cliffjumper of all trades.”
“I’m quite sure that’s not how the idiom works.”
“Does for me.”
Mirage’s lips curl. The amusement dancing in Cliffjumper’s optics is welcome. He hopes he can continue to coax it out. Somehow, being here for Cliffjumper’s slow but steady progression is helping Mirage as well.
Maybe there is a future to be had. Maybe.
“So I’m guessing this fiance of yours wasn’t Tracks?” Cliffjumper says, getting back to the previous question. He slots another puzzle piece into place. “Since you still don’t sound like you liked him much.”
“He was a caged bird as much as I, but no, it was not Tracks.” Mirage’s smile turns warm as he thinks of his true Intended, the mech he would have claimed if not for the war. “Tracks’ brother had been the one to design my frame, but there was some… familial turmoil so when it came time for the official bonding ceremony, Tracks was summoned to help decorate me for the occasion. We had an instant connection.”
Cliffjumper chuckles. “Love at first sight, eh? Somehow I’m not surprised.” He picks through the pieces spread across the table with genuine interest. “Not that I know what that feels like. I had two amica, but never a conjunx.”
Had.
Mirage knows that word all too well. There are far too many Cybertronians now who must use the term ‘had’ to describe someone special once in their life. So many sparks lost to the war, to Megatron’s lust for power.
“I suppose that is the only gift the war ever gave me,” Mirage realizes aloud as he pauses in the midst of his weaving. “If not for it, I’d have found myself bonded to Dune, and I would have never even had the memories I do have with Tracks.”
“They say there’s a silver lining to everything.” Cliffjumper shrugs and clicks a puzzle piece into place. “Guess I’ll let you know when I find mine.”
“Perhaps...” Mirage hesitates, wondering if he’s overstepping, but then barrels forward anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Perhaps our friendship is one such lining.”
Cliffjumper cycles his optics and looks up at Mirage. His expression is unreadable at first, but there is surprise in his field. One hand still hovers over the assorted puzzle pieces.
“Yeah,” he finally says, static rasping through his vocals. “You’re right. Who would’ve guessed, huh? You and me getting along like this. Guess there are such things as miracles.”
Mirage chuckles. “I suppose so.”
He turns his attention back to his weaving. Cliffjumper focuses on his puzzle once more. They don’t speak, but somehow, the silence is not uncomfortable, not as it had been in the beginning, when Mirage had done the only thing he could do. When he’d sat across from Cliffjumper in the brig so the minibot wouldn’t feel abandoned and alone.
~
Mirage goes to First Aid first.
He pleads his case with sincerity. He begs for the chief-in-training to speak with Ratchet, with Optimus, with anyone who will listen.
Cliffjumper, Mirage is certain, deserves a second chance.
“Well,” First Aid admits as he rubs around his face mask. “He has been different lately. He’s been willing to talk. He finally let us repair him one-hundred percent. He’s been fueling as he should. Not recharging as well but...”
“Who among us does,” Mirage finishes with a murmur. He clasps First Aid’s hand, putting as much plea into his tone as he can spare. “Please, First Aid. Caging him is not the answer. Release him into my custody if you must. I’ll take responsibility for him.”
First Aid sighs, and his field flows over Mirage, warm and pleased. “If it were my choice, I’d let him out today. But it’s gotta go through Optimus. You know how it is, with the political ramifications and all.”
“But you’ll bring it up?” Mirage asks.
First Aid’s free hand pats over Mirage’s. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll fight for him. It’s past time Cliffjumper is free.”
Mirage can’t agree more.
~
It takes almost a year, despite Mirage’s urging.
Not because Optimus and Ratchet disagree, but because the Decepticons are not keen on the idea of letting a mech who once assassinated their own and claimed willing to do it again, free without restraint. But come to an accord they do, and on the day Cliffjumper is set to be released, however limited, Mirage is there.
He’s the one who walks out of the secure unit beside Cliffjumper. The one who stands beside the minibot as he takes his first step into the brightly lit afternoon, the sights and sounds of a city being rebuilt clashing around him.
Mirage watches as Cliffjumper drags in a deep vent. As he stretches his arms over his head and smiles, however small it might be. As his engine settles into a purring rumble before his hands drop back to his sides with a light swing.
“I hear I have you to thank,” he says.
Mirage shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything special. Just what needed to be done.”
“Uh huh.” Cliffjumper gives Mirage a sidelong look. “And I guess Bludgeon’s accident was just that.”
“Accidents do happen,” Mirage dismisses.
Cliffjumper might not have been willing to give Mirage his list, but Mirage had coaxed it out of Smokescreen, and he’d found a single designation that matched his own. It had taken months of planning, watching and waiting, for an “accident” to happen.
Strange how he doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed of himself. Bludgeon is one Decepticon no one will miss, not even his own kind.
“Well, the world is a better place, one less that mech, if you ask me. Safer, too.” Cliffjumper’s grin is more genuine now. “So I hope that means you’re hiring. Because it looks like I’m going to need a job.”
Mirage smiles. “As it turns out, I have an opening that you’d be perfect to fill.”
“Great,” Cliffjumper says and pauses, scratching at the side of his nose. “And, uh, thanks. Not just for the job, I mean. But for, you know, everything.”
Mirage briefly rests a hand on Cliffjumper’s shoulder, ridiculously pleased when the minibot doesn’t flinch. His spark feels warm, like it hasn’t since he was separated from Tracks, only to learn what had become of his beloved.
Mirage smiles, soft and sure. “What else are friends for?”
****
a/n: Just a little piece to bridge the gap between Salvage and Undaunted, so you can see how Cliffjumper got from point a to b.
Feedback as always is welcome and appreciated.
Universe: Crown the Empire, Pre-Undaunted
Characters: Mirage, Cliffjumper, First Aid
Rating: T
Warnings: References to NonCon, References to Suicidal Ideations, References to Assassination/Murder, References Character Death
Description: No mech left behind, Mirage decides, even if all he can do is sit by Cliffjumper’s side as a friendly face.
There’s not much else he can do. His capabilities have shrunken to the bare minimum, and even taking care of himself is a trial these days.
He isn’t even sure what brings him here. What takes control of his feet one day, and why he wanders into the stark, cold bunker. But here he comes, and here he continues to visit.
Every moment he has to spare. Every quiet hour. When the silence in his head gets too loud, and the ache in his spark too heavy, Mirage comes here. It’s not technically a brig, but it is where they are keeping Cliffjumper. For his own safety, they say. And the safety of the surviving Decepticons.
Mirage doesn’t say much. His silence speaks volumes. He recognizes the dark despair in Cliffjumper’s gaze, but he doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t have to.
They both know the state of their universe.
Sometimes, people don’t need words. Or reassurances. Or empty platitudes. Sometimes, they just need someone who understands, to sit there with them and wait. To be available without pushing. To know they aren’t alone, when they are ready to acknowledge it.
Mirage isn’t much good for anything right now. But this… this he can do.
“Why?” Cliffjumper finally asks him, a month later, when the silence stretches long between them, until it grows into a camaraderie no longer uncomfortable or tense, but peaceful and consoling.
He doesn’t have to clarify what he’s asking. Mirage already knows.
Mirage’s fingers work diligently around the metalmesh weave – the humans would have called it knitting. Mirage found he has a talent for the work, which requires nimble hands and light focus. It gives him something to concentrate on that he can’t possibly fail, and he enjoys the way the dyed metal twists and winds together.
It takes a moment for Mirage to answer, mostly because he’s not sure what to say. His first visit had been driven by mystery, as had the subsequent ones. He thinks he has an inkling now, or at least, a partial truth.
“Because if I were any faster, I would have gotten to those monsters before you could,” Mirage replies without looking up from his work.
Cliffjumper makes a noncommittal noise. Peripherally, Mirage sees him sit back into the bench, much more comfortable accommodations than the brig, but still very much a cage. One for his own protection.
Or so they say.
“I don’t think it was the right thing to do,” Mirage continues softly, “but it wasn’t wrong either. Pain is… not so easily assuaged.”
Cliffjumper snorts. His hands drape over his knees. His head thunks against the wall, optics dimming.
“You’ve got that right.”
He doesn’t say anything else. He appears, for all intents and purposes, to slip into a light recharge, a victory in itself.
Mirage is safe, Cliffjumper has decided, and Mirage returns his attention to his weaving, a thin strand of copper tucking under a thin strand of bronze.
Maybe tonight he’ll manage some recharge of his own.
“You going back?” Cliffjumper asks the next day as Mirage sits in his usual chair and pulls out his weaving supplies.
He’s still not sure what it’s going to be. Blanket perhaps. One can never have enough blankets. It’ll feel more like home, to have such a simple comfort. Unnecessary, but also, very much so.
Mirage looks up as he blindly arranges the strips of metalmesh, patting out any tangles. “Hm?”
“To duty?” Cliffjumper clarifies.
“Oh.” Mirage vents a soft sigh. He bends over his blanket, he’s decided. “No. The war is over. I need to find out what that means for me now.”
He’s never wanted to fight. It has only been a matter of necessity. He doesn’t want to do it anymore. He just wants peace.
“Without Tracks, you mean.”
Mirage flinches. He can’t help it. He knows he should be better, that he should have mastered his emotions, as he’s been raised and taught. He knows it’s a weakness, to be so blatant.
His spark, however, hurts. It yearns. There’s a raw, aching silence inside of him, places where Tracks used to be and still is. He’s dead, but he’s not gone, and Mirage still swears he can hear his beloved’s voice sometimes. It tells him to get up, to keep moving forward. That he’s loved and cherished and worth it.
Mirage’s head bows lower. “… Yes.”
Cliffjumper’s field reaches out, wavers, and retracts, as though he doesn’t feel qualified to offer comfort. “You ever thought about following him?”
He knows what Cliffjumper is really asking.
Mirage works his intake, hands stilling on his blanket, as he looks up at a mech who had once been a great bully to him. “Would you be disappointed if I answered yes?”
“Might’ve. Once. Now...” Cliffjumper shrugs, but it’s far from dismissive. It’s helpless, and tormented, and yielding. “Living’s hard.”
Mirage’s fingers tremble around the coiled metalmesh. “Some might say it is a coward’s path.”
Cliffjumper snorts. “Yeah, well ‘some’ can go spend a month in a Decepticon’s tender loving care.” He’s bitter, so bitter, and Mirage can’t even blame him. Can only sympathize.
He braces himself. Cycles a ventilation. “… Have you ever considered it?” Mirage asks, fearing he already knows the answer.
“Not in the way you think.” Cliffjumper shifts on the berth, pulls his back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. “The best revenge now is to live, I guess. Well, unless I get to finish my list.”
“You think it’ll help?”
Cliffjumper smiles, crooked as it is. “Can’t make me feel worse.”
“Could I ask a question?” Mirage asks a week later, the curiosity gnawing at him, prompting him to speak first, when he usually lets Cliffjumper lead the conversations.
The minibot stirs from his berth, emerging out of the shadows to come closer. “That’s a first,” he says. “As long as you don’t ask me how I’m doing, feel free.”
Mirage’s lips quirk. “I know better than to offer such a pointless query.” He cycles a ventilation and steadies his hands over his weaving. He always brings it now, to give his hands something to do when Cliffjumper’s silence is oppressive. “You said you had a list.”
Cliffjumper’s optics darken. He scowls. “Yeah. Not that it does me any good. No one will tell me anything about it. Like I have any chance of getting out of here and doing anything with the information anyway.” His fist strikes against the bars of his cell, powered down as Mirage is visiting.
Mirage glances up at the camera. It records video only, he knows. Or perhaps it records audio without his knowledge. Either way, it is nothing difficult for someone trained by Jazz to broadcast a little white noise.
“Would you share it with me?” Mirage asks. “Perhaps there is something I can do.”
“So you can end up in a cell next to me?” Cliffjumper snorts and flops back down on his berth. “While the company would be welcome, it’s not a good idea. Optimus doesn’t need the political flak.”
“You think so little of the skills Jazz gave me?” Mirage lifts an orbital ridge and pointedly flicks his cloak, shimmering in and out of visibility.
“I think that if someone on my list turns up dead, they’ll wonder why. It’s not worth it.”
Mirage’s frown deepens, but he lets the matter rest. For now. Cliffjumper is not the only one who has a list. And if there is someone Mirage can handle in his freedom, then he will.
Not everyone out there deserves a second chance.
The conversations turn, eventually, to the future. It’s a topic Mirage is careful to avoid, aware that they are on two different sides of the cage, but when Cliffjumper mentions it, he is honest.
If Cliffjumper can ask about Mirage’s choice of future, perhaps it means he’s considering his own. Or maybe he’s desperate for a distraction. Either way, it gives Mirage something to ponder that isn’t upsetting.
“A bar?” Cliffjumper echoes when Mirage answers. His tone is almost gleeful, amusement lurking in the gleam of his optics.
Mirage finds his lips curving into a soft smile. “Is it so strange?”
“For you? Frag yeah!” Cliffjumper laughs, though it’s little more than a chuckle. “Prim nobles aren’t supposed to own bars!”
“I am neither prim nor a noble, not anymore,” Mirage replies, more amused than offended. “Besides, it’s less a bar than it is a lounge.”
Cliffjumper’s chuckle is genuine and all the better for it. “A lounge. Yeah, that sounds more like you. There’s the Mirage I know.” He props his chin on his fist. “Tell me about this lounge then. You’re gonna have booze at least, right? Not tea and crumpets?”
Mirage’s lips twitch. “Yes, I will have various flavors of engex and high grade.” Tea and crumpets. Honestly. Though he isn’t surprised Cliffjumper drew the parallel. Nobles are – or were – a bit like British royalty. “Smokescreen has also suggested I include several game tables.”
“For gambling, of course.” Cliffjumper laughs again, his lips stretching wider into a grin. “Good old Smokey. I guess some things never change.”
“Yes, he is a sorely needed burst of stability right now,” Mirage agrees. He looks down at his metalmesh blanket, which he hasn’t found need to weave right now. “And you? Did you have plans for the future once?”
Cliffjumper leans back and crosses his arms behind his head, unflinching in the face of what had to be a painful query. “Yeah. Once. It isn’t possible now, but I used to think that I’d have a life after the war.”
“It’s not impossible,” Mirage replies quietly.
“I’m stuck in here.” Cliffjumper knocks an elbow against the wall. It makes a low donging noise. “And I’m never getting out.” That he doesn’t sound particularly disturbed by this is more worrisome than anything.
Mirage plucks at the weave of his blanket, finding a spot where it isn’t as tight as he’d like. “You never know,” he says. “If I can find peace and open a bar of all things, perhaps there is still hope for you.”
Cliffjumper makes a noncommittal noise. “I guess you’re right,” he says and shutters his optics, as though he intends to recharge then and there, though Mirage knows better.
Night purges, he assumes. They get the better of most survivors.
“Guess we’ll just have to see,” Cliffjumper adds.
“What about before the war?” Cliffjumper asks.
It’s another day, another moment sitting with the minibot during his captivity. Only now Cliffjumper’s been moved, out of the brig and into a secure ward in the medbay. All the better for his recovery, Ratchet claims.
It’s a brighter space. Welcoming. Better for healing.
There aren’t any bars, just locked doors. Mirage has to be buzzed in and out, through several passcode-protected doors. It reminds him of an asylum on Earth, the places the humans kept their mentally ill. Perhaps the comparison suits Cliffjumper well.
They sit at a table. Cliffjumper has some kind of puzzle game spread out across from him. Mirage works on a scarf as he’d finished his blanket. Smokescreen, upon seeing the finished product, had immediately demanded a scarf. So he can look more dashing, he claims.
“You know what I was,” Mirage replies as he carefully straightens out the different colors. Smokescreen has no sense of color and has picked out several obnoxious shades.
“I know you were a noble. But what did you do?” Cliffjumper persists. He focuses on his puzzle, a three-dimensional model of some vehicle, but his field is curious.
Mirage sighs. “Decoration.”
Cliffjumper blinks. “Come on. Be serious. It’s a legit question.”
“And it is a legitimate answer.” Mirage can’t lift his gaze. He feels heat in his cheeks. He hasn’t told anyone the truth of his past in a long time. “My spark and frame were both commissioned by my caretakers for the single purpose of being bonded to the heir of another noble house. We were pledged to be bonded before I even warmed my frame.”
“That sucks.”
“Mmm.” Mirage weaves the shiny copper in with the soft aluminum. “My Intended was not a bad mech. He was as trapped by the situation as I was. Though his caretakers treated him better than mine. I was considered a commodity, and while that meant I received the highest of care, there was no emotion in it. I was meant to be beautiful. A trophy. A gift.”
Cliffjumper scowls, as though outraged on Mirage’s behalf. “Noble houses are slag,” he says and waves one hand in the air, fingers wrapped around a piece of the puzzle. “What kind of fragged up slag is that?”
“The way things were.” Mirage shrugs, but it’s hardly as dismissive as he wants it to be. “I was originally a monoformer, you know. I didn’t even have a transformation cog until the war broke out. Trophies, you see, had no need to transform.”
His tires twitch. He remembers far too many days spent being carried or escorted, not because the ground was too dirty for his dainty feet, but because they dare not risk injury to such a valuable commodity.
“Damn. That sucks.” Cliffjumper shoves a thumb at himself. “Me? I’ve always had wheels. Couldn’t do my job without them. What a terrible transport specialist I’d be if I couldn’t do any transporting, right?”
Mirage raises an orbital ridge. “Aren’t you a little, err, small for such a task?”
Cliffjumper, for once, laughs rather than get offended. “Not everything that needs to be moved is large and bulky. Sometimes people just wanted something small delivered very quickly. Other times huge shipments needed guards to make sure they reached their destination safely.” He smirks. “I’m a Cliffjumper of all trades.”
“I’m quite sure that’s not how the idiom works.”
“Does for me.”
Mirage’s lips curl. The amusement dancing in Cliffjumper’s optics is welcome. He hopes he can continue to coax it out. Somehow, being here for Cliffjumper’s slow but steady progression is helping Mirage as well.
Maybe there is a future to be had. Maybe.
“So I’m guessing this fiance of yours wasn’t Tracks?” Cliffjumper says, getting back to the previous question. He slots another puzzle piece into place. “Since you still don’t sound like you liked him much.”
“He was a caged bird as much as I, but no, it was not Tracks.” Mirage’s smile turns warm as he thinks of his true Intended, the mech he would have claimed if not for the war. “Tracks’ brother had been the one to design my frame, but there was some… familial turmoil so when it came time for the official bonding ceremony, Tracks was summoned to help decorate me for the occasion. We had an instant connection.”
Cliffjumper chuckles. “Love at first sight, eh? Somehow I’m not surprised.” He picks through the pieces spread across the table with genuine interest. “Not that I know what that feels like. I had two amica, but never a conjunx.”
Had.
Mirage knows that word all too well. There are far too many Cybertronians now who must use the term ‘had’ to describe someone special once in their life. So many sparks lost to the war, to Megatron’s lust for power.
“I suppose that is the only gift the war ever gave me,” Mirage realizes aloud as he pauses in the midst of his weaving. “If not for it, I’d have found myself bonded to Dune, and I would have never even had the memories I do have with Tracks.”
“They say there’s a silver lining to everything.” Cliffjumper shrugs and clicks a puzzle piece into place. “Guess I’ll let you know when I find mine.”
“Perhaps...” Mirage hesitates, wondering if he’s overstepping, but then barrels forward anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Perhaps our friendship is one such lining.”
Cliffjumper cycles his optics and looks up at Mirage. His expression is unreadable at first, but there is surprise in his field. One hand still hovers over the assorted puzzle pieces.
“Yeah,” he finally says, static rasping through his vocals. “You’re right. Who would’ve guessed, huh? You and me getting along like this. Guess there are such things as miracles.”
Mirage chuckles. “I suppose so.”
He turns his attention back to his weaving. Cliffjumper focuses on his puzzle once more. They don’t speak, but somehow, the silence is not uncomfortable, not as it had been in the beginning, when Mirage had done the only thing he could do. When he’d sat across from Cliffjumper in the brig so the minibot wouldn’t feel abandoned and alone.
Mirage goes to First Aid first.
He pleads his case with sincerity. He begs for the chief-in-training to speak with Ratchet, with Optimus, with anyone who will listen.
Cliffjumper, Mirage is certain, deserves a second chance.
“Well,” First Aid admits as he rubs around his face mask. “He has been different lately. He’s been willing to talk. He finally let us repair him one-hundred percent. He’s been fueling as he should. Not recharging as well but...”
“Who among us does,” Mirage finishes with a murmur. He clasps First Aid’s hand, putting as much plea into his tone as he can spare. “Please, First Aid. Caging him is not the answer. Release him into my custody if you must. I’ll take responsibility for him.”
First Aid sighs, and his field flows over Mirage, warm and pleased. “If it were my choice, I’d let him out today. But it’s gotta go through Optimus. You know how it is, with the political ramifications and all.”
“But you’ll bring it up?” Mirage asks.
First Aid’s free hand pats over Mirage’s. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll fight for him. It’s past time Cliffjumper is free.”
Mirage can’t agree more.
It takes almost a year, despite Mirage’s urging.
Not because Optimus and Ratchet disagree, but because the Decepticons are not keen on the idea of letting a mech who once assassinated their own and claimed willing to do it again, free without restraint. But come to an accord they do, and on the day Cliffjumper is set to be released, however limited, Mirage is there.
He’s the one who walks out of the secure unit beside Cliffjumper. The one who stands beside the minibot as he takes his first step into the brightly lit afternoon, the sights and sounds of a city being rebuilt clashing around him.
Mirage watches as Cliffjumper drags in a deep vent. As he stretches his arms over his head and smiles, however small it might be. As his engine settles into a purring rumble before his hands drop back to his sides with a light swing.
“I hear I have you to thank,” he says.
Mirage shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything special. Just what needed to be done.”
“Uh huh.” Cliffjumper gives Mirage a sidelong look. “And I guess Bludgeon’s accident was just that.”
“Accidents do happen,” Mirage dismisses.
Cliffjumper might not have been willing to give Mirage his list, but Mirage had coaxed it out of Smokescreen, and he’d found a single designation that matched his own. It had taken months of planning, watching and waiting, for an “accident” to happen.
Strange how he doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed of himself. Bludgeon is one Decepticon no one will miss, not even his own kind.
“Well, the world is a better place, one less that mech, if you ask me. Safer, too.” Cliffjumper’s grin is more genuine now. “So I hope that means you’re hiring. Because it looks like I’m going to need a job.”
Mirage smiles. “As it turns out, I have an opening that you’d be perfect to fill.”
“Great,” Cliffjumper says and pauses, scratching at the side of his nose. “And, uh, thanks. Not just for the job, I mean. But for, you know, everything.”
Mirage briefly rests a hand on Cliffjumper’s shoulder, ridiculously pleased when the minibot doesn’t flinch. His spark feels warm, like it hasn’t since he was separated from Tracks, only to learn what had become of his beloved.
Mirage smiles, soft and sure. “What else are friends for?”
a/n: Just a little piece to bridge the gap between Salvage and Undaunted, so you can see how Cliffjumper got from point a to b.
Feedback as always is welcome and appreciated.
