Broken
Wings, by Lady Dementia
He doesn’t even look up when I walk past, on most days. The rest of the time he gives me an absent nod, or maybe he’ll even greet me by name. That’s it. Nothing more. I’m no different than anyone else in his optics. To him, I’m just one of his fellow Maximals. Just one of the guys.
I used to walk by him a lot. It was a painful hope, but someday he might have looked up with a smile, or maybe he’d stop me and ask about something. Anything. It didn’t matter what, as long as I was talking to him. As long as he would see me as someone other than just a comrade.
I was so pathetic. I wonder, did the others see me staring at him with love in my optics? Did they pity me, knowing that it was hopeless?
But how could I have known? Why shouldn’t I have had a chance at attracting his attention? He meant so much to me. He still does. After all, he brought me online and fought off the Predacons to give my stasis pod time to finish scanning for my beast mode. I climbed out, and the first time I saw him my spark grew butterfly wings. He’s smart, he’s handsome, and I adored him!
He didn’t even notice. He nods to me, he might say my name, and he can’t even tell that his casual friendship broke my delicate wings. They should have set me free, fluttering in me every time he glanced my way, but instead they merely beat against my fear. I didn’t dare say anything. I tried—oh, I tried!—to get him to notice me, but although every attempt felt blatant to me, they were apparently too subtle. Or he was deliberately ignoring me.
Either way, I was too shy to try any longer after one desperate bid for attention left Rattrap and Cheetor looking at me funny. My butterfly wings broke and my spark fell.
Did any of them see me dragging my broken wings around after that day? I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. No one has ever brought it up, though, and so I’ll content myself with saying that broken wings hurt. My spark ached, it hurt so much. After a while, even though it didn’t seem possible, the ache started to leave. My broken butterfly wings dropped off, and the pain went with them.
That was when I realized someone had been courting me all along. Subtly, so subtly, but it was courting. I would never have noticed if I hadn’t tried something so subtle myself. At first I was uncertain, and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t push him away to be hurt like me, but…
…after a while, I realized that I didn’t WANT to push him away. My spark was growing wings again; more slowly, not in an instance like before, and not butterfly wings, but they were growing. Every once and a while I would feel these strange wings beating painfully, and I’d wonder if this was really worth it. I’d withdraw for a bit while, and the pain would ebb. I didn’t understand why there was pain at all. Was I risking my new wings? Would he, too, break them?
The questions tormented me until one day I just blurted them out. But he didn’t laugh at me or ask me what I meant. He simply smiled at me and asked me if I trusted him.
I stared back at him and felt wings beating. Could I trust him with them? My confusion, my pain, my memories—they all clamored inside me, and I had to decide. Did I? Could I?
Yes. To cage or set free these strange wings, I trusted him. I told him so.
The pain went away.
She walked by him on her way out of the Axalon. He barely looked up. “Airazor?”
“Yeah?”
“Going out on patrol?”
“Yep.”
“With Tigatron, right?”
She chuckled. She was kind of surprised that he had noticed. “Of course.”
“Nice day for it.”
“Always is.” If he had been looking, he would have seen the content smile settle on her face. “Have a good day, Rhinox.”
The rhino was already absorbed in whatever he had been doing. “Mmhmm.”
Airazor only laughed.
Maybe we could have had something, Rhinox and I, but butterfly wings are fragile at best. I’m happy, though. I left my broken butterfly wings behind because in truth, they never fit me very well. It took Tigatron to show me that my spark had the wings of a hawk--
--and he helped me fly again.