"Be honest... if I said I had a small piece of.. someone I assume you had a cordial bond with, but lost, would it be something you would want to have..?" He almost added, 'for sentimental reasons,' but thought better of it. Perhaps that would imply too much vulnerability and emotions, for a bot still adjusting to experiencing and sharing such things.
The medic turned to him with a small, geometric container in his hand, and extended it toward him. Inside, was Breakdown's optic, the one that M.E.C.H. took from him while he was in their clutches. Ratchet had been the last one in possession of it, and still was... Unless Knock Out accepted.
"... You can say no. I am aware it is an odd question. I simply, feel it is appropriate, for me to offer. I kept it during the war in case... a spare part was needed, but that is no longer appropriate." Extra Cybertronian pieces were extremely limited or non-existent for the Autobots back then, after all. — @autobotmedic
Send "be honest…" with a question your muse has been dying to ask mine and they'll answer truthfully.
The container sits between them like an accusation that Knock Out hasn't decided how to interpret. His optics fix on it with detached recognition. It's not part of Breakdown his assistant but a preserved fragment of an aftermath. A long, ugly chain of what was done to what remained of him.
His field coils tight, not with emotion but memory. Something clinical intrudes where sentiment is expected. Irritation follows — not at Ratchet — but at the familiar implication beneath the gesture: that Breakdown must be love and everything tied to him must be grief.
Thinking he's let the silence stretch too long, he looks up. "I've already had what remained of him," he says at last, the words landing flat and unembellished. There's no dramatization or guilt, just fact, however uncomfortable and unsoftened.
Knock Out continues because stopping would mean letting the silence define it. "Silas made sure of that." The name carries its own weight; a procedural horror of something endured, catalogued, and survived.
"I dissected what was left. I analyzed it. I did what was necessary to understand what had been done to him, and to me, by extension."
His gaze drops briefly to his talons, remembering how the abomination of human and Cybertron biology stained them. "...There are those who take issue with my lack of grief," he adds, his voice no less steady. "But I cannot be made to feel something I do not. If you're expecting remorse to accompany that, I will disappoint you."
There's no cruelty in it, just boundary.
Knock Out looks back to the container. "You can dispose of it. Breakdown has been offline for quite some time — I see no value in revisiting ghosts."
