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December 22nd: Mother's Day.
Jun has just left a small flower shop downtown of Mowtown when he remembered that Blue Cop would've been unable to pick him up, something about meetings and paperwork. He doesn't really get it, but it must be important for his best friend. With the secret out and all, Blue Cop has been busier and busier, not that he can blame him.
He let out a weary sigh and moved to walk back home in the cold, windy afternoon. Nonetheless, he will not let it bother him! It is Mother's Day after all, and his mother will definitely love the flower bouquet he just bought (with his own pocket money too!).
The wind picked up for a moment, Jun flinched and shivered, "Gah! It's so cold…"
And the moment he opens his eyes, the hulking shadow of Heavy Iron's alt-mode is parked right next to him. Engines rumbling slowly, Heavy Iron's yellow eyes stared at him sharply—which is normal, but him? Picking Jun up? Now that's unheard of.
Jun stammers for a second, utterly baffled for a moment.
Heavy Iron? Picking him up? He would have rubbed his eyes to check if he was hallucinating or something when the cab doors opened.
"Get. In." Heavy Iron's stern voice breaks Jun out of his stupor, "R-right!" He climbs into the cab and slinks onto the passenger seat; the warm air from the cab's heaters hits him immediately, making Jun sigh joyfully. No longer is he in the cold weather outside; he sinks in relief from the warmth. He places the bouquet in the driver's seat to avoid crushing it, then pulls the seatbelt and clicks it in place.
Heavy Iron glances at the bouquet for a moment before his engines start and pulls forward to join the traffic. With it being winter—the roads covered in snow and ice—nearing Christmas, and in the afternoon, not many cars were on the road. Not that Jun is complaining, but he does want to know the reason why.
"Why did you pick me up?"
Heavy Iron glances at him, "I was in the area." A curt, short answer. He's always been one of the quieter ones, despite them being friends now. "There's no work anyway." Jun giggled at the answer, having heard of Black Hook's complaints of how much time Heavy Iron spends on just working.
There was a silence before Heavy Iron broke it, "What are the flowers for?"
Jun grins at the question, "It's for my mom! It's Mother's Day today, so I'm getting a gift for her!" Now that he thinks about it, do Cardbots have parents? He knows that Red Blitz calls Gigantrex his dad, but that's only after they arrived on Earth.
"Do Cardbots have parents?" The rumbles of Heavy Iron's engine stall for a second too long, but Jun didn't notice it. "No." Jun balks for a moment. Cause if not, then where do Cardbots come from?
"…For the most part."
Jun blinked before grinning, "So you do have parents!"
Heavy Iron huffs in annoyance, seemingly uncomfortable with the topic. "Not conventionally. Most of the time, it's closer to an apprenticeship than anything."
Jun makes an inquisitive noise at the statement, "What's it like?" Heavy Iron quiets for a second before he answers.
"It's like what Blue Cop has with his old mentor. Golden boy taught him everything about being a Star Guardian and how to be a goody two-shoes. Obviously, that's before he became a turncoat, HAH!"
Jun could only awkwardly laugh at that jab towards Flame Nova. Heavy Iron stops chuckling and sighs smugly before he continues.
"But that's if you're quite lucky. Most of the time, you'd have to learn by yourself; not many bots out there have the time to mentor new builds." Jun huffs, disappointed by the answer. "But if you're super unlucky, you'd have to fight for your life first, then learn everything else second."
"But that's not fair?!"
Heavy Iron chuckled at Jun's reaction; the boy clearly still couldn't grasp just how rough and cruel life can be on Machina. "New-builds forged outside of the Capital have to fight to live, resources are scarce after all, and only the strongest can survive."
The sad, nearly tearful look on Jun's face made Heavy Iron backtrack. He has no desire to be shouted at by Blue Cop, Mega Ambler, and Black Hook (in that order). He coughed awkwardly before talking again, "That's what Black Hook told me anyway. He onlined near the seas."
"And you're from the… uh, Capital?"
Heavy Iron went quiet at Jun's question. Unnervingly quiet. Suddenly, a grim, nearly oppressive atmosphere in the cab. Cold. Even when the heaters are still blasting warm air at Jun, it felt freezing in the silence.
"… I'm not from…" There was a long silence after that. Almost as if Heavy Iron was too… Embarrassed? No, skittish is the right word, nearly as if he is choosing which words he should say, "…anywhere…"
To Jun, he sounded disappointed and angry. But mostly, disappointed. It is something he's not supposed to ask, doesn't have the right to ask of Heavy Iron. So, Jun puts away his curiosity over that answer and asks another one, "What about you, Heavy Iron? Ever had an apprenticeship?"
This time, instead of silence, Heavy Iron answered immediately, his voice low, almost wistful, "I had a creator."
Jun blinked at the question, "A creator? Like a… mom?"
Heavy Iron chuckled at his words, "We don't follow the same binary gender roles your species does." Heavy Iron paused for a moment as the traffic light in the junction turned red, his engines quieting as he stopped driving. "But I suppose it's the closest word for it in my language."
"Whoa! How are they like?" There is a whine in Heavy Iron's engine before he talks,
"He was cruel." The traffic light turns green, and he continues moving along the traffic. Jun's mouth opened and closed at the answer, but he closed it, having nothing to say, so Heavy Iron continued talking.
"I wasn't worth his time, after all; he has an army to deal with. A plot to destroy his enemies and retake the planet. Raising me isn't part of his job as a "Tyrant" after all." There was a mocking lilt on tyrant, one that is scornful and wistful all at the same time. "But then he realized that he had a perfect soldier right in front of him, and suddenly he acted as he had always cared." Heavy Iron sighs, "Not that he did raise me, he just offloaded the job to his subordinates, and now that I think about it, that was probably the only good choice he ever made."
Jun stared forward, stunned by the answer and the fact that this was the most he had heard of Heavy Iron's past besides the knowledge of whatever he had with Black Hook and his (former) status as an outlaw. "So, how were they like?" Heavy Iron stared at Jun before realizing who he was referring to. This time, he laughs at the question, softly, nearly nostalgic.
"One of them, his Second-in-Command, taught me many things. He's the closest to a… caregiver, I think." Jun brightened up at his words, and Heavy Iron suddenly had this tiny, sadistic urge to shoot that smile down immediately. "He taught me how to lie, how to blame others for my mistakes… How to hate my creator." Jun's smile immediately fell, and Heavy Iron chuckled lowly at his reaction.
"You should be grateful to him, boy. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all." Heavy Iron rebukes Jun before he could say anything. After all, he could still remember the scratchy, cackling laughter of the Air Commander, of how the first praises came from him, and how, in the end, it was all a part of his own agenda to overthrow his creator, one that would never succeed. "He was a good teacher for the most part." Jun huffs, giving Heavy Iron a side glance as he folds his arms, "Your creator and teacher sounds mean!"
"You haven't even heard about the others."
Jun jumped forward in his seat, gripping the dashboard in disbelief, "There's more!?"
Heavy Iron stalled, stopping at the roadside before he sighs. "If you're gonna keep asking me all these questions, you're not gonna get home in time, Jun." Stern, low, heated. Jun stuttered as he realized that Heavy Iron was becoming uncomfortable in their conversation, over the topic they were talking about. He slumps back towards his seat, glancing towards the bouquet, having forgotten about it in his talk with Heavy Iron.
Jun then stares at the cab floor, gripping the seatbelt tight before he looks up towards Heavy Iron with a determined look on his face. "Well, I have all the time in the world to talk with my friend right now! So, yeah! I'm gonna keep asking!" Heavy Iron sighs with displeasure, having spilled most of his past to Jun, his past that is supposed to be a secret, unknown to no one but himself (and Black Hook, but he isn't about to sacrifice his pride admitting that).
"You- I always thought you reminded me of someone." The nemesis his creator compares him to—the enemy, but he isn't going to say that to this child who has gained his respect.
"Really?" Jun, confused by Heavy Iron's reaction, could only imagine who this someone is.
"He's a good bot, Jun, not like them." Not like me goes unsaid. "Brave, courageous, and caring, for each one of his troops." The mech, his creator almost obsessively seethes over, the more important thing than him, the only thing that would ever exist for his creator's eyes. "Everything…"
—There is a pit in his stomach that yawns wider and wider (and has been doing so for millions of years) each time he thinks of how he meant nothing to his creator, a weapon first, nothing else after that. And that pit, the dark, heavy sorrow and hate and despair accumulating for as long as he lived deepens and deepens and suffocates, and he finds that he can no longer care about it anymore, for he is nothing without his sorrow, and he choke andchokeandchokeandchoke—
"Heavy Iron?" Jun's voice, crisp and childish—worried—startles him out of his spiral. "What's wrong?"
The first time he had heard that sentence was from Black Hook, years before their fight and subsequent parting, when they had just met one another, while he wasn't Heavy Iron yet, and was nothing more than a strange bot from somewhere else who had fled to Machina. It was an unfamiliar question when he came from a place where strength comes first, and concern meant weakness—certain death. "I'm fine. I just… remembered some things."
Jun looks at him with concern, "Bad things?"
Heavy Iron could only think about how he needs to stop underestimating just how keen the boy is. "Yeah." And to do something about it.
Jun looks away guiltily, "You know you don't have to, right?"
Heavy Iron chuckled, "And the questions will eat at your heart, until it's the only thing you can think of, boy." He starts his engines once more and moves to enter the residential area.
"That's actually pretty good advice." Jun giggled at his answer, impressed even.
"My other teachers taught me technical knowledge, paperwork, engineering, spying, hacking, all that boring stuff."
Jun looks at Heavy Iron—wonder in his eyes— "You know how to do engineering?"
"I know how to make a bomb, if that's what you wanna know."
Jun stutters at his answer before shouting, "NO BOMBS!!!" Heavy Iron only chuckled lowly. Not like he'll make one, it was boring stuff that he only half listened to. The Head Scientist was a boring, creepy bot with a voice that makes him sleepy.
"I wouldn't want to make one anyway. My creator already blew me up multiple times."
"That's not good at all! All of them sound so mean!!!"
"If it'll make you feel better, my creator's Third in Command was the nicest out of all of them, cause he made himself scarce, and it's usually his Minicons that would heckle me anyway."
He remembers the Minicons vividly, not that Jun would know what they actually are; he remembers sneaking into vents and private quarters with them—not by choice, dragged if anything—but it was fun. The closest thing to childish joy in that ship—prison, where he was born. He became too large to enter the ventilation system after his final upgrade, and was swamped by fights and campaigns until the numbness towards death and glee towards inflicting pain became normal.
"Huh…" That spark of wonder in Jun's eyes returns once more, and Heavy Iron could only think about when he lost the spark of life in his eyes—he had always wondered that it was the moment he came online anyway, staring towards the glaring red optics of his creator (filled with hate and grief).
"The rest of them were assholes, they hated me, and I didn't care about it back then."
"Were they mean to you?"
"Training with them involves getting shot at, tortured, or beaten to an inch of your life, so what do you think?" Jun's horrified, almost scandalized look for him makes him want to laugh, but he knows that such things will never be normal or right for the boy.
"I hated them all, my creator, even more." He could no longer stomach their cruelty at one point, towards him, towards others, towards themselves. He craved freedom, the ability to do anything he wanted without the scrutinizing gaze of his creators, his teachers, his subordinates, and the expectation that comes with it.
Jun said nothing, remaining pensive towards everything he just said. Then he asked, "So then, you ran away?" Jun's voice was low, soft, a careful question for him.
"Yes." He does not mention the fact that he had been there on Machina to raze it to the ground; ordered to leave because his creator was losing badly to what's basically a small police force and a bunch of criminals, and he ran to Machina, knowing that they would never go to a deathtrap like it, filled with dangerous mechs who could summon weapons out of thin air.
He does not mention that he ripped his old plating off to remove his old self, to completely cut out the old him, the one that followed his creator's desire.
He does not mention that he painted himself in enemy colours to spite his creator.
He does not mention sneaking into the core of Machina itself, begging the Mother Computer to tear him apart and put him back together as a Cardbot. Does not say the overwhelming pain of it, the fear, the weakness, the despair. And the solace.
Does not mention the overwhelming fear and hopelessness when his creator names him the heir of an empire that is fated to fail. Ignoring the leers filled with hate, greed, and hunger. He vomited himself sick after that, in his private quarters.
Does not mention the relief after escaping that hell, perfectly curated to serve his creator's every whim.
Does not mention the emptiness in him.
Does not mention the self-sabotage—purposefully ruining his first good relationship (not filled with hidden agendas, delusional loyalty, and greed) out of hidden, unfounded (delusional) fears—and he did it again and again.
Does not mention the overwhelming pain.
Does not mention the weary glee of hurting other.
Does not mention—
Does not…
…Does not…
"Heavy Iron!" Jun's voice snaps him awake once more, this time much more frantic than confused. "What's wrong? Are you alright?" Did he really work himself into a stupor that long? There is a buzzing in his head that lessens and lessens, but remains there no matter what. He suddenly feels so, so tired.
"I'm sleepy." That was enough to make Jun sigh in relief.
"Welp! You can always go back to the garage and rest there! Or do you want me to take you back to the Metal-"
"No need, kid. Now get off." Heavy Iron comes to a stop in front of Jun's home. His engine rumbles down before he looks at Jun again. "Your flowers. Don't forget them." Jun jumps up from his seat, grabbing the bouquet from the driver's seat. He shouts a thank you at him as he jumps out of the cab and runs into his home with a childlike glee.
Through the window, Heavy Iron could see Yuri gasp excitedly as Jun offered her the bouquet. He does not stick around, driving off immediately after.
He keeps on driving, and driving. Until the afternoon sky becomes darker and darker, and the moon rises. He only comes to a stop when he arrives in the landfill, quickly reversing behind a pile of junk and trash. He transforms back into his root form, snaps back his battlemask, opens his intake—something a Cardbot wouldn't have—and vomits.
And vomits.
And vomits.
Until his vocaliser burned, and he coughs and coughs, until the only thing that would come out of his intake is oral lubricant. Until he keels over from the effort, he has to brace himself on the ground. There is a pool of something, oil mixed with whatever, he couldn't care less. Drops of coolant escape from his optics, and he heaves. Heavy Iron covers his faceplates with his servos; his frame shakes, but there are no sobs.
He never knew how to cry anyway.
He lies down on the ground, looking up towards the night sky. There are no stars in the sky; the clouds are covering the sky, blotting them out. He wants to scream, to shout, to rage against everything.
But he already did that, time and time again. And he is tired.
Heavy Iron stares emptily towards the night sky. There are still no stars in the sky.
He stands up after a while, transforming into his alt-mode and leaving the landfill.