#in regards to...

The doctor jerked her head away from the lab console, knitted brows shooting up in surprise. Her expression melted to that of a soft weariness.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I shouldn’t be second-guessing myself like this...”

She pushed her chair away from the desk, turning to fully face him, a welcoming smile on her face.

“Me and Shockwave… oh. I get what you’re asking. What our relationship is really like, right? And to be honest, I have no answer for you. He’s… he’s actually very fascinating to talk to once you can get him to be honest. The problem is that most of the time he doesn’t care enough to give a straight answer, you kind of have to work it out of him. I bug him when I’m bored. Not much more to it than that.” The Autobot fell silent a moment, thinking it over, before she went on…

“The thing of it is, that mech… he’s got this stupid tunnel vision thing going on, you know? And part of it I really understand. Everyone has been fighting for so long… if you give up now, isn’t that like saying everything you’ve already done was worthless? But he refuses to see outside of this black and white picture he’s painted of the world. I can’t even say there are shades of gray in there, okay? It’s more like the pages of a… a coloring book, like human children have. You know… everything is just blank white with black outlines. And he sits there filling those outlines with ‘data’ when what they really need is ‘color’ to go in them, you know? It’s like all he can do is paint the world in little coded characters. He doesn’t know how to actually make the picture.”

“But then you actually force him to look at the picture and he becomes different. I don’t know how else to explain it. If you take off whatever stupid logic goggles he’s always wearing and make him actually look at the universe then yeah, he can admit that it’s beautiful. He can… value it… for what it is. He has feelings in there. I know he does. I’ve made him mad before and it was just so obvious how personal it was. I never got an explanation. Primus knows I don’t want him that mad at me again. But if that much anger is in there then I know there are other emotions there too, and it just… I just want to smack him one sometimes.” She strikes a fisted servo against an open palm in frustration. “He is crippling himself and he doesn’t even get it! And if anything, it’s a weakness. He has this inability to cope with his own feelings… it’s not scientific process, it’s not logic, it’s a flaw in how he tries to work. Good luck getting him to see that, though.”

Frustrated, the femme flops back into her seat. “To be honest I’m not even sure why I talk to him anymore. At first I think I was looking for some sort of weakness, but now… I know what his weakness is. It’s his emotions, the fact that he refuses to acknowledge them. Get him mad and it makes him slip. Makes him make mistakes. Thing is I knew that the first time I met him. I didn’t need to go back to confirm it. So it’s like… I go in there, and just kind of see what he’s doing. I don’t wanna know what he’s doing, but I go in anyway. Somebody has to. He’s going to hurt himself one of these days. Actually I think that’s how he lost his arm, right? Didn’t an experiment eat his arm? He’s going to hurt himself again though, you watch, and… then what is he going to have? Everything is just outlines to him. There’s not a single bot around him he can probably call a friend. He’s loyal to his master and he cares for his Predacon and that’s it, those are the only things that matter. It’s so… dumb…”

She lays her head back, staring at the ceiling, before reaching over and poking at the radio. “The thing of it is, I think there’s a lot more too him than anyone else realizes. He has this reputation as a cold, unfeeling monster… he’s not. He isn’t cold; he cares too much for the life he created. He isn’t unfeeling. Believe me, I’ve seen the proof. He’s not a monster. A monster would take pleasure in the pain of others. A monster would be experimenting on living things for entertainment. A monster hurts and kills because to them… it’s fun. That’s all there is to it. Shockwave… he’s not a monster, he’s just a scientist who’s moral code allows him to justify the means with the end. And yeah, some of the means are horrific. Can’t deny that. But he never causes that pain without a reason, as fragged up as that may sound…” the racer shudders lightly… “Believe me, I’d know. I’ve survived his table before. All he cared about was what he could learn. There was no lust for torture there.”

“Can one even call this a relationship in any form? I’ve yet to find a suitable answer to that. We’re like the most vague sort of acquaintances ever. He’s always willing to remind me just how much he hates me but it’s always in words lately, and then we just go right  back to talking. He is just… infuriating. That’s the only word for him. He’s absolutely infuriating. He’s too stubborn for his own good and one of these days he’s going to end up wrecking himself. Why would I even want to associate myself with that? But then sometimes I think he remembers home the same way I do… misses it the same, even. He misses Cybertron the same way the rest of us do. He mourns for what’s been wasted like anyone else. He really is just like the rest of us… not that he’s smart enough to figure that out…”