Work Text:
Orion Pax had never given much thought to his frame. It simply was. He had been forged sturdy and strong, given his pick of professions suited to a convoy frametype, and that had been that. He learnt how to keep himself clean and healthy, how to handle a gun, how to make sure that if a criminal drew their own weapon he didn’t get shot anywhere immediately fatal. He’d learnt his limits, and how far he could surpass them. How often he actually needed to see a medic, and how much he could leave to self-repair to spare himself the horrendous bills.
And then he’d woken up with a mask instead of a faceplate, a hollow in his chest designed for a holy relic he never would have thought to have the chance to even touch in a dozen lifetimes, let alone bear in his frame, and it was like he was a newbuild all over again, hyper-aware of his own frame, of how his nose rubbed against the inside of his mask and he could brush the metal with his lips if he tried. He had to force himself not to keep reaching up to rub at his chest, where the transparasteel of his windshield was just opaque enough to obscure the cavity below.
He was just finishing settling in at his new station when his comm pinged, and he straightened automatically when he saw the name of the sender. Senator Shockwave. The mech had insist they exchange comm codes, before he left in far fewer pieces than he’d thought he would after storming the Senate, but Orion hadn’t thought that anything would come of it. He opened the message immediately, taking a seat at his new desk and grimacing behind his mask as the chair squeaked. He missed his old chair already, but the station he’d been operating out of was closed for renovations now and he had an inkling those renovations would never even start.
The comm, when he opened it, was simply an address with a date and time. Somewhere in central Iacon, the sort of neighbourhood where one might expect to find a Senator, a respectable time after the end of his shift. A meeting, then? He couldn’t imagine it would be anything else. But... he looked down at his frame, at the splotchy paint over still-healing patches where his armour had been replaced. His nanites would equalize it all within the stellar cycle, but he was meeting Shockwave tomorrow and one had to be presentable when meeting a Senator on purpose.
He hadn’t the time or shanix to get a professional repaint, and even if he painted himself his back would still be a mess. Those blaster bolts had ripped clean through him. Normally he would ask Springarm to help touch him up during the quiet hours of their shift, but... he couldn’t exactly do that anymore, now could he? He could manage polish, though. He was about due for a new pot of it anyways, and a decent tinted one could help even out the look of his paint. It was easy enough to pick up on the way home from work, and the test swatch he smeared over his chestplate looked pretty good. Nicer than his usual, but not so nice he couldn’t wear it to work. Which was fortunate, because once he scrubbed all his old polish off he didn’t have enough left for a fresh coat even if he’d wanted to keep using it.
Much less fortunate was the unusually active shift he had, when he walked into the station wearing that nice simple classy polish. If he didn’t outrank most everyone at the station, he could’ve sworn he was being hazed. Every call he responded to was some sort of minor catastrophe, and by the time he managed to punch out he was filthy, exhausted, and even heading straight to the address Shockwave left him he would be late. But he couldn’t simply blow off a Senator... perhaps he could find a public washstation on the way? It would scour his polish clean off, but showing up without polish was better than showing up as filthy as he was.
quetzalpapalotl Mon 21 Dec 2020 04:11AM UTC
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