TITLE: Brave Revelations

CHALLENGE SET: #3

CHALLENGE: Courage

RATING: PG

WORD COUNT: 1,091

PAIRINGS: Pura/Blue Wing

SUMMARY: It’s easy to be strong when you’ve got someone watching your back

“If you lose yourself - your courage soon will follow. So be strong tonight - remember who you are.” – Bryan Adams

Blue Wing walked down the hallways of their new base, trying to accustom himself to the feeling of being underground. As a flier, he didn’t much care for enclosed spaces, but he knew why it was important that they remain hidden. Discovery by either the Decepticons or the Autobot military could lead to a messy state of affairs for all concerned; and anyway, if he was feeling bad, he knew Lightwing had to be feeling a lot worse.

He continued his walk, looking for their newly-appointed, though unofficial, leader and found her soon enough, sitting in an empty room with her head in her arms and her doorwings drooped down her back. At first he thought she was tired and was trying to catch some rest, so not wanting to disturb her, he intended to back away quietly. He had not counted on stumbling over his own feet. The noise made Pura look up, which was when he noticed her cheeks glistening with fluid.

“Pura!” His optics wide in alarm, he approached her. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“Stay away from me!” she all but screamed at him.

Wing froze a couple of feet away from her. “Pura…”.

“How could you do this?! I trusted you Wing! And this is what you do to me?! I TRUSTED YOU!!”

“But what did I do?” he asked, then cursed inwardly.

He knew exactly what he had done, but it was too late now to take back his words. She flew at him and he had just enough time to bring his arm up and block her fist. Wing had taken worse hits in his time, and though this didn’t hurt nearly as much, he could still feel the anger and outrage in her blows.

“Was this why you brought me off the streets?” she asked. “Because you needed someone to dump this burden on?”

“Of course not.” Wing tried to catch her hands as they swung at him, not because he was afraid of her, but more to stop her from hurting herself though he had to give the young femme credit for being brave enough to attack a mech much larger and stronger than she was. “I had no idea this would happen.”

“Then why didn’t you do anything?” she asked.

“Because I’m not their leader,” he replied.

“You could be.”

“No, Pura, I couldn’t.” He caught both her wrists in one hand and stopped her swings. “Neither could anyone else. Blaster is too much of a rebel. Tracks and Lightwing don’t have it in them.”

“But you do!”

Blue Wing shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Who took care of them all before I came along? It was you. And you want to dump it on me just because you can't be bothered to anymore.”

“We took care of ourselves,” he corrected. “We’d never had to live like this – hidden – before you came.”

“And what makes you think I know anything about leadership?”

“I think you adapt the best out of all of us. I think you’re smart enough and kind enough that the others will listen to you more willingly, and they have.”

“You still didn’t answer my question – why not you?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You owe me an explanation. You owe me that much.”

Wing sighed, released her, then moved off a little way to sit on the edge of a metal crate. From the look in his optics, she guessed it was also a story he wasn’t comfortable with telling, and though she felt bad for pressing him to tell it, she wasn’t going to go back on her words.

“It was a long time ago,” he said at last, his voice catching slightly. “I was in charge of a group of mechs and I led them into an ambush. They died, I escaped. That’s the short version.” He looked away from her and stared at the wall. “That was why I left the military. I’m not cut out for leadership, Pura. I don’t want to lead another group of bots to their deaths.”

“Neither do I,” Pura said quietly. “And I’m scared I will.”

“You don’t have the vices I did.” He still wouldn’t meet her optics. “We don’t have to worry about you getting overcharged.”

It didn’t take Pura long to put what he was telling her, and what he was not telling her, together; she knew it had taken some amount of courage and trust on his part to confess it. She looked at him – at the way his wings drooped, at the expression on his face – and knew the memories still haunted him. A part of her spark prickled, even as her mind lurched into action. Perhaps there was a way after all, they just needed to have a little courage.

“Would you help me?” she asked softly. “Maybe on our own we’re too scared to do anything, but maybe if we worked together, we could be brave?”

Blue Wing turned pained optics on her. “Why would you trust me after what I just told you?”

“Because telling me took courage, and I think if you helped me, I could be brave, too. Besides,” here she offered him a small smile. “I don’t know anything about being in the military, or running a faction. Will you help me?”

Something in the mech’s optics brightened. “I’ll help you.”

She stood up then and went over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, a little puzzled, wondering what she was trying to do.

“Then I hereby name you as my official…,” she paused and frowned. “Uh… what do they call it in the military?”

Blue Wing laughed at that. “Second-in-Command.”

Pura giggled as well. “My official Second-in-Command,” she finished. “See? There’s a lot I don’t know that you’re going to have to teach me.”

Wing stood and took her smaller hand in his, squeezing it gently while at the same time feeling a faint tingle in his spark. He was growing rather fond of this little femme and somewhere within himself, he knew he was always going to be there for her. She had courage, she just needed to realize it.

“It would be my honor,” he replied.

END.