Work Text:
You were not built for war.
You were not built for war, but you were changed for it; the weapons messily attached to you were never really yours. You used them, of course, sometimes with oil dripping from your eyes, sometimes with an arm missing or a leg -- but they were never yours. No one makes a soldier out of copper. No one tells a soldier "that won't happen to you" when he sees a man die.
But somehow, that is what happened. Every time someone calls you "Rabbit" you think it's odd, because it is your name, but it isn't a name meant for gunfire and shrapnel. It should not be sinister. It should not call to mind the way your eyes glimmer blue in the darkness or the sound of a buzz saw screaming to life. Isn't there something wrong about this? Your voice was never meant for screams.
Something hits you.
You're saying "target lost," and something hits you -- your voice falters mid-word through the oil suddenly leaking through your mouth, as if you have to breathe and you're choking on it. Your pain parameters don't kick in until you see it. Your fingers are digging too hard into the side of a wall as you look down, seeing this hole in your shirt, the tear in your casing, the blue light bursting from this wound as if it's been waiting to break free of your chest. It doesn't hurt until then, and when it does, you fall and crumple, gears painfully struggling against each other in panic.
There's oil soaking into the dirt, and there's a voice too far away to really be there, flickering in and out. Your audio processing is going, you think, that's it. "Rabbit! Rabbit, you must get up!" Do you recognize that voice? Should you? There's something familiar about it, something you know, as if -- if -- if -- if --
And then it's gone.