( gn!usr; hurt/comfort )

Mistakes and shortcomings happen to everyone —there are no perfect creations— but everyone reacts to them differently.

The deafening blow of another failure was painful for Wheeljack, leaving an acid-bitter aftertaste. He had calculated every little thing, missed nothing from his field of vision, and was as focused as he could possibly be. Everything should have ended differently; everything should have gone smoothly and clearly according to plan, without changing course.

But what was the result? Bitter and unpleasant. Just like last time, in the end, Wheeljack was met not by the pleasant, caressing spark of success, but by complete failure. Fate seemed to mock him.

Your servos carefully and diligently cleaned his white chassis, scratched in places, of soot and dirt while he sat on a bench with the look of the unhappiest creature in the Universe — in fact, that's exactly how it was.

The miners' rest area had also been cleaned — thanks to your help, Wheeljack was able to finish much faster than he had assumed — and it was unlikely you could find even the slightest evidence of the earlier explosion. It was not without a scolding from Darkwing, who diligently hammered into Wheeljack's microchips that he should test all his "exploding toys" where nothing and no one would get hurt.

"I wasn't going to test anything. It wasn't even supposed to explode," Wheeljack jerked nervously, gesturing with a servo and hindering you from cleaning him. "I created it not so that it would end up exploding. Its purpose was that—"

Wheeljack stumbled over his own words, blinked a couple of times, and fell silent. What was the point of explanations if you wouldn't understand any of it? And what was the point of pouring a stream of his dejected thoughts onto you if you had nothing to do with it?

"Forget it. Why did I even think that this time everything would turn out as it should? Everything always goes wrong for me."

You didn't answer, and silence hung between you — viscous, tangible, and unpleasant. Wheeljack, usually full of enthusiasm and a desire to create, suddenly grew dark. He tried every time, putting his strength into every action and step, and everything ended as usual: with an explosion, chaos, thunder, and curses from the superiors.

He's a miner, after all, a bot without a six. He should obediently mine energon, not try to create something with his "crooked" servos.

"Next time I decide to create something, hit me as hard as you can and straighten out my microchips, okay? Just so I remember that I'm a miner, not a scientist, engineer, or anyone else."

Wheeljack was not used to complaining, even to you, his best friend, so all he could squeeze out of himself was a melancholy, heavy sigh, serving as a final period to his brief monologue.