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keaalu · 11 months

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Secondary Trines

Everyone thought the fallout from TC and Pulsar’s affair was dealt with, but it turns out Skywarp is not so easily satisfied. (And Pulsar has a big mouth – but everyone knew that.)

Set a few dozen orns after [How Long] . Nothing explicit, fade-to-black etc., but some element of mature discussion (plus lots of manufactured melodrama and authorial fiat, WOO).

Reminder: Pulsar is a bike. As a natural consequence of this, she has a big mouth, which often runs away from her and gets her into trouble.

As a natural consequence of Skywarp being Skywarp, this is a good thing; winding her up until she blurts out something embarrassing and/or incriminating is the usual end game.

Today, the trouble is associated with an interesting revelation.

Second little reminder: Pulsar is a little femme (like, just a smidge over half Skywarp’s height). ((What can I say; I like a bit of size difference.)) (((She is also unrepentant. The fact it makes her a useful projectile at times is just something she’s had to learn to deal with.)))

---------

Night had already secured a foothold in Deixar, dressing the house in deepening shades of indigo. Everyone else had already retired to their private suites, leaving just two residents to monopolise the furniture in the atrium.

Pulsar had been dozing comfortably on the couch, sprawled out with her head on Skywarp’s shoulder. Initially reading, while he watched something she’d seen a dozen times before, until her attention began to wane and the wafer slid from her fingers, disappearing out of reach… and she decided fetching it back was too much effort and she was just too comfortable, right now. She’d let her optics go dim, all her senses softening into idle mode, and a handful of dormancy protocols had begun to come online when-

A sharp sensation in the tip of one aerial startled her bolt awake.

“Stop that!”

Skywarp huffed but obediently took his lips off her antennae. “What did I do wrong this time?”

She noticed the entertainment system had all gone offline already, and wondered how long he’d been watching her snooze and waiting for her to wake up on her own. “There’s other ways to wake me up that don’t involve biting me-”

“Yeah, but they’re not so much fun.”

“-and I was comfortable!”

“You were offline.”

“That was the point!” She brushed a hand up over her antennae, checking for new kinks; finding none, she settled, trying but failing to find that cosy position again. “I was actually enjoying just snuggling up with you, for once.”

“Enjoying it so much, you couldn’t stay awake.” He raised his voice over her protests. “It’s fine, I get it. I’m boring, now.” He was quiet for several loaded seconds before asking, in a deceptively offhand tone; “was he better than me?”

It was Pulsar’s turn to be quiet for a second. “What?” She glanced up at him.

“Thundercracker. You’ve been in a funny mood since you two finally fessed up about fragging each other.” He was staring up at the stars, sprinkling the sky above the huge glass roof. “Got me wondering if you were just trying to save my feelings, by saying it was a fling and you didn’t think about it any more.”

“…the slag did that come from, Skywarp?” She propped herself on an elbow. “I was enjoying your company! How did you get from that to, oh, I bet she’s thinking about my best friend, now.”

Lips pursed, Skywarp let his gaze drift down to meet hers. He didn’t look particularly serious about it, though – no doubt his usual flavour of insincere windup – which succeeded in rankling her temper.

She squirmed out from under his arm. “It’s not a funny mood if I just want to be able to enjoy your company without slag like you biting my aerials. It wouldn’t kill you to be tender, every now and then.”

“Like Thundercracker would be, you mean.”

“Oh, shove off, Skywarp.” She stood to face him, bad-tempered. “He’s got nothing to do with it.”

He sat up as well. “Musta been a good frag if it was twenty vorns ago and you’re still thinking about him.”

“Primus, what is your malfunction, this evening?” Pulsar threw up her hands. “I’m not thinking about him! And I’m not comparing you against him, either! Let alone based on how good a frag you think you are.” She glared, and added; “or think you aren’t, apparently.”

“Not denying that you do think he’s better than me, then.” Skywarp vented a melodramatic sigh. “Anyone else would wanna take the chance to prove me wrong.”

“Mercy!” She covered her face with one hand and growled something incoherently obscene. “You're both gorgeous and I'd have the pair of you at once in a heartbeat if I didn't think I'd lose both of you just by suggesting it-!”

She visibly stiffened at realising what she’d blurted out full volume, optics brightening to such a humiliated cyan-white it was a wonder they didn’t short out altogether.

They just stared at each other for several long seconds, with the words just… hanging there, between them.

Skywarp’s brows had come up in a very steep arch, but his expression otherwise remained inscrutable.

Pulsar let her head hang. “Guess I'll go make myself comfy in dorms.”

“Hey. No.” Skywarp caught her arm before she could disappear. “Just… run that past me again.”

“What? No!” She jerked backwards on her arm but couldn’t quite get enough co-ordination together to extract it from his grip. “Are you telling me you didn’t immediately commit every word to your long-term memory? I am not repeating myself.” Her field felt scorching hot. “Certainly not for your amusement. Now let me go.”

“Aw, but I thought you liked it when I embarrass you,” he teased, pulling her into the circle of his arms.

“That’s different.”

“Howso?”

She closed her fingers into fists against his armour. “I'm trying to be serious here.”

“Uh-huh, me too.” He strummed a thumb down over her antennae.

She sighed, frustrated, and let her helm bonk down on his chassis. “You’re an infuriating glitch, sometimes. Being annoyed with myself and not in the mood to play with you doesn’t mean it’s because I suddenly want to get intimate with your wingmate instead.”

“…again.”

“Will you just stop.” She gave him a thump. “That’s not fair. I know we hurt you and I’m sorry, but you were dead, when it happened. Please stop making me feel like you want me to choose between you.”

He gave her a look with the most theatrically hangdog expression she had ever seen. “You do love him still, then.”

“Of course I do. We went through a lot together. I’d have never got out of Egypt in one piece, without him. He’s one of my best friends. But it’s not the same sort of love that we have.” She huffed hot air in a frustrated snort. “For one, he doesn’t send me obscene images of what he wants to do to me, or find the most inappropriate time of day to do it.”

Skywarp didn’t quite manage to successfully swallow the little triumphant ha! that leaped unbidden to his vocaliser. He made an abortive attempt to cover it with a cough of static.

“And that wasn’t what I meant, anyway, you obnoxious fraghead. You know you’re the one who wriggled his way under my armour, for reasons I absolutely cannot fragging understand, right now. You know how important you are in my life. You changed my life in a million amazing ways and I wouldn’t change you for the universe, but Primus if you aren’t the most frustrating aft I have ever met at times as well.” She stepped back half a pace, leaning into his laced fingers. “Now are you going to get off me, or do I have to sock you properly.”

He offered an exaggeratedly woeful little sigh and let his arms drop to dangle at his sides. “Fine. You wanna go be melodramatic, don’t let me stop you.”

She stepped free of his grasp, and resumed her flounce to the door.

He called after her; “What you said before. About the… both at once part… Do you ever actually… you know. Imagine doing it?”

She hesitated near the doorway. The silence clung on for long enough that it gave all the answer anyone could have needed, but she finally spoke. “…occasionally.” She flashed him a glare, optics like icy chips of temper. “But it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a stupid fantasy. All right? It’s stupid. I’m stupid.” She barged the door open with her shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

Disappointed, he watched her go; the streetlights glittered against her neon chequers and turned her into an abstract little ghost in the gloom.

Clearly this was not the good sort of embarrassed. He’d have to fix that.

-----

Night had fully sunk its teeth into the district when the boring square outline of Central station finally loomed up in front of her. Pulsar stomped past the front desk and ignored the desk sergeant’s attempt at a friendly greeting, and ducked into the dormitory block, going straight to the registry to see what options were available.

…aaaand it looked like home for the night was going to be whichever spare chair she could find.

Again.

She sighed, turned away and trundled wearily down the empty corridor. Had this stupid fragup happened earlier, she could have stood a chance at one of the spare berths in dorms. Mid-shift, though, and everywhere was already occupied.

Next time, she’d just… deactivate her vocaliser altogether, she figured. Rather than get needled into losing her temper and letting her big mouth run away from her. Again.

The couch in the corner of the officer’s mess was thankfully empty. (She wasn’t sure where else she’d have gone, if not. She was absolutely not going to camp out behind the intake desk in custody. Or in an empty cell.)

She let her motors unwind, plopping heavily down on the reinforced foam with a low whoomph of air. As couches went, it was… well, comfortable enough. So long as you weren’t hoping for too much. Someone considerably senior to her (and evidently never having been forced to recharge here) had ‘generously’ got it reupholstered, as well, so the cushions were annoyingly harder than she remembered. Not beaten to yielding softness by vorns of abuse from her friends and colleagues.

She scrunched a foil around her shoulders and tucked up into the corner, setting up a proximity alert so if anyone sat on her she’d have proof it was intentional; then shut off her optics, and initiated the first of her recharge protocols.

The last thought that flashed through her awareness before she successfully managed to switch off was of two pairs of wings, turning away from both her and from each other, and of being completely incapable of working out which set she should follow.

-----

Thundercracker was first to rouse, when morning finally rolled around. Skywarp followed him down not long after – unexpectedly alone.

It was… unusual, to have an empty seat at the table, but perhaps Pulsar had been called in early. Thundercracker didn’t pay it much attention; wouldn’t be the first time. The quiet made a nice change of pace, anyway. He called up the news on his wafer and got comfortable to read.

He got halfway through the headlines before the silence grew a little too heavy. Skywarp was never normally this quiet unless something was on his mind.

Thundercracker glanced up, and found his wingmate watching him, unexpectedly; optics subtly narrowed, head propped on one hand, twiddling a cube on one of its points with the other. Said cube was still almost full so he was obviously preoccupied.

“Is everything all right?” Thundercracker prompted, warily. “What’s with the intense scrutiny, this morning.”

“Had a lot to think about, before I managed to get offline last night. Still working through it at the moment.”

Thundercracker put the news to one side. “Did you want to talk about it? Maybe I can help.”

“Depends. Maybe.”

It was apparently one of those mornings. “Well you obviously do, or you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.”

“Fine.” Skywarp let his cube drop flat against the tablet again. “I was just wondering, if I look at you long enough… I might be able to spot what it is that Squeaky sees in you.”

“What?” It took an instant to parse the words, but Thundercracker visibly drooped. “Aw, come on, Warp. I thought we were done talking about this? We told you, we separated long before you came back. We’re not interested in pursuing anything intimate.”

“That’s why she said she wanted to interface with you again, huh.” The challenge in Skywarp’s voice had grown more overt.

“Uh.” Thundercracker licked his lips, uneasily. “…she said that?”

“Last night. Uh-huh.”

Well, that would explain the empty chair, at least.

And yet in spite of being his usual belligerent self, Skywarp didn’t seem angry. Just sharp, and challenging, in that way he got when he was determined to get an answer out of someone.

That someone wasn’t usually Thundercracker, though.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Warp. I can’t speak for her, but it’s never come up in conversation since you first found out. There’s been no reason for it to? We were being honest when we said we hadn’t continued anything.” But the longer the teleport stared silently into him, with those pursed lips and narrowed optics, the more off-balance (and slightly cross) he felt. “This is ridiculous, Skywarp. It was vorns ago! You know we wouldn’t suddenly choose to go behind your wings now.”

“Not denying that you’d like to though, huh. Interesting.”

“What? Primus. How did you get there from what I just said?” Thundercracker put his hands up. “You know what, this conversation is over. I can’t speak for Pulsar, and I don’t know why she said that, or if you’ve just… misinterpreted her, again. But I’m not playing along and letting you box me into a corner about something I haven’t done. Or said. Or thought. All right? Now if you’ll excuse me,” he turned his attention back on his flask, “I’d like to finish this? Because some of us have work to go to.”

“Sure, sure.” Skywarp watched as he picked up the wafer and glared thoroughly at the headlines, just to make it clear how extra done he was with this conversation. “Okay, anyway, fine. Confession time.” The teleport leaned forwards onto his elbows, features softening just a tiny bit. “I might not have been completely honest with you.”

Thundercracker paused with his flask midway to his mouth. “…go on?”

“I was trying to get her a bit fired up, right? I guess I thought I was just teasing, and she’d be all, right, time to prove him wrong! And she kinda… came out with something I wasn’t expecting.”

“I will never understand your idea of foreplay, but fine. Situation normal. What turned that into… whatever this big drama is?”

“So, what she actually said. Was.” Skywarp studied his interlaced fingers, where they rested on the table. “I'd have both of you at once, if the option was there.”

Thundercracker promptly choked on his energon.

“And yeah so ok, she didn’t really say it, as much as just…” Skywarp wafted his hands. “Vomit the words out and instantly look like she wanted the planet to swallow her.”

“So why are you telling me?” Thundercracker finally wheezed, once he’d managed to cough the last few drops out of his air intakes.

“Beeecause… I guess…” Skywarp offered a see-sawing sort of shrug. “I wanted to see if you wanted to?”

Thundercracker stared at him for a very long time.

Eventually he came up with a very inadequate: “What?”

“I thought it was a pretty straightforward question.”

Thundercracker made sure he’d put his flask down, just in case of any other bombshells. “After that time we spilled our sparks to you, and absolutely put ourselves through the mill in the process… You’re asking me if I want to interface with her. With your permission??”

“Not my permission, mech. With me. Together.”

In spite of it being physiologically impossible, it still looked like Thundercracker had paled. “…what?”

“You sure you should be downstairs yet, mech?” Skywarp waved a hand in front of his wingmate’s face. “Not really woken up yet, by my reckoning.”

Thundercracker grabbed the distracting hand and pinned it against the table. “With me. I did hear you right, right? With me. As in, both of us. At the same time.”

Skywarp smiled disarmingly. “Right. Humans call it a threesome.”

“A three-…” Thundercracker opened and closed his mouth a few times but nothing adequate seemed to want to come out. He quietly sagged against the chair’s backrest. “We’ve been trine for millennia. Is-is this something you’ve thought about before? Like, are you only just now telling me… you’ve wanted to do this… all that time? And I’ve just… what. Missed it? Never spotted it? Not even a hint?”

“Naw.” Skywarp’s features creased in that silly smile that crinkled his nose (and Thundercracker knew usually got Pulsar swooning. It… was kinda attractive). “I’d have told you long before now if I had. I guess she just got me curious?”

“Curious.”

“Yeah? I mean, why not? I know we’re both gorgeous.” Skywarp flattened his hand against his cockpit, fingers splayed, and Thundercracker couldn’t help the little snort of laughter. “You’ve never been interested to see what it’d be like?”

“Well-… no, honestly? You’re trine, Warp. The idea of interfacing with you has not once ever crossed my processor.”

One brow came up in an arch as if to say oh really. Skywarp sipped (intentionally causally) at his cube.

“I mean it!” Why did he suddenly feel so flustered. “A-aside from maybe… once. Thousands of vorns ago. We weren’t trine then. And then a war got in the way. Remember that part?”

“Pssh. Plenty of romantic trines out there, even if we never did.” Skywarp paused for effect. “…yet.”

Thundercracker rested his head against his folded hands. “I can’t believe you’re actually genuinely trying to talk me into this.”

“Why not?” Skywarp shuffled his chair closer around the table, and claimed one of his wingmate’s hands with his own. “It’d be fun!”

Thundercracker gave him a flat look. “‘Fun’.”

“Yeah. You know. That thing neither you nor Screamer know how to do any more.”

Thundercracker gave him a shove.

“Seriously.” Skywarp scooted back, and closer, this time. “So what if we’re wingbros. This is a thing we like doing, and you’re our friend. Pulse might not have suggested it on purpose, but friends share nice things with each other, and I thought: yeah, okay.” They were almost nose-to-nose, by now. He dropped his voice an octave or so. “…and you really are pretty attractive, into the bargain.”

Thundercracker snorted a laugh. “Colours aside, we’re identical, you vain glitch.”

Skywarp snickered. “Yeah but I never normally see me from this angle.”

“Are you sure Pulsar is all right with it?”

This time Skywarp did look a little sheepish. “Well I, uh, kinda haven’t seen her since she got mad at me and stomped off last night. I think she stayed in dorms. I haven’t actually told her I was gonna talk to you, yet.”

“Only because she’d have told you not to,” Thundercracker growled. “And you better not be using me as a way to apologise to her, either.” He sighed and let his forehead come to rest against his wingmate’s. “…can I think about it?”

“Sure.” Skywarp kissed his nose, playfully. “I can wait.”

-----

When Pulsar was uncharacteristically late to the daily pre-shift briefing, their boss dispatched one of her siblings to go looking for her.

Following her private signal, the eternally-elegant Longbeam tracked her down in the canteen. Pulsar looked somewhat frazzled; antennae askew, optics not quite at full brightness, and still covered in yesterday’s scuffs, contemplating her energon as though hoping to glean the meaning of life from the depths of the flask.

Longbeam slid into the chair opposite. “What happened to you.”

“No spare dorms. Stayed on the couch.”

“And there was me thinking you had a massive house – and a bunch of pretty seekers to go with it – out in the nice part of the city.”

Pulsar glared up from under hooded brows. “Those ‘pretty seekers’ are why I ended up sleeping on the couch. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Oh-ho.” Longbeam’s optics twinkled. “Say no more, sister. I wondered why you still looked so tired.”

“And what exactly do you mean by that.”

“Nothin’.” The tall bike gestured airily with her long, slim hand. “Crash with me and Vecks, next time. If nothing else, our couch is infinitely superior. You can fantasise all you like and no-one will interrupt.”

Pulsar swatted her hand away, and her sister snickered. “Why are you even here, Beemer.”

“Because you’re late to work?”

…Well done. Go draw a bit more attention to yourself, why don’t you. Idiot. Pulsar vented a long sigh and let her head clonk down against the table.

“So preoccupied that you flat out forgot why they make us come to this dump on the regular, huh,” Longbeam drawled. “Need me to go make some excuses to Nightsun for you?”

“No.” Pulsar’s words came out muffled by the tabletop. “Pass me a lid for my flask…”

In reality, nobody paid the two bikes the slightest bit of attention as they navigated the busy corridors, but Pulsar’s imagination was already in overdrive, (un)happily assuming everyone was talking about her. Why’s she still so scruffy / didn’t take a bath / stayed here overnight / have they separated / what did she do to upset him / really hope I don’t miss out on the juicy gossip. She kept her shoulders round and avoided eye contact.

Nightsun pinged a quick greeting as Pulsar slunk in and found a seat at the back of the meeting area, but otherwise didn’t break his flow, assigning cases and talking through the orn’s operations. She appreciated the discretion.

When Thundercracker drifted past on the way to his office, looking… distant, and distracted, for reasons she strongly suspected she knew… she slumped all the way down on her chair until she could hide behind Longbeam, and quietly took her beacon right off the grid. Just while he was in the vicinity. Just to avoid any awkward conversations in public. Just until she’d squared things up in her own mind.

This is such a screwup.

Eventually Pulsar’s shift ended and she’d run out of data to upload and reports to write and there came a point where she couldn’t justify loitering purposelessly at work any longer. And Longbeam kept giving her funny, knowing looks, so it would only be a matter of time before Pulsar ended up giving her an incriminating punch in the head. She left the building the most circuitous way she could find and skulked home with her tail between her legs, rehearsing over and over in her head what she was going to say to Skywarp. She’d not heard from him all day and didn’t really know what that meant.

I love you and can we forget I said anything.

…You spent all day thinking about it and that was the best you could come up with?

She settled uncomfortably in their lounge, on the edge of the couch under the house-maple, trying to concentrate on her datapad. She’d never really been that bothered that her feet didn’t reach the floor until now, when it felt like it might impinge on her ability to make a quick exit.

Across the room, the news unexpectedly clicked on, making her jump. Footsteps approached.

…and it wasn’t Skywarp. She swallowed the curse before it could escape.

Thundercracker settled intentionally nearby. She tried to ignore his proximity – and the way he was watching her read – but there was something off about his manner that was making the back of her helm prickle with a sort of anxious anticipation.

It was when he shifted slightly to artfully prop his head against one hand, still watching her, that she realised the game was indeed up.

She looked up and met his gaze, and immediately deflated. “…he told you,” she said, flatly.

At least he was smiling – and not in a mocking way, but a small, affectionate smile. “He did.”

She muttered something quiet that Thundercracker didn’t manage to parse, but sensed was probably pretty vulgar. “I might kill him.”

“I might hold him down for you!” He chuckled. “After I figure out which bit of this ridiculousness surprises me more – the fact you thought he might not, or the fact you’re surprised he did.”

His fingers drifted down over her antennae, trailing imaginary sparks all the way, and her fans hitched. She jerked her head away, frustrated. “This wasn’t fun to start with but it’s definitely not fun now you’re both sucking my sump.” She slid off the chair and made a break for the exit. “I thought better of you.”

He put out a hand and blocked her way as she went to pass him. “Didn’t you only just get home?”

“Yeah.” She looked down and watched as his fingers came up to softly encircle her wrist. “If I go now, there might still be some spare berths left. I’m not spending the night on that nasty hard couch again. And definitely not going to crash with Beemer, who can’t wait to rub it in-”

He kept his grip gentle – made sure she knew she could have stepped away any second she wanted, if she genuinely wanted out – but didn’t let go. “Why?”

“Really?” She gave him a tired glare. “Come on. Warp gets me to blurt out stupid, embarrassing garbage, shares the worst of it with you, and you wonder why I feel like I can’t face you right now. The last I need is for you to join in with mocking me.”

“I’m not teasing. I promise.” His smile widened, just a touch. He gave her hand a very gentle tug and she sagged into his lap.

“Well this isn’t fair,” she said, flatly.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m trying to apologise.” Her fans had already picked up speed. Her antennae prickled, like someone had connected them to a lightning rod and a thunderstorm was brewing outside. “I get it! I have a big mouth and no filter and I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Maybe.” Thundercracker lowered his voice to a particularly pleasant rumble. “But I’m glad you did.”

It felt like someone had stolen all the air from the room. “…what?”

Pulsar realised she’d wound her field so tightly around herself, she almost missed it when the third person joined the room. A bolt of electric alarm shot right up her back and she froze.

Skywarp sat down on his knees in front of the couch, caging Pulsar at the centre of a circle of arms. “So are we doing this, or what.”

She refused to meet either of their stares, shocked and stiff. “Doing what.”

“Well someone said something about having us both at once.”

Oh mercy. Pulsar covered her face with both hands; felt like her field was on fire. “You’re a teasing pair of glitches.” Her words came out strangled and staticky. “You shouldn’t say things like that unless you mean it.”

Thundercracker leaned down; let his helm bump gently against hers. “Who says we don’t?” he said, softly. “We know you want to.”

“Just because I want-… I-” She let her head turn subtly to the side, until she could just meet the muted garnet of his optics. “I don’t want to hurt you. It was a stupid, unguarded comment-”

“We’ve all said something stupid and unguarded at some point. But now it’s in the open, and we can do something about it.”

Skywarp was leaning in, as well, now. “You left me plenty of thinking time when you flounced last night. Me and TC discussed it…”

“…and that made for an interesting orn…” Thundercracker added, dryly.

“…and we decided, yeah. We’re both up for it. Let’s see what it would be like.” Skywarp pressed in closer “I think it’ll be fun.”

“But you can say no. That’s fine too.”

They were both so intoxicatingly close she could barely think straight. There was no way this could be real. Perhaps she was still offline, scrunched up and uncomfortable and stress-dreaming in the canteen. She scrambled for something that might bring back reality. “This can’t-.. I-I don’t want to hurt you. What if it makes things… awkward, or you fall out, or-… I would never forgive-”

“It won’t.” Thundercracker dipped his helm, until his lips were microns from hers, easily close enough to steal a kiss. “After forgiving all the slag we’ve done to each other during the war… why would an expression of love hurt us like that?”

She could feel the subtle movement of the air as he spoke. So close.

So close.

“But, if you really don’t-”

“Yes.” She dimmed her optics, and breathed the words against him. “I do. Please, Primus; yes.”

Skywarp snrk-ed, then leaned all the way in and tightened his grip on them both.

A sensation of cold and freefall and of being in two places at once-

-and suddenly the lounge was empty.

-----

The first subtle blues of early dawn streamed in through the crack in the blind, slicing the room into a collection of shadows. Pulsar was first to stir, nudged awake by an internal alarm, and the reluctant knowledge that she had a shift coming up. She allowed herself an indulgent few seconds of stillness, to figure out exactly where she was – and more importantly, with whom.

It hadn’t been a dream, then.

Sensation slowly came back to her tired processors, as each individual module booted reluctantly back up. She felt sore, and stiff, and… weirdly stretched… and completely powerless to move, sandwiched between two large, heavy, affectionate bodies.

And… she found she really didn’t care, actually? It was a good sore. It came with quiet and calm and contentment, all folded up in a soft nimbus of protection and affection.

Would be nice to stay like this forever, actually.

She called up her memory record, just soaking in the remembered pleasure, for a little while. Thinking about those careful, cautious little experimental touches, working out each other’s boundaries and individual hotspots… Of trying really hard to give as good as she got, but also of being trapped at the epicentre of a tornado, swept along, ultimately able to do nothing except surrender control and enjoy the ride.

Then, when she was too sore and exhausted to do anything more, just… laying to watch, and purr contentedly, enjoying vicariously as they explored each other, in ways that were simultaneously completely alien (those wings, oh Primus those wings), and also so unbelievably familiar she could almost feel it.

Yeah; mmh, that had been good, too. Particularly good. She shivered at the memory, filing it carefully away, wondering if she’d ever be able to get Warp making those same soft little noises of pleasure and need that he’d wrung from Thundercracker.

She turned her attention quietly to her berthmates.

Skywarp was an untidy sprawl, of course, because when wasn’t he. Limbs and wings at all angles, as though he’d just been dropped there from a great height. His cheek pressed heavily against the top of her helm, though, and the arm on which she lay was bent around just enough for his fingers to rest on her hip.

The smudge of blue on the other side, in the periphery of her vision, was a less familiar sight to wake up to, but… welcome. It also revealed the source of the weight resting on her shoulder. One big wing protruded into her field of view, like a shield against the world. Thundercracker’s free arm stretched all the way across both of them; possessive, protective.

She managed to wriggle one arm free, and stroked the pale cheek pressed against her shoulder.

It took several seconds for Thundercracker’s optics to respond, and they remained dim, but his features softened into a smile. “Good morning.” His voice was thick, and distorted, but comfortable – as though he’d quite happily let his mind slip back into idle and stay that way for the whole orn.

“Very good morning, from my perspective.” She kept her fingers against his cheek and purred quietly as he leaned into the touch. “I was worried I just dreamed it.”

He harmonised his purr with hers. “I’m glad you didn’t. Thanks for including me.”

“Thank you, for agreeing to come.”

Thundercracker gave an involuntary little snrk, and they shared a tired giggle.

“Those were some interesting noises he got you making last night,” Pulsar added.

A little flicker of mixed amusement and embarrassment danced through the blue seeker’s field. “All that practice he’s had with you probably helped.” He stretched his shoulders, subtly, looking for a slightly more comfortable position. “…and I guess I needed it. It’s been a while.”

She pressed a little kiss to his brow. “I’d like to think maybe this doesn’t need to have been a one-off,” she suggested, carefully. “If you’d be interested.”

He brought his own hand up, and coaxed her closer for a proper kiss; her fingers threaded between his, pulling tighter against him.

“Definitely interested,” he murmured, letting his lips linger close to hers when they finally parted. “And flattered that you’d like to share.”

Her words came out underlaid with a subtle static. “You’re absolutely worth it.”

He chuckled. “And how long have you been fantasising about Warp and me together?”

Pulsar smiled and glanced away, optics brightening. “I stand by my assessment. You look so good,” she husked, drawing little wispy fingertip lines against his helm. “But who wants to just watch. Being involved with the two people I love most in the universe is better.”

He hummed his amusement, and let his head come back down onto her shoulder, at just the right angle to encourage those pleasant little doodles to continue.

All too soon, a reflected beam of strengthening sunlight had found its way through the nearby buildings, and lanced straight into his optics. Thundercracker grimaced and flinched his face subtly out of its line of fire, then sighed. “This is probably fate’s way of saying I should be starting to think of going to work, about now.”

“Call in sick,” Skywarp said, muffled and distorted; Pulsar hadn’t even realised he was awake, and if his volume were anything to go by, he was only just.

“Thank you for the tip, but some of us are meant to be setting an example.” Thundercracker pushed himself partially upright, and grunted softly. “Oof. Even if they’d rather stay here all orn. Until all their cable tensions rebalance.” But he soon succumbed to gravity, sagging back to his elbows. “Primus, ow. I am amazed you two can ever walk, if this is what the two of you get up to on a regular basis.”

Pulsar felt her optics brighten, and audibly rebooted her vocaliser to cover the embarrassed giggle. “Practice, remember?”

“They’ll survive without you for half an orn, TC,” Skywarp added, sleepily. “You’re the boss. You write the rules.”

Thundercracker dithered for several very long seconds, under the expectant weight of his friends’ combined stare.

“Maybe just another couple of breems won’t hurt,” he accepted, tiredly reorganising his bulk so he wasn’t pinning them quite so completely – but keeping that possessive arm around them.

…by the end of the first breem, he was clearly dozing contentedly again, growing heavier as systems went dormant, and by breem two was completely offline again, fans cycling with a low, quiet purr of satisfaction.

“So much for setting an example,” Skywarp observed, quietly, voice still muzzy. “I guess he never said what sort of example.”

“Aw, leave him in peace. He deserves at least one morning off for once in his life.” Pulsar gave his nose a little flick. “What about us?”

“Stay here as well, I guess.” Skywarp grunted and after a little ineffectual squirming managed to fold her a little deeper into his arms. “Seeing as we can’t get up anyway, looks like we have the boss’s permission for a lay in.”

“Probably imprudent to go to work with paintstrikes in his colours, as well.” Pulsar examined a little azure scuff on the teleport’s obsidian enamel. “Would you take a bath with me?”

“Guess I can indulge you, this once.” Skywarp remained silent for several loaded seconds before speaking again. “And fine. You were right.”

“…What?”

“…He is a better frag than me.”

Pulsar tried unsuccessfully to smother him with a pillow.

---------------

If you need a soundtrack to this, I guess it’d be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSRYvYN1ayw (Górecki, by Lamb. One of my absolute favourites of all time)

(Yes OK I posted this to AO3 MONTHS ago. I’m still catching up with posting stuff here...)

#skywarp #thundercracker #pulsar #trine #short fic #blue au #transformers #there's probably better tags but i don't tumblr well

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keaalu · 11 months

Text

Remember Me, chapter 13

Title (chapter): Remember Me (13)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: Oh! So THAT’S what Megatron meant...

----------------------------

If Ramjet had been anyone else, that punch might have taken his helm right off.

It sent him sprawling backwards, limbs flailing, and impacted the ground with a crunch that made most people wince.

…but not Celerity. Fired up and with murder in her optics, she pursued him across the dirt, already pulling back for another blow.

Ramjet made an ungainly effort to scramble away from her on all fours, mostly on his aft.

Finally galvanised into action, Skywarp leapt for her, joined from the left by Nightsun. Thundercracker could only watch, intentionally paralysed by the sparkling in his hands.

Celerity was forged tough – and strong. It took the combined strength of both mechs to make any dent in her forward motion, and even then she dragged them across the dirt with her.

“Ease up, eh, Lara?” Skywarp growled, with no small amount of effort. His thrusters scraped along the ground, throwing up sparks. “He brought her back of his own accord.”

“After taking her in the first place-!” Her snarl was hard and discordant, and she almost managed to jerk her arm free of his grip.

She was almost in range for another punch when between them the two mechs finally succeeded in wrestling her down to her knees. It unfortunately put her on the same eye-level as Ramjet. That didn’t put either of them in a better mood.

Thundercracker slotted himself in between them, blocking the blazing cyan glare from burning any holes into Ramjet, and braced stabilising hands on her arms. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” He let his helm bump against hers. “We’ve got her back, and she’s alive, and she’s not hurt.”

Dash took the opportunity to climb clumsily along his arm to her dam’s shoulder. “Arrgie bring,” she said, seriously, wriggling up against the side of her neck. “Find ama!”

Celerity’s gaze finally found the steady crimson of her partner’s. “But she could have b-”

“I know. But she wasn’t. She’s fine. She’s absolutely amazingly fine.” His voice softened and he smiled. “That was a great punch.” Privately, he added -But maybe let’s make it the only one, for now?-

Celerity leaned into his hands. –I’m allowed to be angry.–

-absolutely! but he’s still armed and surrounded by the enemy and I don’t want him shooting anyone if he feels threatened.-

For several very heavy seconds, they just… stared at each other.

Skywarp took the opportunity of the lull and leaned closer. “I’m gonna let go, now. So long as Mama Bear doesn’t feel like trying to take anyone else’s head off?”

Celerity glanced sidelong at him, optics narrow and hot, and for an instant Skywarp thought she was about to try and wallop him, as well. He let go of her shoulder, anyway, and put both hands up, palms out; Nightsun quietly backed off as well.

…Then her gaze found Skywarp’s hands, and his dented plating and shattered cockpit, and the heat rapidly faded. She looked away (with an entirely predictable flutter of guilt).

Thundercracker found a vague smile for him, and caught his hand before he could retreat completely out of reach. Thanks, he mouthed, squeezing his fingers.

Skywarp touched his brow in an offhand salute, then backed off, to give them a little space. Another tickly drip of energon crept around under his chin and plopped against his chassis as he straightened up. He swiped it away, then sighed his annoyance at the shimmery film it left on his fingertips.

…probably wouldn’t hurt to go and get that looked at, he figured. He wasn’t keen on leaving Ramjet to his own devices, but there were more than enough sets of optics here to watch over their prisoner once he’d left.

The conehead spotted Skywarp watching him, and glared defiantly back – he’d scooted a little further away across the dirt, but it looked like it was more to get out of immediate range of any long blue arms than any specific determination to escape.

He probably couldn’t go anywhere until his gyroscopes rebalanced, to be fair.

Slipstream and his collection of dents hadn’t got very far, either – he sat on his knees at the epicentre of a little swirl of anxious colleagues, who all appeared to be trying to help but were doing nothing but get in each other’s way. His sergeant had apparently given up trying to wrangle any order out of them and stood just to one side, watching and waiting for a medic.

“Skywarp!”

The snap made him jump. He lurched around to find Starscream – unexpectedly late to the party – bearing down on him with a face like thunder.

“You useless, aggravating, pit-glitched fragging idiot!”

Skywarp puffed himself up, defensively. “Hi to you, too, I guess?”

Starscream delivered a frustrated punch to his wingmate’s shoulder, which looked like it was going to be the first of many, but the second swing unexpectedly turned into a hug.

“Don’t you ever do that to us again,” the scarlet mech snapped, equal measures furious and relieved. “I can’t believe you’d put us in such a ridiculous position. We had no idea how to get you back out of there! You could have died. Again! And properly, this time!”

Skywarp stood frozen for several alarmed astroseconds – a public display of affection from this wingmate left him feeling like he’d slipped into a parallel universe, again – before hesitantly returning the gesture. He winced at a twinge in his chassis, like someone had taken a screwdriver to his spark chamber, but it rapidly faded. “…I’m bleeding on you. Sorry.”

Starscream snorted. “It’ll wash off. Unlike you, the idea of taking a bath doesn’t fill me with a spark-deep dread.” More softly, he added; “a little leak is a small price to pay. You’re looking surprisingly intact, for that video he sent us. Thank Primus.”

Skywarp just held him, quietly. It felt… unexpectedly good. Familiar and safe. “Feeling surprisingly intact, too,” he said, at last. “Bodily, anyway. Kinda want to pass out and recharge forever.”

“That’s fine. We’ll pass out with you.”

It took Skywarp a few seconds to work out what the subtle background noise was, and finally pinned it down as coming from his wingmate, which was… a surprise…? Starscream didn’t often hum because he didn’t really have the vocaliser for it – like his voice, it was usually a little scratchy and discordant and never particularly nice to listen to, and… well, since soothing and reassuring was the whole point? He didn’t bother.

This was soft and barely audible, and deep – sort of a purr rather than a hum. (Perhaps he’d been practising with Skyfire.) That he was even bothering to try spoke volumes about his mindset.

Skywarp pitched his own hum to harmonise with his wingmate’s, and for the first time in orns, felt his defensive protocols dialling down, deactivating. That low, constant ache of constrained weaponry in his arms began to fade. He hadn’t really been aware of how much tension he’d accumulated until feeling his wings sagging, all on their own.

Doctors could wait. It was only a bunch of dents. The leak would stop on its own eventually. It’d be nice to just… stay here, like this, for a bit longer. Maybe a vorn or two.

…shame it wasn’t going to last.

Half a district away when her missing family arrived back, Footloose had finally succeeded in ditching her duties and made it to the scene, teleporting through the protective circle as though it didn’t even exist. The pre-existing crowd around her brother only left her with the option of going to her sire – not that she needed the encouragement.

She leaped bodily at him and landed on his back with enough force it would have sent all three of them crashing to the ground, had Starscream not clocked her approach with a millisecond to spare and braced for impact. He muttered frustrated invective, but didn’t try and shoo her away.

Skywarp let her thread her long arm around his neck and squeeze up against his back, and sighed, patiently. “…hey, Button.”

Footloose bonked heads with him, gently. “Primus, Day. You sure know how to put us through the mill.” Her voice was still subtly crackly. “Can-can I do anything? Do you need anything fixed? I can get you to hospital, maybe-? I know who’s on duty, we can skip triage.”

Skywarp grimaced and stretched his shoulders. The absence of tension reminded him how sore everything else felt. Having his (now very heavy adult) sparkling crash into him hadn’t precisely helped. “…you could get off my back.” He glanced sidelong and met Thundercracker’s gaze. “Please don’t say you’re coming to join in because I think Screamer’s gonna fall on his aft if we add any more weight.”

“Too many wings in the way already,” Thundercracker joked, and snickered at the obvious relief in his wingleader’s expression. “We’ll catch up properly later. Once I’ve dealt with our, ah, ‘guest’… and you’re looking slightly less like you’re about to fall apart.”

Skywarp snrk-ed softly. “Might be waiting a while.”

“Only so long as it takes you to get to hospital, mech.” The blue jet waggled a warning finger. “You’re not escaping me embarrassing you in public as well. So long as you’re nicely mummified in structural tape, I think you’ll survive a hug.”

Skywarp feigned his best melodramatic swoon. “I’ll never cope.”

Footloose finally relaxed her deathgrip a little and slid back to the floor. “You feel funny.”

He looked back at her. “ ‘Funny’ how?”

“I’m not sure. There’s just something about your field that I don’t recognise.”

Skywarp sighed, tiredly. “You don’t think it’s maybe because you just body-slammed my poor wings with your entire weight, or anything.”

Starscream’s optics had narrowed, subtly. “…no, she’s right.”

Skywarp glanced back his way.

“There is something… off.” The red jet took a single step back, to examine the battered chassis a little better. “Very subtle. I’m not surprised it took a medic to spot it.”

“Like what?”

“If Footloose doesn’t know, I doubt I’d be able to define it.” Starscream shook his head. “But the last time you ‘escaped’ from Nemesis with another not-entirely-trustworthy ‘Con’s help, you had a beacon in you, telling them exactly where you were at all times.”

Skywarp grunted his displeasure. “If you don’t trust Ramjet, fine. But I wasn’t with him long enough, and can either of you even feel a beacon?” He put up with Footloose running her hands over his wings for a few astro-seconds before jostling her off. “Not like that, dummy.”

The little paramedic waved her palms in his face. “I can hear a harmonic with these, I’d be able to hear a beacon too. And I can’t hear anything.”

“It wasn’t a bad idea.” Starscream came to his niece’s defence. “But you’ll need a tighter focus if Soundwave’s locked the frequency. And we’ll need a better sensor array to pick it up.”

Skywarp deflated against him with a long sigh. “Fine, whatever. Guess I’ll get the doctors to take a peek when I get the rest of this fixed.”

“No, I mean, a good sensor array; not one that’s thirty vorns out of date and has been beat to slag in service of the local hospital. I’m going to see what I have at home.” Starscream fixed the teleport on a particularly intense stare. “And don’t let anyone get any bright ideas about code patches while you’re getting fixed. I want all your sensor data before you go and overwrite it.”

“You already saw him beat the slag out of me. D’you really want to have all my sensor readouts as well?”

Starscream winced and looked away. “No. Not really,” he rasped. “I’ve been on the receiving end enough times that I can imagine it without needing to feel it as well.”

Skywarp let his helm bump against his wingmate’s. That previous sense of closeness and safety had bled away, replaced by a subtle, untethered anxiety.

“I just need to know how strong he is, so I can… try and figure out…” A sigh. “You’re the only one who’s had the misfortune of being close to him recently. You’re the only one with any experience I can base some predictions off.”

“You still think he’s gonna come after us?”

“Of course he is. There’s never been any doubt about that.” Starscream shook his head and straightened, drawing himself up to his full height and tightening his hands into fists in an effort to reassert his self-control. “As soon as you’re done at the hospital, come and find me.” He waved a finger to underline the point, then turned on his thruster and took to the air.

Skywarp watched him depart, not sure he liked the turn this seemed to have taken. So much for ‘escape, get home: all back to normal’. He allowed himself a long, cooling intake to settle the heat in his core before turning to investigate what chaos might be going on behind his wings.

Thundercracker had coaxed Celerity back to her feet (out of range of Ramjet, and with her back to him), and the two of them were quietly discussing something with Nightsun – too far away for Skywarp to eavesdrop.

Ramjet was doing a fingertip examination of his dented helm, hissing to himself in pain, not paying any attention to the cloud of the junior officers who’d drifted steadily closer to him, knowing they wouldn’t stand the remotest chance of stopping him if he took it upon himself to leave.

Footloose had already switched her attention to Slipstream and had barged her way to the front of the crowd, and was now kneeling in front of him, doing some gentle preliminary checks. Slipstream was canting so far forwards, he was almost in her lap. Their flight back over the ocean might have washed off some of the crusted energon, but now he was covered in salt-spots instead. (Skywarp took a look at his own fuselage and noticed he was freckled with white as well. He curled his lip in annoyance.)

Leaving his deputies to continue chatting, Thundercracker drifted over, apparently directed by the enthusiastic pointing of a very small bot.

The instant they were close enough, Dash launched herself into the air, and landed with a squeak on one of Footloose’s wings. After almost sliding all the way straight back off, she managed to secure a handhold and scrambled up to her cousin’s shoulder.

“What do you want, squirt?” Footloose gave her cousin a playful glare.

“Come with! Day say can,” Skydash replied.

“Oh really.” Footloose gave Thundercracker a loaded glance. “You don’t want to stay with him and Ama, after all this time?”

“Stay with Unnol Seem. Look after.”

“He might not want you coming with us anyway. Not a fun place for tiny sparks who might get bored and cranky.”

Thundercracker just quirked a brow. “Depends where the three of you are going? As if I couldn’t guess.”

“Just taking my bro to hospital.” Footloose shot Ramjet an unusually intense glare, and added, “while it’s still there.”

Ramjet curled his lip in a sneer and shrugged, but didn’t challenge it. He was already getting up; his little assembly of would-be police guards collectively took half a step backwards, apparently only just now remembering how big he actually was.

Footloose gathered her twin against her, securely, and coaxed him up to his feet, as well. “We’re gonna have to fly, all right? It’ll take too long to walk there.”

Slipstream leaned his head against her shoulder, optics offline. “Just don’t go too high,” he whispered, shakily. He sounded exhausted.

“C’mon, Day. You too.” Footloose gave Skywarp a hard look. “Don’t think I’ve not seen how smashed that nose is.”

Skywarp gingerly touched his face. “See, I thought I’d not done a bad job on this,” he complained.

Footloose’s glare deepened.

“Fine, fine.” Skywarp waved his hands, defeated. “I guess if Lara doesn’t mind getting bled on a little, I can carry her to hospital, as well.”

At the back of the crowd, Ramjet rebooted his vocaliser with a little cough, drawing attention. “Much as I’ve enjoyed being a participant in this cosy little family reunion, I think I’ll be taking my leave now,” he drawled. He bowed deeply, then took off. The low, dispirited drone of his engines rapidly faded behind the rooftops.

“Sir? Should we go after him? Sir!”

Thundercracker glanced around to find two excitable junior officers looking back at him, already gearing up for a chase down the back roads.

He waved a hand, amused. “Stand down. He won’t go far.” And neither of you have wings. “I’ll handle this.”

They visibly sagged, disappointed, but obediently backed down, grumbling to each other.

“Coming, TC?” Skywarp nudged into his attention.

Thundercracker turned to find Footloose had already turned into a little airborne speck in the distance. Celerity had Skywarp’s hand folded into both of her own, and looked like she was on the cusp of dragging him to the hospital, anxious to follow her sparkling.

He looked at them for several seconds, torn. His brother’s injuries made his own wings ache, and after having only just got Skydash back, the last thing he wanted was to let her fly away without him again. But then again… it wouldn’t be for long. And they had a potential new ally right on their doorstep and he didn’t want to immediately trash the potential by letting Ramjet overthink himself into a towering inferno of rage and regret.

He smiled, albeit vague and apologetic. “Soon. I think I probably ought to follow our guest and check out what he’s up to. Just to be sure.”

“I don’t think it’s a trick.”

“And I trust you. I just… I think I’d like to give him the chance to convince me. Go on; I’ll catch you up.”

Skywarp tilted his helm in acknowledgement, and with a frown of concentration (and a little effort) took to the air.

Thundercracker watched them go, then brought his weaponry online, ensuring the plasma coils were good and hot, and took off in the opposite direction, in pursuit of the errant conehead.

***

Ramjet was not – at least, not yet – causing chaos.

He hadn’t even got that far, actually. The white jet had taken the chance to get out of range of anyone not a seeker, but any momentum he might have had quickly failed him, and now he sat on the roof of a derelict skyscraper on the Rustig side of the Rift. With the enormity of his self-inflicted situation only just sinking in, he looked very lost, and quiet, and sad.

Spotting Thundercracker gliding closer, the walls visibly went up and the lost, sad mech dissolved hastily into a more familiar sneeringly aggressive one. He came up into a subtle crouch, hands fisted. “What do you want.”

“Just to talk?” Thundercracker alit carefully on the far side of the roof, cannons lowered and just far enough away that he wasn’t an immediate threat needing attacking. “You’re in our territory now and I’d like to get a feel for whether I should let you go, or call for backup.”

“And what if I don’t want this spark-to-spark chat you’re aiming at?”

“Well I can arrest you, if you’d rather. But I’d prefer not to get into a firefight just yet, and I can’t see you coming quietly.”

“Huh.” Ramjet eyed his weaponry. “Good to see at least one of you three hasn’t lost his sense of self-preservation. Fine. Let’s talk.”

Thundercracker noticed that in spite of his bluster, Ramjet hadn’t actually charged his own cannons yet. Boldly, the blue seeker settled alongside him, and offered a cleaning rag, which Ramjet took warily in his fingertips, as though scared it might bite. “You did this to get our attention. You have it.”

“I don’t want your attention.” Ramjet dabbed carefully at the lubricant still oozing from his damaged cheek. “But thanks for the cloth.”

“Right.” Thundercracker stared out over the small city.

“What?” Ramjet glared at him. “I don’t. I don’t need you going all magnanimous and charitable on me. I just need you to leave me alone. Ask your questions, then go away.”

Thundercracker snorted. “All right. Why did you let them go?”

“I didn’t. They snuck out for themselves because they’re a slippery fragging pair of pitglitches.”

“…you know that’s not what I meant.”

Ramjet shrugged. “Didn’t have a lot of options. There was more of them than me.”

“Warp can’t get his cannons online, and you slagged Seem well enough he’ll probably take half a vorn to get back to full capacity. And you were ‘outnumbered’ by them? You could have easily called for backup.”

“Well maybe I did? And they were just slow as slag, and didn’t get there in time?” Ramjet let his hands plop into his lap and si-ighed, frustratedly. “I don’t know, okay? I was trying to wing it. I figured if anyone broke Tiny, I’d be exiled forever, and yeah, sure, fine: I wanted to come home someday. I was gonna get her out of immediate range, then think about what the frag I was gonna do. But your two idiots came along and fragged that plan pretty well.”

“And why did Megatron let them go?”

Ramjet’s glare tightened. “Are you trying to catch me out, here? Didn’t we just go through this literally not even an astro-second ago?”

“Not you. Megatron.”

Ramjet opened and closed his mouth a few times but no words emerged. “Your idiot wingbro is still a teleport, right?” he finally managed. “He does still have that ability to walk through walls, right?”

“…and got out of a locked, baffled cell that he's never escaped from before?”

“Yes? I guess he must have? I don't know how he did it! Go ask him!” Ramjet waved a frustrated arm in the vague direction of the spacebridge. “I never knew how he does any of that sneaky quantum slag he does! I just figured it was yet another thing you guys had learned how to do without telling us about it.”

Well, Ramjet’s exasperation sounded genuine enough. Perhaps he really didn’t have an ulterior motive.

“I’m not going to pretend that I like any of this.” Thundercracker measured his words carefully. “…or that I trust you… but. I am willing to try. You took a risk, and it feels like it might not have worked out so well for you. So against my better judgement, I won’t stop you leaving, if that’s what you want.” He looked up to meet the other mech’s hostile stare. “And I should cautiously add, if you ever need anything-”

“See, you’re doing exactly what I said you would.” Ramjet gave him a shove. “I don’t need your pitfragged charity. All I wanna do is go wallow in self-pity for a while. Maybe I’ll go hide out under a rock in Vos or something, if there’s still any decent rocks left out there.”

Thundercracker put his hands up and edged just out of reach along the rooftop. “Then just let me say this – and I mean it, genuinely. Thank you for bringing Skydash back. I’m not sure what Lara and I would have done if she’d been hurt.”

Something clicked. Ramjet turned to stare at him. “Wait. That scrappy little grounder’s yours?”

Thundercracker summoned up a small smile, and nodded.

“Well, frag me. I assumed Skywarp had just had another accident.”

“Let’s say we weren’t feeling inclined to re-educate you, at the time.”

Ramjet considered it for a few seconds longer. “That would explain why she wasn’t just loud. She’s got your sonics, too.”

Thundercracker quirked a brow. “I can’t say we knew that. She’s never used them before.” His expression grew more intensely suspicious. “What were you doing to trigger those to come online.”

“Well, one of my idiots decided that maybe it’d be fun to get in a fight, which frightened her. Perhaps you’ve conveniently forgotten what Nemesis is like on an average day. The only way to make your point is to hammer it home with the closest heavy object.” Ramjet elected not to mention the bucket. “Wait, hold on. Doesn’t that mean…” He did a double take. “You’re with a fragging dirtbot? You, of all the slagging people that could possibly-… You? And- come on, you’re not telling me that great fragging white tank is-” The words momentarily departed him.

“Less of the ‘tank’, please.” Thundercracker gave him a hard look. “You didn’t think our behaviour was perhaps a little strange for uninvolved strangers? And she almost took your head off, but you still have to question who Dashie’s bearer was?”

“Frag me. This is just. What. What the absolute frag have I missed.” Ramjet covered his face. “A lifetime of flying into slag must have affected my perception. Perhaps something’s come loose. Hit me again and it might jog it back into place.”

Ramjet looked so blindsided, Thundercracker couldn’t help the tiniest pang of sympathy. Deciding the Decepticon genuinely had no ill intent, and willing to extend a little trust, he let his plasma coils go cool. “Honestly? Why did you bring her back?”

“Because she’s a sparkling, and it’s a warship, and I wanted to come home, and she was a good excuse for me to leave. Even if it didn’t pan out the way I figured.” Ramjet stared out over the rooftops and shrugged, tightly. “And it was looking more and more like someone was gonna break her, and I didn’t want it to be one of my two idiots.”

The unspoken words hung in the air like a bad vapour: Which is why you betrayed Megatron and left them both there, to take the fall for you.

“Did your trine know what you were planning…?”

Ramjet took a while to answer. “No. Kinda generous to call it a plan, to be fair. And I woulda told ‘em,” he said, softly, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself, “if I thought I could trust them not to blab. But the trine’s been a bit… fraught, lately. I’ve not really been much of a wingleader. Dirge has been looking for a fight at every turn. Thrust usually sides with him, because it means they’re in Megatron’s favour. And I mostly just pretended I couldn’t see what they were doing in the hope they’d eventually quit being glitches, so I could just… talk to them again.” He sighed, and studied his knees. “They’re a pair of hopeless morons, but they’re my morons. You know?” He thought about it for a second, and revised the statement; “Were mine.”

Bravely, Thundercracker patted his shoulder. “Give them time. Take it from me; after vorns at heel, it’s a big step.”

“Feels like it might be too big, and I’m just clutching at contrails, thinking they’ll see someone worth chasing after.” Ramjet smoothed the dirty cloth between his thumbs. “But if Starscream can figure out a second chance, frag it. You guys weren’t exactly the triniest of trines when you jumped ship, either, and you still figured slag out and found a way to make it work.” He wafted a hand in Thundercracker’s general direction. “And you’re not just some starving empty, either. Or in prison.” He paused and looked down at his own scuffed plating. “Then there’s me. One of the last to crawl back home, and on my own. I'll be a laughing stock.”

“Nobody’s laughing, Ramjet. I’m glad you found the drive to do it. And they’ll follow you.”

Ramjet looked at him and it occurred to Thundercracker how genuinely tired the mech looked, now he wasn’t posturing and hostile. “Aw, come on. What’s the hope of that. Honestly?” He blew a sigh through pursed lips. “I left them with Megatron. I betrayed him, fragged his plans, left him torqued in the dust, and abandoned my bros there with him to get almighty slag kicked out of them on my behalf. They might never get the chance to come here. And even if they survive, they probably won’t forgive me. They were supposed to be my trine, for Pitsake.”

Thundercracker remained silent, for a while. “This isn’t the end, Ramjet,” he said, at length. “I know it might seem like it, but anything can be repaired, and it’s only the end if you let it be.”

Ramjet made a dismissive noise.

“I mean it! Nobody says the decisions you just made are now some… holy immutable truth. This is…” Thundercracker wafted his hands in an attempt to magic up the words he wanted. “A lull in the battle, maybe. For you to recharge, and take stock, and figure out what you need to do.”

“Until you change your mind and come back to arrest me.”

Thundercracker swallowed anything else he might have said. “If you want a place to go that isn’t just a boulder, New Vos is probably a good idea. You’ll have to contribute to the work, and you might get a hostile reception for a while, but I’ll put in a word with Acid Storm-”

Ramjet grimaced. “Maybe not right now, yeah? Don’t really wanna start out on the wrong foot, with everyone resentful ’cause they’ve been told to accept the traitor and behave themselves.” Pre-empting an argument, he put his hands up. “I kinda just want to go get lost somewhere, for now. Before Megatron tracks me down and finishes your femme’s job at taking my helm off my shoulders. The fewer people as know where I am, the better.”

“Then here’s one final bit of advice for you: keep away from Deixar. That wasn’t Pulsar that Dirge slagged, but one of her sisters. Vector is out for his main power regulator, and you might look like a suitable enough alternative if she can’t get to him.”

Ramjet squinted, evidently trying to access the district registry. “Annnd… Which is Vector?”

“Celerity’s twin. Celerity is the one that punched your nose in.” Thundercracker hesitated for a second then added; “And she’s usually the calm one.”

“Ah. Right. Okay, yeah.” Ramjet felt his hand creep involuntarily up to his face before he realised what he was doing and snatched it back down. “Maybe I’ll take your advice.”

***

By the time Thundercracker got to the hospital and tracked his nephew down, a significant proportion of the extended family had arrived to camp out on the ward.

Someone – probably the same someone as had black enamel and a famous disregard for both rules and basic hospital cleanliness – had scooted the two berths together. Pulsar was precariously stretched out over the join between the two, with Slipstream curled up under her arm on one side, his head as close to his dam’s spark as he could get it, and Longbeam on the other. Pulsar in turn had one arm stretched around each and looked like it was perhaps only that which was preventing her sliding away down the gap between the furniture. Footloose was on Slipstream’s free side, half-on half-off the berth with her feet on a stool to keep her there, a comparative giant next to the rest of the family.

Slipstream’s roommates hadn’t made it to the ward yet, so at least there was a little breathing space.

On the far side of the room, with his back to the big window looking out over the district, Skywarp sat on the floor with his long legs stretched out in front of him – optics dim and tired, but vaguely comfortable. Celerity had her head on his shoulder – they appeared to have been comparing paint scrapings. Vector was sitting opposite with her back to Longbeam’s berth, so her bike could keep a hand on her shoulder, but she had one folded leg pressed very obviously into Skywarp’s.

It looked like the teleport had decided, as usual, to forego repairs in favour of energon. A wide stripe of bright green structural tape stretched incongruously over the bridge of his nose, and a few other spots and scraps of support film were visible – mostly obscuring the obscenity hacked into his chassis enamel – but that looked about the extent of any repairs so far.

Skywarp acknowledged Thundercracker with the remains of his cube, but otherwise stayed where he was.

Someone had evidently been listening out for him to arrive, because no sooner had Thundercracker taken in the scene, a little head bobbed up, and squeaked at him.

Thundercracker couldn’t help the grin; he obediently scooped her up and let her scramble up to his shoulder. Skydash squeaked her glee and rubbed cheeks with him. “Hello, bitlet,” he rumbled, softly, like a relieved stormcloud. “I cannot even put into words how worried I was about you. It’s so good to have you back.”

“Miss Day!” She chirped her agreement, clinging around his neck. “Scary Nem’sis. Bad bucket!”

He craned his neck to look down at her. “Bucket? What does that mean?”

“No bucket!” She seemed disinclined to define it any further. “Miss Day.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to tell me and Ama all about it when we get home…”

His incomparable relief at having the sparkling back in one amazing piece was slightly marred when she looked over his shoulder and wondered, “Arrgie come?”

“Arr-… Ramjet?” Thundercracker followed her line of sight, but the doorway was empty and he realised it was a question. He swallowed the sigh and smiled sadly instead. “I don’t think he’ll want to come here, spark. We’re… not really friends.”

She made a glum noise. “Arrgie bring, find ama.”

Thundercracker gave her a subtly brows-raised look. “Didn’t RJ take, as well?”

Skydash stared back, defiantly, and corrected: “Mean Blue took. Arrgie bring.” She snuggled back into the crook of his neck. “Bored. All off. No play.”

“Well, bit, it’s a hospital,” he chuckled, turning towards the window. “It’s where people come when they’re hurt, not when they want to have a fun time. Let’s go sit with Uncle Warp, shall we?” Thundercracker picked his way over the carpet of legs, and squeezed in at the end, slotting his wing in behind Skywarp.

Skywarp flashed him a grin, then grimaced and stretched his shoulders. At Thundercracker’s concerned glance, he explained; “S’just a twinge. Been getting them since we came through the space bridge. No big deal.” He elbowed him and joked, although it didn’t feel terribly funny; “I hope it doesn’t mean Hook’s made me allergic to you guys.” In spite of his efforts to the contrary, there was just a subtle undercurrent of anxiety threading through his manner.

“Well, maybe this will help desensitise you.” Thundercracker claimed his hand and folded it into both of his own. “You aren’t nearly taped enough for a hug, so this’ll have to do for now.”

Skywarp snrk-ed. “Yeah, sorry. They scanned the worst bits and decided I wasn’t about to spontaneously fall to pieces, so.” He interlaced his fingers with his wingmate’s. “This is good, though.”

“You know I might not let you go again, now.”

“I was only gone a coupla orns, mech.”

“And could have died, at the hands of our mortal enemy.” Thundercracker offered a gently withering look. “Have you forgotten how many times you’ve disappeared on us, recently? None of this is any good for my emotional wellbeing.”

“Ha!” Skywarp leaned on him.

They sat quietly together for a little while. Eventually Slipstream’s roommates finally made it through the defences of the ward clerk, and the comfortable quiet rapidly dissolved into bawling and hiccups of static as the youngsters were reunited.

“Getting crowded in here, huh.” Skywarp watched with a resigned weariness. “Might take this as my cue to go.” He carefully pushed himself to his feet, subtly anchored by Thundercracker, reluctant to relinquish his grip on his hand.

The blue seeker knew he didn’t precisely mean in terms of physical space; the sudden appearance of several highly-emotionally-charged electric fields were making him uncomfortable as well. “They’ll calm down again soon.”

“Maybe? I figure I ought to check in with Screamer. He thinks I’ve got a beacon again.” A roll of the optics. “And you two need some time with the tiny spark without my big aft in the way.”

“I need some time with my wingbro, as well.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna cease to exist, TC. It’s fine.” Skywarp’s nose crinkled in a lopsided smile, and he carefully unlaced his fingers from Thundercracker’s grip. “Plus, I kinda want these back where I can access them?” He tapped the little spots of solder on his weapons bays. “Just in case anyone else comes knocking, if you know what I mean.”

***

Starscream was bustling around setting up equipment, when Skywarp finally made it home. He could sense Skyfire in the periphery of his field, probably in the small laboratory, helping set up the chaos of scanners, but he and Starscream were otherwise the only two present.

It looked rather like someone had picked up the lab and shaken the contents out right across the lounge.

Skywarp made his way across the atrium with a wary, high-stepping stride, not wanting to immediately intersect with the Starscream-coloured tornado setting up equipment, or trip on any of the spiderweb tangle of cables spread across the floor.

“Where did you get to, earlier, anyway,” he challenged. He tossed his hospital discharge note onto the nearest table; it had a big hostile red spot in the corner, discharged against medical advice. Eh. He could deal with that later. “Just Fashionably Late?”

Starscream shot him a dirty look, but continued work. “I was checking who was coming through with you. A handful of bikes wouldn’t have stood up to much if the worst of the Decepticon army had decided to follow you.”

“You mean, you were checking if Megatron was anywhere behind, as you haven’t schemed your way to the perfect solution to keep him off-world yet.”

Starscream took visible offence to the implication he’d been hiding from Megatron, wings bristling. “It was a reasonable precaution!” he corrected, hotly. “After our supposed allies missed those coneheaded idiots using the spacebridge uninvited twice. I didn’t want any extra unpleasant surprises.”

“Even they woulda been able to spot Megatron, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t like to accuse them of having any capability, right now.” Starscream picked up the bent discharge letter and skimmed over it, making no effort to hide the blatant change of subject. “Just your nose, Skywarp?” He waved the wafer, threateningly. “You were actively in the hospital, and couldn’t even get any of that lot fixed?”

Skywarp lounged back against the table and found an interesting spot on the roof to glare at. “You told me not to.”

“I think you’ll find, I said ‘don’t let them patch your code’. I didn’t say, ‘carry on bleeding all over everything’.”

“So I wanted to go sit with our family for a while? Not go straight into a repair bay and spend a vorn getting a zillion harmless dings patched up that I can do literally any other time.” Skywarp spread his hands, dramatically. “And I’ve stopped bleeding now. Thanks for asking.” Good to see his wingmate was back to normal, at least; hiding his anxiety under bluster and impatient bad temper.

Starscream muttered something that could have been reluctant acceptance. “Well. That’s good, at least.” He cast a suspicious optic over the battered chassis. “I’m assuming they didn’t find the beacon.”

“…I guess not? They didn’t say they had. I guess they were more interested in finding actual damage to worry about.”

“How well did they scan you?”

Starscream did a single orbit around him; slightly unnerved, Skywarp backed off and put the table between them. “I don’t know? I’m not a medic?”

“Surely you’d know if you had a full body sc-”

“Then I guess not! Are we gonna get to the point of me being here sometime this vorn, or what?” Another twinge made him grimace. “Either you want my sensor data, or not.”

Starscream clocked the wince. “Come over here and let me scan you, first. I don’t like the way you keep doing that.”

“It’s just a twinge. It’s what happens when you get beat to slag, remember?” Skywarp stayed put, arms folded. “Why is all this such a big deal, right now?”

“Because they let you go, Warp. I want to know why. And don’t say you escaped, because they didn’t follow you either, did they? Now come and sit down so I can scan you.” Starscream used one thruster to scoot a stool out into the little clear patch at the epicentre of the spiderweb.

Something made Skywarp feel weirdly twitchy, but he couldn’t quite pin down its origin. “It’s only a beacon. Does it even matter if they know I’m home now? They’re all on the wrong side of the bridge, remember?”

“They didn’t know where our home was, in the first instance. Now if they get through, HERE is precisely where they will come first. So yes, it does matter. And I want to know what you’ve not had assessed yet because you want to avoid having to talk to the doctors about getting a slagging.”

Skywarp shifted his weight from one thruster to the other. Why did he feel so antsy. “I’ve gotta deal with these as well, remember?” He flattened his palms over his soldered weapon hatches. “Either you want me back at fighting strength for when Old Buckethead comes calling, or you want me to be target practice for him.”

“If you weren’t using it as a convenient excuse to avoid me, you could have had the doctors do that already.” Starscream’s voice had eased into that maddeningly reasonable tone he used when he was suspicious. “Why is it such a problem, Warp? It’s just a scan.”

Skywarp couldn’t help feeling like he was trying to catch him out. “I don’t know! What do you want me to say? This is all making me weird and anxious and I don’t even know why?”

For several seconds, the two seekers just glared at each other, trying to stare the other into submission.

“It’s just. A scan.”

“I know.” Skywarp’s voice took a softer edge. “I don’t know why the idea of it is making me so twitchy. I just feel like… you need to stop asking, and I can stop thinking about it, and it’ll go away.”

“Did anyone do anything to you while you, were on Nemesis?”

“Hook took some samples.”

“…and?”

“…I don’t know?” He felt hollow. Jigsaw pieces were slotting together into a picture he couldn’t quite see, but knew wasn’t going to be of rainbows and energon candies.

This is weird. There’s something going on that you can’t see. Stop being a glitch and let him scan you, already.

Swallowing the unease, Skywarp backed down with a beleaguered sigh. “All right. Fine.” He put his hands up in defeat and plopped down onto the little stool, which creaked ominously but somehow held up under his weight. “Get it over with.”

It took half a breem longer to finalise the last few calibrations; the scanner was a hefty piece of kit, plastered with warning symbols for high-energy radiation.

Skywarp eyed the instrument with suspicious distaste. “Why do you even have a gamma camera here? That one’s better than the one in the hospital.”

“They’re not just for medical purposes. Sometimes I want to see inside something without cracking it open.” Starscream peered down at the screen and twiddled the dials. “Plus I do live in hope that one day, I might find some brains inside your thick helm with it.”

“Oh ha ha.” Skywarp demonstrated his knowledge of Earthly gestures by waggling certain fingers in the way of the lens. “You might want to go looking for that spanner up your exhaust while you’re at it. Not that you should need a gamma camera to find something so huge.”

They glared at each other for an astro-second or two before Skywarp’s lips twitched into a strange lopsided pout, betraying the smile he was trying very hard to bite down on.

They snrk-ed at each other.

Starscream swatted him gently with the back of one hand. “It won’t take long. Surely even you can sit still for half a breem.”

Another of those weird twinges. Skywarp sat on his hands. “I’ll try.” It felt like his head was full of sirens he should have been able to hear.

The camera’s unblinking single lens reminded him of Shockwave. The high-energy scan prickled where it intersected with his field. He felt it run slowly all the way to the ground, from the very crown of his helm, lingering over his chassis.

Starscream squinted at the readout, and adjusted the angle, slightly, and repeated the scan. Then a third time, from a third angle.

The little noise Starscream made got Skywarp immediately straightening up, alarmed. “What, what is it?”

“No, you don’t have a beacon. You have a bomb.”

#transformers #blue au #skywarp #remember me #starscream #thundercracker #ramjet

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keaalu · 11 months

Text

Remember Me, chapter 12

Title (chapter): Remember Me (12)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: In which we find certain teleports are still sneaky assholes, Ramjet isn't sure how he got to this point in life, and Celerity has a helluva right hook. And we STILL don't know what that "one last job" was that Megatron has for Skywarp...

(...sloooowly catching up with posting this on here...)

----------------------------

Teleporting blind was hard to define to anyone who wasn’t a teleport.

Worst that could happen is you crash into a wall, they’d say. Haha, look at Skywarp, how clumsy, stuck in the furniture. What an idiot. But it’s only a wall. Why are you so upset. Just detach that bit, and carry on with your day. It’s really not a big deal.

What no-one seemed to realise was that it was never just like bumping into a wall, and never just a minor body part. More like… throwing yourself through a doorway where there could be anything on the other side – like the boiling inside of a volcano. And you wouldn’t know anything about it until you were already dissolving your spark in lava.

This insanity went against every instinct he possessed. He was only mostly confident that there was only air at the other end of his careful triangulations. Air was fine. His pre-materialisation field could push air out of the way. Liquids were… mostly fine, too. (OK, maybe except lava.) But solid objects – like walls, and floors, and bulkheads… – didn’t move. And this visual-only carefully-calculated little hop into a corridor had a margin of error as narrow as the tissue blade he’d stolen to cut out his beacon. Teleporting into solid objects was a particularly not-fun thing, and usually explodey into the bargain. (And look what happened last time: he disappeared into a time vortex for half a lifetime.)

…Skywarp successfully stepped out of his jump a few microns above the deck, in the middle of the corridor, as far from any walls as he could make it. The clunk as his thrustered heel hit the deck sounded unrealistically loud, but even the idea that it could have attracted an entire garrison of triplechangers to his escape took second billing to immediately checking himself over. He did six big agitated circles on the spot before finally being satisfied that yes, he was still in the same number of pieces he’d been in before teleporting, no, he hadn’t left anything behind in the cell, and no, he definitely wasn’t permanently attached to a wall.

And aside from his own clumsy footsteps, all was silence. That was good.

The lack of alarms felt like it was probably a good thing, as well.

Thank frag. He covered his face with both hands and blew stale exhaust into his palms.

OK. Stage two. Find the kids and break the slag out of here.

He cautiously brought all his systems back online and allowed himself a few long cycles of cool air before giving himself a good shake and telling himself to quit being a sparkling and get on with the plan.

It took every last ounce of self control not to break into a run. When his weight and certain hollow bits of anatomy were taken into account, especially against metal deckplates, thrustered heels weren’t really built with sneaking in mind, especially not quickly – they might not have noticed him escaping but they’d definitely notice the gunshot clatter of a running seeker. Instead he was reduced to skulking down the corridors with a weirdly delicate, deliberate stride, trying hard to minimise the echoes.

There was a time he had been good at this, and he was definitely out of practice. Turning into a semi-responsible adult had a lot to answer for.

In a further complication, since his teleport, he couldn’t seem to get the broken line in his helm to crystallise. It was still bleeding; trickling round under his chin and into his collar, before finding one of his many broken bits of fuselage to drip off. Only the occasional spots and smears, maybe, but even tiny droplets would light his way like glowing breadcrumbs. The quicker he could scoop up the little sparks and get out, the better.

He followed the subtle sounds of static down the corridor, homing in on the pinpoint labelled Seem that he’d stuck in his mental map. He figured it prooobably hadn’t helped the kid’s frame of mind, seeing his sire captured by the same bunch of thugs as had made his own life a living Pit for the last few orns… but hopefully Seem would still have enough of a grip on himself that he’d be helpful and not need carrying or some slag. (And hopefully the kids were on their own, or this would be the planet’s shortest rescue mission.)

He peered around the bulkhead and finally located the source of the sounds, huddled up in the corner of his cell. At least Slipstream wasn’t totally in the dark. Small blessings.

“Hey. Psst?”

“S-skyw-…!” Slipstream visibly jumped, and rocked forwards onto his knees, startled. “But, but… I thought they’d caught you-! I-I saw you with them-!”

“They did.” Satisfied the youngster had no babysitters, Skywarp turned his attention to the controls. “But you know me. I don’t like to stay caught for too long.”

“How-how did you even get out?”

Skywarp grinned. “See, when someone puts you in cuffs, you’re a good little cop and treat them like they’re meant to be treated. When someone puts me in cuffs, I take it as a challenge.” He gave the controls a wary poke, just in case it was booby-trapped, but the field obediently just fizzled out. “Huh. There’s no baffle on it? Why didn’t you get out?”

Struggling to stand, Slipstream glanced away, awkwardly, and gestured with his cuffed wrists. “Where was I going to go, exactly? We couldn’t exactly walk back to shore.”

“…Fair point. Let’s get your hands free.” Skywarp leaned briefly over the threshold and gave the cell a visual once-over. “Uh. So, uh. Where’s Dash?”

“I don’t know.” Slipstream crept to the front of the cell, tucked close to the wall, looking rather like a frightened animal. “I’m sorry. Probably with Ramjet. They don’t leave her with me very often, any more.”

“Great. That does kinda frag things up. I figured you’d be together.” Skywarp vented a terse sigh, and noticed the youngster flinch ever so slightly. He made a mental note to try not to spook him any worse until they were out “Can you see her? I’d have a look myself but it might clue them in that I’ve slipped the leash.”

Slipstream’s gaze meandered while he looked for his cousin’s signal. “…I see her, but… I’m not sure where exactly. Couple of decks above.” He studied the floor. “I’m sorry. I… kinda didn’t imagine I’d need to know, right now, or I-I’d have asked her more about where they took her. She-she’s always fine when they bring her back. I thought that was enough. I’m sorry-”

“Hey. Hey!” Skywarp caught his shoulders before he could get too wobbly. “It’s fine. You did what you could. Don’t beat yourself up over this, all right? You’ve taken enough of a beating from those guys already, don’t go and join in with doing it to yourself.” That was putting it lightly; the youngster looked like he’d taken a trip or two through the mill already. “Do I need to get the Hatchet to meet us at the Spacebridge?”

“It’s not so bad.” Slipstream shrugged and refused to meet his gaze. “Mostly just dents. I think they all had a turn at it, at one point or another. Got Dash to behave if she thought they’d punch me if she didn’t. I-I can cope. For now.”

Skywarp arched a brow at the lie, but let it rest. They’d have plenty of time for playing pin-the-blame-on-yourself later, when they weren’t still navigating this tightrope to safety.

Slipstream waited patiently while Skywarp fiddled with the dented cuffs and tried to get them to unlock. “Maybe we should try and find Ramjet.”

Skywarp gave him a wary glance. “What? Why?”

“He-he usually comes and collects Dash, and she says she normally stays with him when she’s not here. I think maybe he’s in charge of watching over her. And-” Slipstream cycled cold air and dragged up enough courage to put a little weight behind his convictions. “I think he’s maybe having second thoughts about all this? I overheard him say he wanted to come home, back to Cybertron. He might be willing to help, if we give him a bit of a break?”

Skywarp gave him a very long stare before finally saying “hm.”

“He-he’s… not been so bad. Compared to Dirge.” Slipstream chased, before that limited burst of spirit could run out. “Dirge absolutely wants me to know he’s going to kill me, eventually. Ramjet just… seems… bored of it all, I guess. He never looks interested. He’s just… flat.”

At last, the lock on the cuffs released. It took a little force, but between them they managed to peel them open.

“You don’t think it’s a trick? Or bait?” Skywarp tossed the broken cuffs into the cell, while Slipstream quietly examined his wrists for additional damage. “I mean, if there’s one person I know isn’t gonna be affected by a good punch to the head? It’s Ramjet.”

“After they caught me, he’s never really joined in when his wingmates decided I was due a slagging. I only really see him when he’s come to get Dash, or drop her back.”

Skywarp thought back to the aftermath of his own beating from Megatron, and recognised that actually? The youngster’s words did make a lick of sense. While everyone else grandstanded and tried to remind him how intimidating and scary they were all meant to be, Ramjet’s contribution had been… perfunctory. He had looked tired, more than anything. “You think he’d talk to us?”

“I don’t know.” Slipstream deflated, a little. “I haven’t dared broach the subject, in-in case I was wrong. Besides. I’m an Autobot, remember? He’d never talk to me.”

“…And I’m a traitor. I don’t know who they hate more. Chances are decent that he wouldn’t talk to me, either.” Skywarp returned his attention to the corridor. Still quiet, still empty. “Come on. Let’s at least quit hanging around in your cell doorway, seeing as this is precisely where everyone seems to be visiting right now. If anyone’s gonna accidentally spot us, it’ll be here. We can figure slag out on the way.”

Slipstream followed him, obediently. “So, um. When are the rest of the guys getting here?”

Skywarp winced. “I, ah, might have asked your ama to cover for me while I snuck out. With any luck they only figured out what I was up to when I dropped off the registry. Hopefully it means they’re still back on Cybertron.”

“Oh.” Slipstream just quietly nodded at the news, looking disappointed but not unduly surprised. Ideas like Skywarp’s tended to run in the family, after all. “Okay. So it’s just us?”

“Yeah. I figured dragging the others along for the ride wasn’t the right thing to do, right now.” Skywarp checked around a doorway, and blew out an annoyed sigh. “TC has one of his six-orn migraines and can’t see slag, and I didn’t want to immediately get murdered by bringing Screamer along. Thought I stood a better chance of surviving if it was just me. It’s… kinda worked so far, I guess. Still alive, anyway.”

“How are you going carry us when we find Dash? Do you know if you can even still fly?”

“Sure. I’ve flown with dings worse than this.” Skywarp offered an ambivalent shrug. “I’ve still got both wings, both thrusters, and hopefully most of my usual dumb luck. We’ll figure something out.” He glanced back at his sparkling and offered a lopsided smile, but Slipstream didn’t smile back. “We’re just gonna have to be lone heroes, all right?”

Slipstream laughed, humourlessly, and looked away. He was visibly deflating. “I’m not sure I’m hero material.”

“Hey. Quit that.” Skywarp gave him a light cuff on the arm. “The fact your confidence has taken a beating doesn’t mean you’re any less of a warrior than you were before a bunch of pitglitched ’Cons got their claws in you. They dumped you in a cell on your own with nothing to do except worry and it sucks.” He placed his hands firmly on the youngster’s upper arms, and crouched, subtly, to be on his eyeline. “Look. We’re gonna get out of here, but you’ve gotta focus for me, all right? I can’t do this and carry you as well.”

Slipstream stared through him for a second or two before finding his sire’s optics, and managing to focus on him. He nodded, shakily.

“I won’t lie to you. This situation sucks. There’s a pretty good chance neither of us are getting out of here in the condition we’re in right now, let alone as a functioning whole. But I need your attention. I need absolutely all your energy focused on us getting out.” Skywarp offered a wan smile. “You can be a snivelly wet blanket all you like once we’re home. Frag, I’ll come be a snivelly wet blanket with you. But let’s save it until we’ve got your cousin and got out.”

Slipstream had to reboot his vocaliser, and even then sounded hazy. “How is it you’re not scared?”

“Who said I wasn’t?”

Slipstream just stared at him, silently.

“Not looking scared doesn’t mean not being scared. You don’t survive war as long as I did without learning a few tricks, and looking like you have your slag together? Sometimes that’s enough to convince everyone else that you genuinely do.” Skywarp managed an ugly laugh. “I mean, Pit. I’m walking around here like I still own the place. Megatron’s already given me a slagging, I’m only reasonably confident that he won’t kill me on sight if he catches me, and that’s only because I know he wants Starscream to watch me die. And I’m not even totally confident of that. If we frag this up, he might decide sending him a video works just as well.”

Slipstream leaned into the stabilising grip for a further astro second or two, before lifting his own hands to cover the larger ones on his arms. “That’s… not really helping, Day.”

“…yeah, I know. I figure that’s why I never got the job as staff counsellor back home.” Skywarp let out a tired whistle of exhaust and let his helm bonk gently against Slipstream’s. “I also know, we’re gonna do this. We’re survivors. We’ve got through everything else and we’re already halfway there. We just need one last little push, and we’ll fetch Dashie, and be out.”

Slipstream nodded against him.

“Remember. It’s not about being scared. Everyone gets scared. Even I get scared. I’ve got the surges right now.” Skywarp grinned in a way that bared his denta in a determined snarl. “It’s about knowing you’re scared, and still telling it exactly where it can go frag off, because we’re gonna do it anyway. Right?”

Slipstream finally managed to dredge up a more genuine laugh – shaky and halfway to a sob, but at least there was a bit of energy behind it. He wiped his face with one hand and made an effort to straighten his twisted antennae. “Right. Let’s go tell it where to frag off.”

-----

He might in reality have been sat on his aft, but in his head right now, Ramjet stood on a precipice, with his own weight in concrete around his thrusters, debating whether he dared step off into the unknown. Sure, even loaded up like this, he could still fly, but he was at his limit. Add one more tiny thing – like the weight of a first-instar sparkling, perhaps – and that might be enough to turn flying into falling and the drop in front of him was a very long way down with no way back up.

And that was just the little problem. He had no idea what to do about the big problems – the two massive spanners in his turbines called Thrust and Dirge. If he tried to discuss any of this with them, he knew Dirge would go straight to Megatron. Or ‘accidentally’ let it slip to Soundwave. And it didn’t take much thinking to know who Thrust would side with.

Ramjet knew the trine was in trouble.

Worse, he knew, deep down, that they were right. It was his fault.

Even during the better times, when they had an actual cause worth fighting for and things weren’t all so fractured and pointless, before The Traitor defected and the ‘Cons ended up stuck the wrong side of the spacebridge on planet Mud… he didn’t exactly have a great track record as wingleader. Not that his wingbros were any better, but Dirge had at least found the capacity to be kinda proactive for a change.

…Which meant Megatron was looking more closely at the three of them, all of a sudden, so whatever Ramjet did do, he didn’t have the luxury of taking time making the decision.

And that was discounting the idea that Starscream would beat him to the punch – finally make his move, get himself caught and horribly executed, the Autobots would move to try and stop the ‘Cons reinvading Cybertron, and their stupid meaningless war would start over again.

Assuming he did get out, Ramjet knew he’d have to be really careful about how he played this, because yeah, they’d abducted (and traumatised) the kids and shot – maybe killed – Skywarp’s femme. Maybe he could spin it that hey, he was acting on Megatron’s orders, not everyone has the Screamer’s compulsion to defy him at every turn. Right? If he grovelled low enough perhaps he wouldn’t immediately get shot. You could eventually come back from planetary exile, he figured. Couldn’t come back from being dead. And if it came to the worst, Autobot prisons had to be better than this dump.

Once he’d bought himself a little favour with the enemy, a little space to think without constantly being aware of a timer counting down to a deadline he didn’t actually know, he could work on figuring out what to do with his trine.

He’d probably frag things up irreparably no matter what option he took – but sitting here just staring at screens and hoping it’d just spontaneously somehow resolve itself wasn’t an option either.

Make or break time.

If he left, his bros would either follow him because they saw something worth saving, or they wouldn’t, because it was over.

Was he clutching at contrails, hoping they’d think he was worth following?

“Ugh.” He covered his face with both hands and rested his elbows against the control panel.

Skydash squeaked questioningly at him, but he ignored her for now.

Frag.

Clutching at contrails.

Ramjet made up his mind. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.” He held out his hand.

Skydash examined the big palm for several seconds before climbing warily on. “Walk where?”

“Does it matter? I mean if you’d rather stay in this li’l room, be my guest. But you might get kinda bored. And Mean Blue might come back.”

She chirped uneasily and clung tighter to his thumb while he lifted her to his shoulder. He let her wriggle into a convenient crevice, tiny fingers finding just enough gaps in his plating to anchor herself. It felt very strange, but he figured it wouldn’t be for too long.

Hoped it wouldn’t be for too long. And not for the wrong reasons.

The instant she was secure, Ramjet puffed himself up, arms stiff and hands fisted, just in case anyone was watching, and strode out into the corridor.

Just going about my business, nothing to see here.

I am a totally normal confident Decepticon warrior, where I belong, not even trying to sneak out with one of our prisoners.

“See ama now, Arrgie?” she asked, quietly.

“Maybe. If you behave.” He felt her perk up, and hastily added; “And be quiet, all right? You know Dirge will say no.” And instantly grass us up to Megatron. “If the guys spot us, that’s it. Curtains.”

She was silent for an astro-second. “What curtains am?”

“Curtains are what we close on the end of the world for both of us.” At the second little questioning noise, he went on: “Someone might even put you back in the bucket.”

Alarm flashed through her field. “No bucket,” she whispered.

“Right? No bucket.”

She managed a whole astro-second of silence. “When to get Unnolseem?”

Frag. “Uh. I’m… gonna… have to come back for him,” Ramjet lied. “The two of you together will be too heavy.”

If she sensed the lie, she didn’t call him out on it, and settled again, satisfied for now.

Then they rounded a corner and ran smack into Skywarp.

“Frag!” Ramjet leaped back and immediately went into a defensive half-crouch, fisting one hand in front of his chest, ready to deliver a punch if needed. “How did you get out?!”

“By being cleverer than you bunch of pitglitches, how do you think?” Skywarp had already put himself between Ramjet and Slipstream, using his wings as a shield, equally ready to fight. “Have you never upgraded the brig since we jumped ship?”

“Unnolseem!” Skydash ruined the tension. “Find ama!” she squeaked, excitedly flailing her arms. She looked like she was on the cusp of toppling clean off. “Arrgie say!”

Ramjet hastily grabbed her before she could fall off – and more importantly, before anyone else could snatch her. It unfortunately ruined the whole fearsome Conehead look that he was trying to carry off.

Skywarp gave him a very long, curious stare. “Are you defecting?”

“And fling myself on the tender mercy of you guys? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You haven’t shot us yet.”

“Of course not. I don’t want you falling apart in the hallway, it’d ruin Megatron’s plans. I’m calling for backup right now.”

“Really.” Skywarp folded his arms, unimpressed. “We all heard what Dashie just said about finding her bearer, and Seem thinks you want to come back to Cybertron. If you are quitting-”

Ramjet’s expression darkened. “I do want to come home; so what? It sucks that we’ve been stuck here all these vorns, slowly rusting and going decrepit, while you guys sit around enjoying the good life. It doesn’t mean I’m defecting. It means, I’m gonna wait until Megatron finally puts his plans into action, then swoop to victory the instant you’re out of the way.”

Skywarp arched an eyebrow, and they all just stared at each other for several seconds, the words hanging unspoken in the air. Which is why you’re sneaking out with half of Megatron’s plan.

Ramjet sighed. “Okay. Fine. Just for an astro-second, say I was. Say I didn't want to wait for Megatron because I know it'll instantly go to slag and we’ll have a derelict planet again. Would you give me a chance, or just shoot me when my back was turned?”

“You jumping ship now isn’t going to stop Megatron’s grand plan-”

“Maybe not? Who cares. At least he’ll have one fewer pairs of hands to help wreck the joint.” Ramjet closed his mouth with a little snap, and glared. “…And you are not tricking me into saying anything else. Not until I get some assurances of safety from you.”

Skywarp put his hands up, defensively. “Okayokay. You have my word that I won’t shoot you – yet, anyway – but I’m still just the grunt of my trine. It’s my wingbros you’re gonna have to convince.” He held one hand out. “Hand Dash to me, and Seem can get you out.”

“So you can all immediately leave me behind?” Ramjet tightened his grip, subtly. “No deal, traitor. She’s my guarantee that you at least listen to me.”

“I hate to break it to you, RJ, but last time I checked you couldn’t teleport.”

“So I’ll take the lift? Like I was about to do, before you two fragheads showed up. How do you think I normally get off this disintegrating tin can?”

“And you were planning to not get caught… how?”

“By… living here? And not being suspicious because I’m not sneaking around where I’m not meant to be? If Tiny keeps quiet, I’ll just leave the same way I normally do, using the docking gantry.” Ramjet lowered his voice to a hiss. “Which is looking less and less likely, by the way, the longer I stand here chatting with you two idiots. Just get yourselves out, and I’ll meet you up there.”

“Or you’ll run straight to Megatron and let him know we’re making a jailbreak. I think not.”

“The frag would I do that when we’ve already established I’m defying orders myself?!”

Skywarp rubbed the back of his helm. “Fine. We’re gonna have to work together, then. All four of us at once. If we synchronise our gates, we can just perform one big jump at once. Everyone knows where everyone else is, no-one betrays anyone, no-one gets shot.” He gave his niece a look. “You all right with that, Bit?”

Dash nodded. Having her family around had emboldened the sparkling. “Find ama. No bucket,” she asserted.

“Bucket?” Skywarp wondered.

Ramjet ignored him, just glaring tiredly at the sparkling. “Do I look anything like I have a damn bucket on my person anywhere?”

She just stared up at him.

“All right, all right, I get it. No bucket.”

“You good for fuel?” Skywarp gave Ramjet a loaded glance. “’Cause when we leave here, we ain’t stopping for anyone until we get through the spacebridge.”

Ramjet shrugged, ambivalently. “How are you for fuel?” he returned, sidestepping the question. “We haven’t exactly fed you while you’ve been here.”

“I haven’t leaked it all on the floor yet.” Skywarp dragged up a cynical smile. “This plastic refit you lot have been having so much fun sucking sump about does have a few perks. I can go lightyears further than you bunch of lead-forged bulk carriers-”

The sudden shrill pulsatile scream of Nemesis’s general alarm made all four jump. Scared, Skydash jammed her hands up over her audios and joined in a microsecond later.

Skywarp rankled at the accusatory looks. “Okay, fine! We’ve been chatting in the corridors for too long and I guess someone finally looked at the monitors. That or someone spotted I’m still dripping and is following my trail. Seem? Better get our gates synced.”

Slipstream nodded, gulping down cold air. “I’ve not done this in a long time,” he stammered. “Give-give me a second--”

The rattle of running footsteps was obvious even over the din of alarms.

Skywarp glanced down the corridor in the direction they were coming from. “We might not have a second, ’cause that sounds like company,” he snapped, turning to face the approaching enemy. “I’ll try buy us some time. Just don’t stop.”

Thrust skidded around the corner without leaving himself enough room to stop, and crashed side-on into the wall. In the instant it took to rebalance his gyroscopes, Skywarp already sprinting towards him, in an irregular teleported zigzag across the corridor.

“Oh, frag!” Thrust scrambled to lock back onto his target, but Skywarp’s quick hops ruined his tracking, and by the time he thought to rely on his vision, his assailant was already within striking distance.

The teleport threw a punch and connected his fist with Thrust’s unprotected face.

“How’s that plastic feel for you?!”

Thrust lost his balance and went crashing down on his aft, swearing the whole way.

“…Traitor!” Apparently aiming for a pincer movement to box the escapees in, Dirge had appeared from the opposite direction… but was so shocked to be seeing Ramjet together with Skywarp and the kids, he had no idea how to handle it.

Slipstream seized the chance – Dirge was within striking distance, hadn’t yet brought his cannons up, and the younger mech was still running hot with alarm.

He launched himself at the blue jet, arms wide and head down, and ploughed into his midsection. Smaller he might have been, but the youngster was heavy and sturdily built, and as tackles went it was pretty solid. One of Dirge’s thrusters skidded out from underneath him and they went sprawling.

Slipstream used both hands against the jet’s face to push himself up and away, out of reach. Dirge swore and made an unsuccessful grab for one arm, unable to recover from the shove quickly enough to catch him.

“Seem! Finalise the sync-!” Skywarp bellowed, urgently.

Thrust was already up in a crouch, pushing off in a lunge.

Slipstream snatched out a hand and secured his grip on Ramjet. “Done-!”

Thrust made a grab-…

-…but his fingers closed on empty air.

Then momentum carried him wildly over his centre of gravity and he collapsed onto Dirge.

It really wasn’t their day.

-----

Up in the monitoring room, the escape hadn’t gone observed.

Megatron stood squarely in front of the screen, arms folded. A motley assortment of other mechs had clustered around the margins of the room behind him, wanting to see but not particularly keen to be within reach. Just in case.

Astrotrain stood at the back of the crowd, at a respectful, harder-to-slag distance. “Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job, mighty Megatron, but, uh. You… don’t want us to hunt them down?”

The warlord stared at the screen for several seconds, listening to the confused murmurings of his followers, before finally speaking.

“No. This might not be the outcome I had been hoping for, but it still works in my favour.” He turned away from the screen and everyone took a collective step back. “Whether he realises it or not, Skywarp is still working for us. With a little luck, he will carry our plan right to his own doorstep.” A small smile traced the thin lips. “He never does learn from past mistakes, does he?”

-----

The flight back to land was uneventful. A blind sprint over the ocean, granted, trying to become invisible by sticking so close to the waves that seaspray often stung their fuselage… but no-one appeared to be following them. So they were all getting covered in salt-spots for no reason.

It left Skywarp deeply uneasy – too quiet, where was the pursuit, how far back were they, was there a trap ahead – but he kept his concerns to himself. Wasn’t about to challenge the advantage, just in case Primus decided the escapees had been granted quite enough good luck, now, and dropped a Blitzwing in their way.

The irony that their ‘prisoner’ was the only mech that was still functionally armed was not lost on him. The last thing they needed was a triplechanger to deal with.

Ramjet had been moodily silent since leaving the Nemesis.

-might not count for much coming from me, but think this is pretty brave of you- Skywarp pinged.

Ramjet replied with an obscene image.

-mean it! not even slagging with you-

-whatever. coulda got out without the bros being any the wiser, but you had to go screw that up- Ramjet replied, sourly.

-they’d have known eventually-

-would have figured out an excuse by then! cook it so dirge thought it was his idea. no hope now. total slagfest-

Skywarp let the matter drop, aside from a final -sorry- that he hoped was good enough to convince the conehead he was genuine.

Ramjet didn’t respond.

They finally arrived at the spacebridge to find Vantage had already cued up the Deixar address, and the wormhole was glowing hot. Only two other familiar figures stood nearby – Jazz and Prowl, of course – but Skywarp could pretty much guarantee the presence of a dozen other Autobots, minimum, hiding close by in the trees.

Relieved to be back on solid ground, Slipstream took two steps before stumbling and sagging against Skywarp, as if his knees had forgotten how to work. Skywarp let him lean – the smaller mech’s acrophobia was no secret, and he’d spent the entire journey clinging to him with both arms, optics offline, trying not to tremble too much but still distractingly shaky.

“Skywarp,” Jazz greeted, coming forwards, looking relaxed but keeping his gaze fixed on the uncomfortable Ramjet. “We spotted your coming and let Cybertron know you were on your way, but does anyone need Ratchet before you ship out?”

Skywarp snorted. “Thanks, but no thanks. No offence, but we’re not planning on hanging around.” He pulled carefully on Slipstream’s arm and got him back onto his feet. “Only a few more steps, Seemo, then you can fall apart in safety. All right?”

Prowl stood quietly watching them approach the spacebridge; he gave Ramjet a very long, meaningful stare, but didn’t challenge them.

Skywarp gave the Autobot a nod, but otherwise ignored him, hustling Ramjet along in front and hoping Prowl would play into the ruse the mech was his prisoner – or at least wouldn’t call him out, because his own sleek arms and absence of weaponry was kinda obvious.

Thankfully, no-one challenged why Ramjet was still carrying Dash, either. That would have been harder to explain without publically going into the detail Skywarp wanted to avoid.

The four emerged from the transport wormhole to a bristling blue wall of defensive shielding, scattered in a big circle between a loose perimeter of hastily-erected barriers. It looked like half the Deixar force was there, anticipating Megatron himself to be coming through.

“Whoa.” Even Skywarp took a step back, surprised. “That’s a bigger welcome than I was expecting.”

Ramjet tensed and stumbled backwards behind Skywarp’s wings. He’d have probably ducked straight back through the spacebridge if it hadn’t (inconveniently) already deactivated. “I thought you said I’d have to convince your bros?” he hissed. “Not the entire fragging police force! You never said anything about this.”

“Hate to break it to you but I haven’t had a tonne of contact with Cybertron in the last few orns?”

A big white shape with blazing blue optics broke through the vanguard, closely followed by a familiar set of blue wings, and advanced with a thunderous stride that made the ground shake. Skywarp heard Ramjet’s fans kick subtly to a higher frequency. With the femme’s field broadcasting her emotions so scorchingly hot, it did feel rather like having a hostile blue-white star bearing down on them.

The giant wrestled her self-control back and stumbled to a halt an arm’s length away. “Hand her over,” she instructed, shakily, then added; “please.”

For several seconds, Ramjet just stared. Celerity was easily as tall as him, and must have massed getting on for double. He barely even noticed Thundercracker approaching behind her.

Skywarp kicked him in the back of the leg. It was enough to break through the haze of fight-or-flight and he realised the sparkling was on the point of squirming out of his hands all by herself anyway.

Ramjet hastily plonked the tiny bot into the large palms, and the supernova rapidly deflated.

For several long seconds, Celerity just held her sparkling, the tension visibly draining out of her. Skydash clicked and squirmed and tried to mould herself all the way into her chassis.

“Ama, ama, ama,” the sparkling repeated, like an excited mantra. “Ama, ama!”

The instant Skydash had calmed enough to handle, Celerity peeled the baby carefully off her armour, and gently passed her into Thundercracker’s confused hands; Skydash shrieked and flailed excitedly and scrambled up his arm to latch around his neck. “Be good for a moment?” she said, with a smile, although it wasn’t obvious who exactly she was talking to.

Then she turned, and sent Ramjet reeling with a piledriver right hook to the face.

#transformers #blue au #skywarp #slipstream #ramjet #dirge #skydash #sbm4 #remember me

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keaalu · 11 months

Text

Remember Me, chapter 11

Title (chapter): Remember Me (11)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: Where a dithery jetboy with questionable ethics and even more questionable loyalty sets out to cause problems for himself. And one of our heroes is definitely losing his marbles.

------------------

You’re gonna have to make a decision about this eventually, you know.

Ramjet was pretty sure that consciences didn’t get much more annoying than his own, right now. It never had anything remotely useful to say, and now didn’t seem to want to shut up, either. It kinda felt like a thought had broken away on its own, and was waiting in a dark corner to jump on him with a gotcha! the instant he put a thruster wrong.

At least he knew what to expect from his wingmates if they got to heckling him. (Plus, if the need arose, he could just turn around and punch them in the head.)

He vented a long sigh of stale air and let his arms dangle.

Was this how those traitorous pitglitches had felt, contemplating betraying their Decepticon allies and running away to Cybertron? Suddenly unsure of everything in the entire universe?

All his life, he’d been secure and happy in his knowledge he was doing the right thing – at least, right for him, anyway. If his wingmates got in the slag, sure, he’d usually help them out of it, but wasn’t going to take ownership of whatever fraggery got them in it in the first place.

And now suddenly he had absolutely no idea if he was doing the right thing. Had ever been doing the right thing. All because a defenceless little bot not much bigger than an energon cube had got sucked into their war, when there was absolutely no reason for it except… stupid… politics. Yanked into the lives of a bunch of bored, aggressive mechs who really had nothing better to do with their time than smash dents into each other, set on pursuing a dead-end conflict that had been going on so long everyone knew that it was just gonna creep on forever as an eternal stalemate until they finally went extinct.

He felt a tiny bit sorry for the little brat. It wasn’t her fault her parents were traitorous fragsticks who deserved everything they were gonna get, right?

Right?

Okay, so he wasn’t even sure about that, any more. They’d all been keeping themselves to themselves, former-Autobot and ex-Decepticon alike, tired of pursuing the idiocy of their war when there were so few of them left now, and quietly getting on with putting the place back together. Was he really just that resentful that they hadn’t invited him and his trine back to enjoy it, too?

He probably wouldn’t have invited himself either, to be fair.

No-one would deny the huge steaming pile of proving Megatron wrong that was involved in rebuilding the planet, but somehow the scarlet traitor seemed to have been mostly forgiven and people seemed to not outright hate him, any more. So, maybe there was still hope for a trio of idiots who couldn’t quite seem to detach themselves from Megaton’s campaign. Right?

Ramjet glared at the ceiling. Couldn’t be a good sign if people liked Starscream best.

It was just circumstances, though. Right? He’d got lucky. Everything kinda just aligned in the right way and forced his hand. Finally ditching the ‘Cons was never gonna have been very high on the Screamer’s list of slag to do, but with his wingmates announcing we’re done with this and crashing spectacularly out of the conflict, he’d been forced to make a decision between them and the faction. Or rather, to choose between the wingbros that seemed to love him unconditionally in spite of – or perhaps because of – his multitude of faults, and his single-minded pursuit of leadership of a faction that (let’s be honest) was never gonna accept him as their leader even if he did get there.

Unexpectedly, the little family he’d chosen won out, in the end. Ramjet couldn’t help wondering if he’d pick his bros in the same way. Or if they’d pick him.

Ramjet had been homesick for centuries. He didn’t want to admit it, because giving the Screamer any form of credit felt like tacit surrender, but home looked good, right now. Really good. Like, a how-do-I-get-my-bros-and-me-in-on-this kind of good. Even those short, fat little new towers looked impossible degrees better than this rusting old tin can. And they all had enough fuel to get them in the air, any time they wanted to.

That one little glimpse of home had stirred up a whole new mess of conflicting feelings in his spark. Over the vorns, he’d had the occasional thoughts of deserting and going home – who hadn’t? – but never as bad as this. And he knew his wingbros wouldn’t just drop everything and follow him, so for now he was stuck. No matter how many burrs they worked into his plating and how often they ended up brawling, they were still trine and he didn’t want to leave them here. Thrust might have been charmed around to the idea of leaving, with a little gentle coaxing and being persuaded that it was his idea all along, but Dirge was still riding high on the Boss’s praise and Ramjet hated that he couldn’t trust the mech not to blab if he confessed that he wanted out.

There was a better than good chance Starscream would probably be on his way any breem now, but Ramjet accepted that he’d given up pretending to be on duty. (Dare he confess to hoping the former air commander would show up and solve the problem of what to do by taking their prisoners back? Then Ramjet could work on convincing Dirge that going home looked good.)

Speaking of prisoners.

He realised – somewhat belatedly – that Skydash had vanished.

Slag.

He twisted around on his seat, hoping to spot her. Still in the vicinity, because he could see her signal close by. Just not exactly where-

Please don’t be under the terminal again; Primus.

At last he spotted her; two bright little pinpoints of light in the corner. The sparkling watched him from her bucket, fingertips wrapped around the rim and little more than her optics visible, peeking up over the edge. The instant his gaze lit upon her, she flinched and ducked back down, out of sight.

Ramjet frowned. “Uhh... What are you doing in there, Tiny?”

“Not a bad.” Her words echoed softly up from the pail. “No lid.”

He crouched next to it. “Uh. You haven’t been bad yet. Have you? You, uh.” He wasn’t really sure how to deal with this, honestly. Brats being brats he could handle (kind of), but this was a ridiculous learning curve. “Don’t have to sit in the bucket if you don’t wanna?”

The sparkling shied away from him, tucking her knees up and hugging them, curling into a ball at the bottom. “Not hurt family. Am stay in bucket.”

“Come on. Don’t be a glitch.” He picked her up; she froze. “I can’t keep watch on you in there. Anyone could come along and take you away if I’m not watching.”

She stayed motionless in his fingers while he carried her to the terminal. “No hit family.”

“Uh, right? I guess not?” He knew from experience that Warp’s kids were just as sneaky – and as good at getting where they shouldn’t be – as their sire. He’d not seen her up to any specific mischief, but had the brat snuck out somehow? “Why, what have you been doing that means someone needs a punch?”

She wasn’t very forthcoming. “No hit.”

“Fine.” A sigh. “Whatever. No hit.” He deposited her on her small aft on the terminal, and she immediately turned her back to him.

Skydash sat on the terminal and played with her small feet, for a while. Since at last settling on the idea that Decepticons were genuinely bigger and uglier and scarier than her parents, she was fairly well-behaved and mostly stayed subdued and quiet, so long as ‘Mean Blue’ didn’t show up with his scary engines – although Ramjet wasn’t stupid enough to try and fool himself that it was because she wasn’t frightened, any more. The tiny bot wasn’t even old enough to have a full dictionary at her disposal, yet; small wonder she couldn’t articulate her fear properly.

“Want Ama, Arrgie.”

“…Still not gonna happen.”

She peeked back over her shoulder at him. “See unnolawp?”

He thought about it for a few seconds but couldn’t parse it to anything except ‘Skywarp’ and figured it was just a sparkling-y mangling of the name. “He’s not here for your benefit. He’s under arrest. Because he’s been bad and needs to learn his lesson to not do it any more.”

She shuffled around a little, and gave him a very long stare. “Make bad at home. Police not hit.”

“Oh look; Tiny finally joins me at the point I’m making. Maybe if they weren’t all a bunch of Autobot cowards who talk too much, and gave him a decent punch in the head every now and then, he wouldn’t be such a troublemaking fragface all the time.”

He realised Skydash was just staring blankly at him, and figured perhaps he was expecting a little much from a sparkling. How did you explain that sometimes a mech’s helm was so dense, you had to hammer the point home with violence?

He changed the subject. “So you’re gonna be a winglet, huh.”

She cocked her head, frowning. “What am?”

“A flier,” he corrected himself.

Skydash bobbed her head, just once. “Ama say can.”

“Well, if your bearer is that scrappy little dirtbot, I figure she probably didn’t get much choice in the matter anyway.”

Skydash’s head perked over the other way, unable to parse the sentence.

Doing it again, RJ. “Not scared of heights, then?”

She shook her head. “Like fly. Day take.”

“Well, that makes a change. No-one else in your family seems to like it. Maybe there’s hope for you yet, Tiny.”

Skydash remained silent for a few moments longer, then tucked herself down into as small a bundle as she could, hands wrapped around her ankles and shoulders rounded, and shuffled forwards on her aft. “…when to see Ama, Arrgie?”

“Oh Primus please don’t start that again-”

“Unnolawp to take?”

He gave her a long stare. “What?”

She uncurled slightly, leaning forwards. “Unnolawp take, see Ama. Arrgie stay, is not bad with Meg’tron?”

Ramjet narrowed his optics at her, but patted her on the head, just once. “I’m not sure letting Skywarp take you home will keep me from getting in the slag with Megatron, but… thanks, I guess.”

-----

Skyfire had wandered in a murk of half-formed anxieties for what felt like a small eternity, unable to quite stop thinking long enough to get offline.

And when he did finally managed to switch off, someone woke him back up far too soon. A hand dropped onto his shoulder and jolted him awake.

“Thanks,” a deep voice rumbled, louder and a lot more confident than it had sounded in recent orns.

Skyfire took a second to recalibrate his optics and clear a little of the muzziness from his vision, and finally focused on a nice tall flask of high-grade on the table. “Oh!” He wiped his face with one hand, and picked up the flask with the other. “Thank you. This looks like just what I needed.”

Thundercracker drifted around to settle in one of the chairs opposite. Now the migraine had eased, he actually looked fairly alert, optics bright crimson again, armour back to his usual well-polished blue – not that weird dusty grey sickly hue he’d taken on in the last few orns. “No, thank you, for getting him to take some downtime.”

“You’re welcome.” Skyfire took a sip and a moment to savour it. He realised, somewhat belatedly, that Starscream had taken advantage of his downtime to disappear. “I don’t know if it worked so well. He would seem to have gone straight back to work.”

“Well, we knew that would happen. Hopefully he’ll have at least defragmented and decompressed a little.”

Skyfire reviewed what he knew. Perhaps Thundercracker was right? They had all got a few fragments of rest, at least. After somehow extracting Star from his lab without completely waking him up, he’d made it the dozen or so steps into the lounge before deciding he didn’t want to risk attempting to get upstairs, because the fractious seeker carried awkwardly in his arms definitely wouldn’t stay mostly-dormant that long. Instead, they’d settled on the couch, Starscream with his long legs stretched out across the shuttle’s lap.

Starscream had been quietly muttery for a little while, something about whether their plasma cutters would work underwater and how to not flood Nemesis in the process or would that actually work as a distraction but how would they approach without being seen and without flooding their own air-handling because he’d never actually tested this refit underwater… but Skyfire had mostly tuned it out, and eventually the words had faded into garbled nonsense, and finally silence.

Last he remembered was dozing, distractedly stroking the blue thrusters in his lap, audio receptors full of the subtle sound of an offline seeker’s fans purring.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint the time he himself had offlined, but it must have been fairly comprehensive because said thrusters had now vanished, without his noticing it. So had their owner. Great. Primus only knew what Star might have slunk off to do.

Thundercracker patted his shoulder. “I’m going to go and check on him.”

Skyfire took another indulgent sip of his high grade, and didn’t argue.

In the background, he heard: “Uh, Star. What is, uh. All… this?”

…Skyfire sighed to himself, and put the flask back down.

He peered over Thundercracker’s head to find a lab full of even more chaos than it had been when he’d finally extracted Starscream for an unwilling nap. Every previous experiment had been scooted rudely off the main bench and now sat in a muddle of mixed glassware on an overloaded trolley in the corner. The main workbench seemed to have been cleared solely to provide access to a large empty stretch of wall, against which dozens of holograms now projected, connected with hand-drawn squiggles, strings of glyphs and connecting lines.

“I’m reviewing my options,” Starscream explained, distractedly, mapping another line between the hovering images, then grasping whole handfuls of images and shuffling them around. “I’ve had plenty of experience in trying to beat him, but it’s not mattered so much before, has it. If I can see what didn’t work, I might be able to narrow down what will.” He glanced over at them. “…what?”

“Yooouuu… do realise… we’re trying to rescue the sparks, not… preparing for a full-on assault to kill Megatron. Right?” Thundercracker reminded, cautiously.

“As they might end up being one and the same, yes: I do realise.” Starscream didn’t even look away from his strings. “It’s called being prepared.”

Thundercracker shot Skyfire a look that was ever so slightly accusatory, and backed out of the doorway with a little beckoning flick of one hand.

The shuttle drew himself subtly straighter, objecting to the insinuation that he was somehow responsible, but followed him anyway.

“I just got over my migraine and I feel another coming on already.” The blue mech sagged into one of the big slouchy chairs in the atrium, and helped himself to Skyfire’s high grade. “So, do you want to update me on what’s been going on – apart from Star apparently losing the last few of his marbles…”

----

Down in the brig, it had been quiet for a while.

In his gloomy corner, Skywarp allowed himself to come back to life. Acting sad and scared had stopped being fun a while ago – for him and everyone else. Of course, a selection of former allies had paid sporadic visits, to taunt and jeer and try to goad him into a fight – not that he took a lot of goading – but the limited room to move in the cell had meant smashing the bolts out of each other wasn’t much fun. No-one seemed to want to incur the wrath of the boss by removing him to somewhere with more room to move, and risk letting him loose in the process.

The novelty quickly wore off. No-one had been down for a quarter-orn at least, now.

Now. To make his great escape. If he left it much longer, who knew what sort of half-smelted plan Starscream would hatch, and then it’d definitely all ride off into a Pit-coloured sunset.

He examined his cuffs; yep, definitely ones he knew how to get out of. Especially as no-one had bothered to confiscate his secret weapon…

Pulsar had, ah, ‘moulted’ an aerial after a particularly vigorous bit of ‘exercise’ one evening. It had rolled away down the side of the berth, where Skywarp had found it some time after she’d headed off to work, grumbling about having to visit the station medic again. He’d tucked it away into his subspace, for safekeeping, fully intending to give it back to her eventually (as the stirrer in a fancy energon cocktail, perhaps). A mech could never know when he’d need a vital component of someone else’s positioning complex, though, right?

He manipulated the slender silver stem very, very carefully between his denta, and lifted the cuffs to his mouth. Next to the controls was a small hole – not so much a reset to default as a failsafe in case the battery failed, but you needed a key. Or brute force applied in just the right way with something appropriately sharp.

The broken end of the aerial only just fitted through the gap. Frowning in concentration, he worked it across the mechanism of the lock, and after an instant-… He felt the loops around his wrists loosen in place. “Ha.” He triumphantly shook them off. “Let’s see what else you bunch of slaggers didn’t do right.”

He examined his arms. The small hatches protecting his weaponry had tiny spots of solder holding them closed. He picked at them with his fingertips, but getting the welds off would take time and effort he didn’t have to spare right now.

No matter. He could probably do without his cannons for a few breems, right? Provided he could teleport himself close enough, his fists were his best weapons anyway.

And at least his cannons were still attached. He could figure the logistics of safely getting them back online later. If worst came to the worst and he absolutely needed them, he could probably shoot them free.

He grimaced at the idea and resolved that he wouldn’t go trying that too soon.

Not to mention, it’d draw attention he really didn’t want. The whole plan involved no-one actually realising he’d snuck out. Knowing he couldn’t get out due to the subspace baffle on the cell, no-one usually bothered to check in on him. Conveniently, it also meant he essentially turned invisible, because the baffle also blocked his beacon from talking to Nemesis and telling it where he was. Getting in trouble in his old Deception days had once involved a protracted multiple-orn stay in the brig solely because everyone thought someone else had let him out and they collectively forgot he was even there. It was only when Thundercracker finally came looking for him they solved the mystery.

So unless they were actively sitting up there watching the live feed the whole time – and hopefully he’d made himself sufficiently boring that no-one would be – nothing else would be keeping watch on him. They’d assume by merit of the fact they couldn’t see his beacon, he was still nicely tucked up in the brig. Therefore, following on in that logic, if he unplugged his beacon and somehow got out, they’d not know anything about it.

That was the plan, anyway.

Unplugging the beacon was going to be the challenge.

Of course, he had conscious control over his positioning beacon; he could (and often did) turn it on and off at will. But turning it off didn’t guarantee no-one could see it – someone determined enough with a big enough sensor (like a scientist with a starship-sized antenna array) could still get an echo off it if they tried hard enough. He wasn’t precisely sure how it worked. Explaining slag like that was Screamer’s field.

No, the only guaranteed way he was going to disappear was if he unplugged it altogether. And that was gonna need something sharp. Of course his jailors had found and confiscated almost everything that looked remotely useful, but even Hook had missed the critical little tool Skywarp needed – a tissue knife, stolen from Starscream’s lab back home. (Having Coneheads in their patch had evidently upset his wingleader’s attention, because he’d been too busy trying to get everyone to help him scheme his way to a solution to spot the teleport as he sauntered through the door and rummaged through all the neat boxes of equipment.)

Tucked inside his armour, sandwiched between stabilisers and power regulators and held flat against the outer core of his heel turbine, the paper-thin blade was completely invisible if you weren’t looking for it. Skywarp unlatched the casing on the back of his thruster, and carefully lifted it out. It hadn’t suffered too badly – a little bent at one end, but it should still be able to cut.

Right, good. He flexed his fingers and drew in a long draught of cold air.

Right.

He could probably get away without having to unplug it though. He hurt enough already without adding to it prematurely.

Right?

No different to straightening a broken nose, you coward. Or popping a dislocated joint back into place. Primus knows you’ve done that enough times.

He knew where in his helm his beacon was located; same as all the policedorks with their spikey hairdos, on the right side of his helm near his audiovent. Deep enough to be safe from routine damage, surface enough to get a good signal out.

He’d never needed to unplug it before now, though. Where was Sepp when a mech needed her, huh. Grimacing in concentration and moving decisively before he could chicken out completely, he slipped the tiny blade down the seam and delicately worked it through the connectors.

“Aih-!” A tiny bright spark of pain that felt like it went all the way through his helm told him he’d succeeded. His diagnostics immediately protested that his beacon was unintentionally offline. “Ow. Ow, ow ow ow.” He sat and hissed to himself, clenching his fists, until his autorepair rerouted signals away from the damage and the pain faded.

He put his fingers up to his audio vent; they came away coated in a thin film of energon, glowing a sickly pink in the gloom. “Great. Leaking.” He glared at his fingers. “Like I need more obstacles.”

The instant he was out, he was going to have to make every last second count. If they caught him, slinking down corridors? Well, they wouldn’t make the same mistake of forgetting to watch over him again. He’d probably end up welded to the floor into the bargain. Leaving a trail of energon droplets was probably counterproductive.

He stood and stared at the bars for a very long time.

How in Pit was he going to do it? He’d not teleported without seeing where he was going for… well, almost his entire life. Right now, he couldn’t see into the quantum universe at all. It felt like he was enclosed in a pocket universe that went no further than the walls of the cell – like being tucked inside his own subspace. It was going to come down to physical measurements and triangulation. Doable, sure, but… without his quantum sense, it was gonna take a lot of brainpower.

Come on, mech. Brave, right? You have the biggest processor capacity of your trine; put it to work for a change.

The less he had to worry about moving, the better. If he knew where absolutely everything was without having to actively look at it, it’d take less brainpower. He offlined absolutely everything he possibly could – fans, pumps, microhydraulics. Then he went through and offlined every possible unnecessary subroutine he could find.

Every single erg of brainpower focused on every last atom of his structure.

Then he crossed his fingers, and stepped out through the bars.

#transformers #blue au #skywarp #starscream #ramjet #thundercracker #skyfire #sbm4 #remember me

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keaalu · 1 year

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Levels of bad?

Skywarp leaned down against the back of Thundercracker’s chair. "Now I'm not saying I have done anything like that," he said, cautiously. "But imagine that I had. Would that be, like... I'm-going-to-murder-you-now levels of unforgivably bad, or just... the usual, you're-Skywarp-therefore-it's-expected-of-you sort of bad?"

I will leave it up to the reader to figure out the context of this because I have no idea, haha.

(Even though I’m painfully slow with the real writing (yesiamstillworkingonmybigficsipromise), these guys still live up there. Occasionally stupid things like this fall out of my brain and I have nowhere obvious to put them. Perhaps I should collect them on Tumblr instead. *ponders*)

#skywarp #blue au

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keaalu · 1 year

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Remember Me, chapter 10

Title (chapter): Remember Me (10)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: a further miracle has happened, as Skywarp still isn’t dead! Amazing. Slipstream wishes he’d been let in on the plan, though, because seeing his sire also captured isn’t good on his mental health. Speaking of mental health, Starscream’s isn’t all that great, either.

------------------

…

You know, I think-

I think I might actually still be alive?

Consciousness tiptoed back to Skywarp with the usual flurry of damage alerts. He couldn’t quite put a finger on the point at which just being online segued into becoming aware of his surroundings, but he did immediately know that he didn’t actually hurt quite so much, any more. Small blessings. So long as no critical failure warnings blared in his helm, he was well practised at ignoring little spots of discomfort.

He brought his optics online to find Hook peering warily down on him, still holding the targeting grips of a low-intensity gamma scanner.

The crane’s expression tightened into one of vague disappointment. “Good of you to finally rejoin us.”

Skywarp grunted and shifted his shoulders. Thank Primus – the staples were gone. The pressure on his limbs – and by extension, his wings – had vanished. His wrists were cuffed again, but in front of him, this time. It didn’t precisely give him a lot more freedom of movement, but it was vaguely more comfortable. “Thanks for letting me, I guess?” His voice still had an annoyingly pathetic, watery quality to it from the shock delivered so close to his vocaliser.

“It’s not me you should be thanking.” Unwilling to remain in grabbing distance, Hook stepped back to watch while the Seeker shakily sat himself up and let his thrusters find the floor. “Much as I would have enjoyed being allowed to permanently offline an odious thug like you, Megatron has one more job for you.”

The teleport glanced at him from under hooded brows. “What kinda job.”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you, in time.”

“Great. I’m sure I can’t wait.” Skywarp pushed himself all the way up onto his feet, measuring his balance. He felt a little wobbly still, gyroscopes struggling to keep up, but he figured it coulda been worse, seeing as Primus only knew what Hook had been actually doing. And if he did end up falling down, he could probably take a lurking Conehead with him.

His chassis had picked up a new ache – that low abstract sort of pain of surface-damaged nanites. He gave himself a brief once-over; there were a few bright spots of luminous ink here and there, and laser-engraved lines etched into his enamel, but everything felt suspiciously normal. He gave the scanner a wary look and could see a small, overly-detailed wireframe of his model rotating slowly on a holographic plinth at the far side of the sickbay.

So that was what Hook had been up to – getting a good thorough look at the new schematics. Skywarp felt mildly violated by the idea the crane had been looking at his intimate bits, but successfully held back a shudder. He figured this was the closest the medic had ever got to a New Vosian, seeing as Seekers didn’t generally hang around on the mud ball, these days, and certainly not within grabbing distance of bored Constructicons.

And Hook had at least kind of repaired his shattered inspection glass, in the process, with a neatly-shaped piece of recycled metal, spotwelded carefully into place. Perhaps not perfect, but if it kept him from damaging anything under the crystal Megatron had smashed, Skywarp wasn’t about to complain.

Somewhat camouflaged among all the other dings and scrapes, the teleport noticed that someone had hacked an obscene glyph into his paintwork. Although it carried a variety of modifiers that cast judgement on his dubious heritage, his worthless family, and even the substandard quality of his build, it basically screamed

--Traitor!--

in unnecessarily large characters, gouging all the way through every layer of paint and polish to the ceramic layer of his armour. It spread almost halfway across his upper torso.

Looked like Thrust’s untidy handwriting. So not only graffiti’ed, but by a mech with no idea of penmanship either. Great.

Skywarp tightened his jaw, biting down on a snarl. Against his black exterior, the bright silver composite of his substructure glittered almost as brightly as if he’d had a neon sign implanted there. It’d take more than a bit of polishing to get that out. And he’d be walking around with a slur on his fuselage, for all to see, until such a time as he could get it filled.

Thrust stood smirking on the other side of the medical berth, and flicked his fingers in a goading come-on-then gesture.

“Oh really.” Skywarp arched a brow and leaned subtly towards him. “Fight me, says the mech hiding out of reach on the other side of the berth.”

Thrust advanced three steps before Hook decided he’d had quite enough, thank you.

“If you’re going to brawl, again, take it outside my sickbay.” The crane grabbed the closest wingtip and steered Skywarp into an about-face aggressive enough that he tripped over his own thrusters and fell onto Ramjet. “Perhaps you slack-jawed nimrods would like to finally take our guest down to his accommodation, so I can actually get back to work?”

---------------

Slipstream didn’t like the quiet, much.

Trapped down in the belly of the old warship, there was something oppressive about it; like the air itself had grown heavier. What were his jailors up to? He couldn’t help the persistent thought it meant someone was cooking up some new horror to spring upon him, and they didn’t want him to know about it until it was too late.

Not that he’d be able to do anything about it.

At least Dirge had got bored of using him as his personal punching bag, and was mostly leaving him in peace. (Slipstream accepted it could equally be that he’d been told if you kill the slagging hostages before we’re ready I will boot you out an airlock as well, you useless waste of good tin. But so long as Dirge stayed away? Slipstream didn’t really care why.)

Their routine had grown fairly stable. Someone, usually Ramjet, would deliver Skydash off to him and the two youngsters would sit quietly in the corner, huddled up, conserving energy and emotions. At some unpredictable, unspecified interval, someone – again usually Ramjet – would come back and take the sparkling away again, leaving Slipstream alone to worry what was happening to her.

To be fair, while the younger mech didn’t precisely like Ramjet, he felt a lot more comfortable about it when the white jet arrived to collect Skydash than he did seeing any of the others appear from around the corner. Compared to Dirge, Ramjet seemed overwhelmingly bored by the whole situation. Slipstream sort of almost trusted him not to do anything too hideous to her? After all, even though she was sad and subdued (and full of complaints about a bucket, of all things), Skydash didn’t seem completely traumatised by the situation.

Slipstream hadn’t quite figured out if he felt brave enough to talk to Ramjet about it, yet. If the mech was having second thoughts, he probably wouldn’t talk to an Autobot.

Not yet, anyway.

The sound of approaching chaos drew Slipstream’s attention. Raised voices, the clatter of heavy feet and clash of plating being crunched together. Someone was coming. No; multiple someones.

One of the voices was particularly familiar – and it wasn’t Dash.

Primus.

Alarmed, he rocked up onto his knees, automatically priming his systems in case he’d need to defend himself, just in time to watch an unnecessarily large group of Decepticons march Skywarp past.

It was obviously intended to be unnecessarily theatrical, if the number of ’Cons hustling him along was anything to go by. The exchange of insults by both parties was loud and particularly obscene. Skywarp looked like he’d taken a trip or two through the mill already, but it didn’t appear to be slowing him down.

None of that was what made the youngster’s spark sink, though. It was so subtle, Slipstream first thought it must be his damaged optic playing tricks, and had to replay his visual memory twice to be sure he wasn’t just seeing things:

Skywarp winked at him as he passed.

Actually winked.

So this was all part of some no doubt hastily-constructed terribly-thought-out plan.

Slipstream wasn’t sure if he felt better, or infinitely worse. He sagged back onto his aft, trying to process it.

Talking to Ramjet was going to have to wait.

Dirge hung back and watched the gathering of fellow Decepticons vanish around a corner. “We’re making a pretty nice little collection of you traitors, here,” he drawled. “Just a shame it’s all Skywarps, and no Screamers, yet.” He lounged one shoulder against the wall. “I guess we’ll just have to be patient for a while longer, right?”

“You don’t think he’s so stupid that he’ll come here alone.”

“Seeing as you guys have cornered the market in pure stupidity already?” Dirge shrugged. “Of course not. Or brave enough, for that matter. But if there’s one thing we can always count on the Screamer for, it’s that burning need to prove to everyone how he’s better than Megatron.” He made a noise like clearing his throat, and switched to a passable (if needlessly high-pitched) mimic of the red seeker’s voice; “And make sure everyone knows he is the one true leader of the Decepticons! Which is why he went and joined the Autobots.” He snickered at his own joke. “Point is, him and his bunch of useless deserters are gonna have to do something eventually. I mean, otherwise, someone’s gonna get bored enough to up the ante and start lopping bit off of you lot to post home.” The Conehead snrk-ed. “Maybe that’s your plan all along, huh? Escape us in pieces.”

Slipstream found an interesting bit of floor to focus on. It didn’t sound that much like a joke. “…I’m not sure that would be a very good idea.”

“Well, you should know. Bad ideas run in your family. I mean… case in point?” Dirge thumbed over his shoulder, in the direction Skywarp had been dragged away. He sighed. “Fine. I guess when we finally run out of use for you, we’ll maybe kill you first so as you don’t have to watch us smelt the rest of your family down. Or…” He twiddled a finger in a circular motion. “…whatever it is we gotta do to melt that weird slag you’re all made of these days.”

Slipstream managed a little thank you. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was thanking the Conehead for, but perhaps being submissive would continue to keep him out of trouble. Perhaps even long enough to find out what ill-conceived plan his sire had been working on.

Dirge’s lip curved in a small, amused sneer. “Still polite, huh. Nice to see you’re learning.” He spread his hands, and offered, generously; “Maybe we’ll be able to find a use for you once this slagfest is done, after all. I always wanted a footstool.”

Slipstream watched him go, and quietly resolved that however this ended, it wasn’t going to be as a footrest.

---------------

Skywarp recognised the pokey little cell they’d stopped in front of a lot more than he’d have liked. Intentionally, unpleasantly small – possibly not even double the width of his wings. Enough room to turn around, but not much else. And there was no light; all he’d get was what came in from the corridor, assuming they left it on. The only blessing was the wide front opening.

A crawling sense of unease had spread out to both wingtips. It wasn’t precisely gonna give him a lot of brain-space to work on his plan, not if he was going to have to simultaneously battle the cloying anxiety of being stuck in a little box. He put the brakes on in the doorway. “I think you guys are lost.”

“Naw.”

A big hand came down on the midpoint directly between his wings and delivered a shove.

The limited width of the cell left him no room to pull up out of the unanticipated dive. Skywarp jerked his hands up in an effort to save himself, but not fast enough – he felt his nose crunch against the wall and static shot through his vision. He sagged immediately to his knees with a half-swallowed curse of pain. Why was everyone so determined to flatten his poor face, today.

“We know you little plastic toys don’t do so well in confined spaces,” Blitzwing went on, accompanied by the low fitz of the front screen activating. “So we found you a nice, particularly confined space to overheat in. I figure you remember this place, right?”

Skywarp ignored the taunt. “Aren’t you gonna take these off?” He spread his cuffed hands.

“Ha ha! Don’t be stupid.” Blitzwing wiggled his fingers in a wave, backing up into the corridor. “Toodles.” He disappeared around the corner.

And all the lights went out.

Skywarp waited until the thump of heavy footsteps had faded away completely before venting a long, shaky sigh of hot air. He lowered himself to sit back on the floor. Say what you like about Grounders – it was really hard to fall off a floor.

Okay, Warp. This sucks some serious slag, but you’re alive, right? So let’s just… review the situation. You’re aboard. You’re still mostly functional. You know roughly (ok, very, very roughly) where the kids are. And, they didn’t leave you with a babysitter, so if you play this just right, no-one will know when you escape.

He snorted at himself, and rubbed his temples. Sure, Warp. You got the hard bit out of the way. Now you just gotta escape, find the kids, and get out, without being spotted or dying horribly in the process. Easy peasy.

At least his captors were unwittingly helping him along. The mini tour he’d been given already proved that actually? The Nemesis was pretty unchanged in spite of the vorns that had passed since he was last aboard.

This wing-pinchingly tiny cell, too – he had plenty of not-so-fond memories of being cooped up in here, and had never escaped on his own before. (He consoled himself that he’d just never had a blindingly good reason to. He could totally escape if he really wanted to.) A single highly-dented sheet of sickly purple alloy covered each of the three otherwise featureless walls, with the final side open to the corridor. Subtly crackling energon bars deterred any prisoner from getting too close, but the opening glowed faintly with a forcefield anyway. The annoying tingle of a subspace baffle blocked his view into the quantum universe.

He’d not expected it to be easy, and when couched in terms of spanners dropping into industrial turbines… this was only a little one. Right? If only he could free up enough brainpower to work out how to do it.

He examined his wrists; the cuffs were dented, but a very familiar design – he didn’t like to dwell too hard on the likely fate of the poor glitch they’d stolen them from, but his spark lifted, just a little. These useless fragheads had made a pretty standard mistake. Cuffs were only meant to be temporary restraints, and he’d learned how to hack pretty much all the police-issue ones back home. Thundercracker had said he was the station Houdini, whatever that meant. He could get out of these, no problem.

Dealing with the cuffs could wait at least a breem or two. He had absolute confidence that his former comrades would visit at least probably a hundred times to taunt him, and if he sprang himself free in the first few astro-seconds? They’d spot him and this whole project would be over before it started.

Plus, of course, he was still pretty well slagged, and in no condition to go anywhere until he recharged a little. Escaping was gonna have to wait until he felt a little less sore, humiliated and shaky. While he’d been running hot and scared, he’d not really noticed how depleted he was getting – but now he’d begun to cool, his self-repair had apparently woken up, and a variety of alerts bled static into his vision. “Ngh.”

He turned his attention to his health. His poor nose was a mess; Hook hadn’t even touched it, the sanctimonious glitch, let alone straightened it out for him, and the impact with the wall had compounded it. Using the fingers of one hand, he gingerly nudged it back in place, snarling at himself through the pain. Crystallised energon came away on his fingers, but it didn’t immediately start bleeding again. Small mercies.

Now to top up those depleted batteries. Unless they’d remodelled the place, there was a power cable accessible just under the wall, between the alloy panel and the more solid bulkhead behind. Everyone knew it, and everyone who’d been unfortunate enough to have to spend a few orns down here had used it. It wasn’t exactly high-voltage, but that little bit of clean electricity would get his aching systems topped up well enough.

Using both hands, he ripped up the edge of the panel and sure enough, a well-beaten, seriously-frayed power cable still ran along the floor behind it, held down only with a length of insulating tape and a handful of long-since-broken clips. “Ah, Primus. Thank you for never bothering to fix this, you lazy glitches.” The clips readily gave way to a little tug. Stripping the end, he held it against the charging port on the lower side of his torso until it accepted it, pulling it in, hardware automatically tweaking the bare ends of the wire so they’d fit comfortably.

Skywarp let his leaden hands fall back into his lap, and let all his motors unwind, melting quietly back into the wall, wings drooping with a little sigh of displaced air. It wasn’t completely totally overwhelmingly dark, and sitting down here, he had a decent view of his surroundings. The small, pinchy cell didn’t feel so overwhelmingly tiny.

Hold it together, Warp. You can hold it together. Just a little longer.

---------------

-he resting?-

Skyfire peered around the open door into Starscream’s lab. The interior was unlit, save for the viewscreen, which flooded the small room with harsh blue light and even harsher shadows. The room’s single occupant sat in front of it – upright, but perhaps only just.

Skyfire wanted to reply with honestly, you know him better than anyone, so what do you think, Thundercracker, but reasoned that it was probably as much a plea for him to persuade their wingleader to get some downtime as it was a genuine question. Wasn’t like anyone in the building could miss the stress still permeating every atom.

Instead, he just replied -don’t think so. see what i can do- and edged carefully into the room.

Starscream sat with his head propped on one hand, staring blankly at the screen. It was caught on the most recent footage Megatron had sent them – Warp taking an absolute slagging, pleading for his life in a puddle of his own essential fluids. Skyfire wasn’t sure what the scarlet mech thought he’d be able to glean from watching it, like this, over and over. Perhaps it was just helping him keep his focus. Perhaps he was just looking for reassurance that Skywarp was probably still alive.

“You’re not even processing anything, right now, Star,” Skyfire said, approaching cautiously with his hands wide. “Why don’t you come and get some rest.”

“Rest? Like Warp is no doubt getting right now? Huh. I don’t need to rest,” Starscream protested, the muzziness in his voice immediately betraying his confidence. He wiped his face with one hand. “I need to figure out how to get him out of there. Him, them. All of them.”

“You’ll be no use to anyone unless you get some downtime.” Skyfire reached over his head and turned the screen off. True to form, Starscream immediately protested, straightening and reaching for the screen – which was what Skyfire had wanted. He carefully caught both smaller hands in his much larger ones, and just held them until the seeker stopped squirming. “So I’m telling you: either you go offline by yourself, or I can sedate you.”

“That’s not even a choice, Skyfire.” Starscream jerked on his hands, but they may as well have been set in iron manacles. “This is too important. I’m not going to be drawn into your little insurrection.”

“Well, that’s good, because I wasn’t requesting an evaluation from you. I’m just telling you what to do.”

The jet muttered something unintelligibly poisonous but slumped back against him. “Fine. When Megatron comes here and kills us all, at least I’ll be awake enough to recognise what’s going on.”

In spite of the protests, Starscream was offline almost immediately. Typical. Skyfire reconsidered what he ought to do; moving away would topple his friend clean off his stool, but attempting to pick him up would probably just bump the fractious seeker awake again.

Thundercracker’s voice brushed his comm. -he resting?-

-finally- Skyfire smiled, sadly, and prepared for what could be a very long night spent standing up.

#transformers #blue au #skywarp #slipstream #starscream #skyfire

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keaalu · 1 year

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Remember Me, chapter 9

(Yeah OK these are all old and I’m just catching up posting…)

Title (chapter): Remember Me (09)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: a small miracle occurs, whereby Skywarp’s, um, “plan”… doesn’t instantly go to the smelter. (Perhaps he should have been suspicious that Megatron was up to something?) Pulsar goes to visit her sister in hospital.

------------------

OK, so. I probably could have planned this a little better, Skywarp accepted, reeling backwards from another blow and feeling the wall impact his battered wings.

To be fair, he’d always anticipated this might involve a slagging, somewhere along the line. Just… perhaps not quite so soon? With his ego swollen on his opinion of his own self-importance, he’d stupidly assumed that he’d be quietly locked up in the brig and that would be the end of it.

Megatron’s fists rapidly brought that ego crashing back down to dig a trench in the dirt.

Joking about having to scrape their wingleader up off the walls and ship him off to Hook, after the latest one-sided spat with the warlord left the scarlet jet noisily spewing obscenities and vowing revenge, suddenly didn't seem so funny, any more.

Broken, bleeding all over the floor, and feeling a whole lot more like he was in his wingleader’s former position as official punching bag than he’d have liked, Skywarp cowered away in a futile attempt to look suitably punished. He wasn’t sure he could have done much to protect himself, even if his hands had been free – attempting to fight back would have either made it worse, or much worse. Assuming he survived it, getting smashed into non-functional bits wouldn’t have helped anyone.

Taking a beating from his former leader was a necessary evil, he tried to reassure himself, supporting his weight against his wall and trying vainly to get his struggling fans to quieten down just a little.

A painful, damaging, humiliating, necessary evil.

Primus. I hope it’s only a beating.

Why did everyone need to stand around watching, anyway.

Skywarp struggled to keep track of the big warmech’s continued pacing around him. Alarm bubbled through every circuit – where was he, was another blow coming, where was he going to hit him next? No blows had landed for a good few seconds, did that mean worse was on the way? But the familiar pain of a broken nose throbbed through his helm, destabilising his already-overloaded senses. A non-crystallising sludge of energon and coolant dripped slowly from his chin, irritating the exposed components beneath his smashed canopy glass. A broken line in his cheek somewhere had totally fogged the back of one optic.

Megatron was saying something to him, Skywarp realised; the hard tones of a demand, almost impossible to pick out of the chaos of static, background noise, and jeering of his former allies. He struggled to retune his hearing, scrambling to offline or reroute some of the flood of unwanted data that left him almost blind.

Approaching footsteps made the decking tremble.

Slag. He’s coming over. Alarmed, Skywarp scrambled to push himself a little more upright, look a little more alert-

Focus began to return just in time for him to hear the familiar mosquito whine of a heating fusion cannon, coming very very close to his audios.

The stink of burning air filled his vents. Heat radiated onto his face.

Megatron’s tone was maddeningly reasonable. “Is your mind adequately refreshed?”

Frag.

This is it.

Catastrophic misjudgement.

Totally blindly misjudged it and Megatron was going to kill him, right there and then, and probably film it and send the footage back to Cybertron with whatever was left of his wings as a sample of what was coming their way.

For an instant – longer than an instant, actually – fear curled long, barbed tendrils around Skywarp’s spark and almost choked his voice off altogether. For a decent few seconds, he couldn’t quite remember how to work his vocaliser.

The radiant heat against the side of his helm felt like it might actually melt something.

He finally managed to squeak a feeble Yessir.

The mouth of the fusion cannon gave him an unfriendly shove of encouragement on the side of his helm, leaving behind a bright little spot of hot pain.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Would you like to repeat yourself, a little louder and more respectfully, so everyone can hear you?”

Skywarp swallowed his pride. “Yes, M-Mighty Megatron, sir!” From somewhere deep, he found the energy to shout the words. “I’m sorry. I-I was a fool to think I could challenge you-”

The jeers from the other assembled Decepticons increased in volume, but frag – that was all. It was just noise. He could deal with that.

“Well. No surprise there. You seem to have modelled yourself on your pathetic wingleader, of late, for reasons that completely elude me.”

Miraculously, with one final push that made Skywarp stagger down to one knee, the cannon drew back. The low thumps of Megatron’s departing feet made the decking tremble.

Staring at the filthy floor in a mixture of amazement and relief that he could actually still see it, Skywarp allowed himself the luxury of circulating cool air again. Even the sting of energon crackling across his shuddery fans didn’t feel so bad.

Megatron picked up a rag, ran it over his knuckles, and curled his lip at the dramatic strike of purple paint that clearly wasn’t going to just wipe away. “The precious dear has an appointment with the doctor. Don’t let him be late,” he instructed, turning towards the door, presumably in search of some proper cleaning instruments.

Skywarp watched him go, and sneered feebly at the disappearing back.

Primus. You really skated through this one by the shine on your skidplate.

Still puffed up from his earlier success, Dirge took the floor, voting himself in charge. “Yes, mighty Megatron! Your commands are safe with us.”

Skywarp clawed back the insult he could feel brewing, instead staying quietly down on one knee. The Conehead could grandstand as much as he liked; every fraction of an astrosecond he took to boast gave the teleport time to wrangle his flagging strength and emotions, scraping himself back into a vaguely Seeker-shaped mess.

The plan – such as it was – had gone to the smelter faster than he’d anticipated, but at least he wasn’t mortally wounded. Getting wing-deep in the slag these days usually just involved a serious I-expected-more-from-you,-Skywarp dressing-down from TC, so perhaps he had gone into this with his expectations unrealistically high.

He could feel Starscream’s I-told-you-so approaching from a million miles away, and winced.

“I can understand being too scared to fight back when you’re taking a slagging from the boss, but let’s see if he remembers how to fight his equals, after all these vorns.” Dirge mimed cracking his knuckles. “Someone go drag him out of that corner before he rusts into it.”

Taking a beating from Megatron might be a necessary evil… but taking one from Dirge definitely wasn’t. If they all thought they were going to ride along in Megatron’s wake, take advantage of the way the warlord had left him shocked and shaky, and that he’d just sit here and take it…?

Sure, he was scared – rightly so, he reassured himself – of Megatron. These overblown fragheads just made him angry.

Nursing the bright little pinpoint of rage forming a hotspot in his chassis, Skywarp quietly submitted to the manhandling, allowing Dirge’s wingmates to haul him back up onto his thrusters. The floor was slick with his own essential fluids; last thing he wanted was to skid over on it.

In the background, Blitzwing chuckled. “Aw, look how nice he’s behaving. Autobots clipped his claws very prettily for us.”

Dirge circled carefully back and forth, just past the shiny patch. “Well I figure he’s not had to fight more than a few librarians, lately. Right guys?”

A ripple of agreement followed him. The circle closed a little.

Skywarp kept his gaze low, as though suitably intimidated by the hostile crowd, and allowed his mass to slump backwards into the hands holding him, unexpectedly; softening his knees, allowing himself a little give in his back.

Thrust swore softly at being asked to suddenly support more mass. “Primus. Didja have to make the delicate little sparkling faint, dude? This stupid plastic look is still heavy-!” He shifted his grip, trying to find a better point to hang onto him.

The instant Skywarp felt his captors’ hands weaken, he took advantage of the flex he’d given himself, and swung his centre of mass forwards, then straightened his legs, propelling himself forwards like a rocket. A flurry of alarmed little exclamations came from his captors as he skipped free of their restraint-

Like a self-aware piledriver, he slammed the top of his helm into Dirge’s nose.

He felt rather than heard the crunch as components disintegrated in the force of the impact. Dirge flailed backwards and they both ended up sprawling on the deck.

A second of stunned silence passed.

Then the pain apparently kicked in.

The blue jet’s screaming obscenities were almost drowned out by the howls of laughter from his comrades. Dirge thrashed his way out from under his attacker and somehow lurched back to his feet without skidding straight back over on his aft, hands clamped over his face. Ugly pinkish grey oozed between his fingers and dripped onto his chassis.

Skywarp found the energy for a smirk, wrinkling his own battered nose for effect. “Hey, look, Duuh-rge. Now we match.”

Dirge made a little incoherent noise of rage, but couldn’t do much more than impotently stagger back and forth, clutching the injury. “You are going to get it, oh I swear. You. Are. Going. To. Get. It!” He looked like he was desperate to pile in with a kicking, but didn’t trust his balance. All the high-efficiency lubricant scattering down from his nose onto the deck around him didn’t help.

Skywarp made no effort to help either of the two mechs struggling to peel him back up off the deck. “Then how about you quit exercising your vocaliser and actually fight me, you enormous heat sink?”

“Slagging-… pitfragged-… slagmunch-!” Dirge swung a thruster in a kick, but skidded precariously before it could land and had to work on saving his dignity instead.

Ramjet sighed. “Nice. Make yourself look like even more of an idiot than normal, right, Dirge?”

“Well maybe if you deigned to actually help out?!” Dirge shrieked, spraying energon over the closest bystanders. “Useless babysitter-!”

Ramjet’s glare deepened, but instead of retort he steered them all towards the doorway. “Come on. Let’s get him down to Hook before he bleeds out entirely. You never know; the prissy glitch might even glue some of those dents up so there’s less slag coming out of him for us to slip over on.”

Spoke too soon. Blitzwing stepped in a puddle, and went down with an almighty crunch.

The echo – and the swearing – followed them down the corridor. Skywarp swallowed a smile.

Dirge took the lead, although it looked more out of a desire to get to the Infirmary and a decent supply of painkillers than a desire to actually follow Megatron’s orders, any more. Temporarily content at the chaos he’d wrought, Skywarp allowed himself to be marched along without argument, and quietly took in the route, cross-referencing his old maps. On the one hand, it was really helpful of these unsuspecting glitches to be giving him the grand tour.

On the other hand… he didn’t know precisely what Megatron meant by ‘appointment’ and didn’t really want to find out? Because the idea it was just for a few repairs didn’t really feel like it was the correct answer.

When they arrived, Dirge ignored everyone and went straight to the chiller for a pack to try and crystallise the lines under his smashed nose. Hook didn’t look particularly impressed at having a dripping Conehead sitting on his clean workbench, but the fight-me manner to the jet’s bearing dissuaded him from pushing the point.

Instead, Hook gestured to his table. “Let’s just get on, shall we?” He made no effort to hide the selection of tools on the tray alongside it.

…they didn’t look specifically threatening in and of themselves, but Skywarp felt a flush of fear draw icy fingers up the back of his helm. It felt rather like he was about to be vivisected, without the benefit of painkillers – or unconsciousness.

Alarmed, and not quite able to hold back the reflex that yelled at him to escape, Skywarp threw his weight upwards and backwards, relying on his two restraints as unwilling props to hold him up. It gave him just enough support and momentum to flash out both legs in a kick, using the sharp rim of his thrusters as a weapon.

The blow caught Hook in the face, hard enough to crack his optic crystal right the way across. He stumbled backwards into the trolley, sending tools cascading across the deck in a riotous cacophony.

While Hook cursed, momentum carried Skywarp backwards more heavily than he’d intended. Being unexpectedly asked to support the mass of a whole extra body toppled all three of them. The teleport landed on top of the heap, sending an electric jolt of pain through his damaged wings again, but unable to completely swallow the satisfied smirk at the groans from underneath.

Dirge peered out from under his pack. “Really, guys? Again? Now who’s the incompetent fragstick making us look bad?”

Hook’s limited supply of patience had apparently run out. “Any time you’re ready, you cretins. Get him on the table!”

It took the combined weight of all three Coneheads to finally pin Skywarp down on the table to Hook’s satisfaction. Solid metal staples slammed home around his limbs, then ratcheted tight enough to leave dents.

Skywarp clenched his fists and tightened his jaw in an effort to disguise a wince. His confidence that sure, he was gonna get out of this, intact and functional, was seriously starting to wane.

Hook looked down on him; nose slightly elevated, as though there were a source of noxious vapours hanging somewhere at chest level. “Even when I’m not tasked with putting them back together, they arrive on my table in pieces.” He picked a shard of broken crystal out of Skywarp’s chassis. “I suppose I’ll have to find something to repair this with, as well.”

“Can’t you just glue it?” Thrust wondered. “Maybe glue his mouth shut, while you’re at it.”

“I’ll glue yours if you don’t keep your thoughts to yourself. Why are you even still here?”

Thrust looked at his wingmates; Dirge had at least finally stopped bleeding, and was fussing quietly while Ramjet tried to work out if he could straighten his nose for him. “Boss’s orders, I guess?”

“Fine.” The crane didn’t look particularly satisfied, but let it slide. “Let’s see what Seekers are made of, these days.”

He dipped briefly out of Skywarp’s line of sight, but quickly reappeared as a spot of pain; the insect-bite scratch of a laser scalpel working its way carefully around the margins of one of his plates, on the midpoint of one wing. Skywarp grimaced in pain and flexed his fingers. Not the most easily accessible piece of the jet’s anatomy, if all Hook wanted was a sample, but it did at least feel like he wasn’t intentionally being cruel for the sake of it. He wielded his scalpel with precision, and in comparison with the slagging Skywarp had taken from Megatron? This was nothing.

Hook teased the section of plating away from its fascia, and carefully snipped through the web of connectors beneath. After a little noise of satisfaction, he turned away with it.

Skywarp listened to the receding steps, wary. Was that it? Couldn’t be it. If only he could see what the fragger was doing. A flurry of vaguely-familiar chirps and clicks reminded him of one of the big machines in Starscream’s huge lab back at work, so presumably Hook was doing some kind of scientific analysis.

Well, that wasn’t super helpful. Skywarp turned his attention to his pinions, wondering if he could wiggle any loose. It might be absolutely no use whatsoever, but having to lay here and wait was grating against his nerves.

Perhaps that was the point.

His mind's eye was already working overtime. Why did they need to know what he was made of? He didn’t even know what he was made of. What were they going to do to him once they figured it out? Design something to dissolve him? Ugh. Having something to do, something to focus on that wasn’t his own overactive imagination, was helping him retain that tiny kernel of calm.

Eventually Hook turned away from his analysis. “I have to give the Traitor a little credit,” he said, grudgingly. “This is a good composite. Tough. Light. Probably reduces the fuel-weight burden significantly.” His lip curled in a sneer. “A shame he chose to waste it on a motley flock of ignorant thugs. I suppose he didn’t have many options, given who chose to follow him.”

Skywarp matched stares with him. “So are you gonna let me up now?”

Hook acted like he hadn’t spoken. “I think we’re done keeping him conscious.” He flicked a hand at Thrust.

“Primus. About fraggin’ time.” Thrust bounced over, and grinned down at their prisoner, brandishing a weapon – palm-sized, with two sharp parallel tines emerging from the business end. “Night night, dude.”

Skywarp steeled himself for the unknown; the manacles gave him absolutely no give and no way to defend himself as Thrust dropped the weapon into the soft surface of his throat, punching the needles down through the polymer surface and cables and assorted skeletal structures.

After an instant where Skywarp was convinced Thrust was going to take his helm clean off… the barbs finally hit his main transmission column. A shock of electricity lit up every single circuit in his brain. After an instant where absolutely everything was blinding white, screaming high-pitched torment into his audio centre-

The world fell apart into pixels and he was out.

-------

Deixar General Hospital had a quiet, heavy atmosphere, Pulsar noticed, using her police access to slip in through the emergency department. As if a storm was brewing somewhere just over the horizon, and everyone was quietly waiting for it to break over them? She knew from personal experience that anything in the police gossip chain generally spread in short order to related services, but this was a whole different level. It was foolish to think the arrival of the Coneheads could have gone unnoticed by anyone in the small district.

When Pulsar finally got up onto the ward, it was to find Longbeam had already picked up her signal and was expectantly watching the doorway. Her sister immediately brightened at seeing her, finding a small smile and wiggling the fingers of her good hand in a little wave.

Pulsar crossed the ward to her sister’s corner. Of the three other berths, the one opposite was empty, and the machines occupying the other two were offline, recharging; awaiting parts, she imagined. Longbeam had a halfway decent view out over the city – and wasn’t close enough to the window to spoil it by seeing how far away from the ground they were, either. The sky was an innocuous, cloudless blue.

Longbeam leaned up towards her as she approached, stretching out her good hand for reassurance. “Vecks told me the little sparks are okay? Do-do you actually know? She’s not just saying it so I don’t overheat?”

“Hey,” Pulsar greeted, bumping cheeks and for a several seconds just holding her. “Vecks isn’t just saying it. Seem is a bit bashed around, but they’re both alive; we’ve seen them.”

Longbeam sagged against her with a little sound of relief. “Mercy.”

Pulsar stepped back a little. “How are you doing?”

“Well.” Longbeam vented a shaky sigh, then offered a lopsided, disgruntled frown, and spread her arms. “I’m still here, I guess? It was touch and go for a while when they took all that plastic off and I wouldn’t stop bleeding, but obviously they sorted that out. Now I’m just… here.”

Pulsar tried not to look too hard at the supportive shell her sibling sat in – not really a berth but a big opaque enclosure covered in blinking lights and monitors, designed to replace all the bodily functions her damaged frame couldn’t do for itself any more. It closed around her torso, just below her armpits, leaving her arms free. It… didn’t look particularly comfortable.

A flash of guilt drummed fingers over Pulsar’s antennae at the relief that she wouldn’t need to look at her sister’s catastrophic injuries. She swallowed the unease, and instead settled on the closest chair (which was far too big and mostly in the way, probably dragged in specifically for Vector). “Does it hurt?”

“No. They pumped me so full of virals, I can’t feel anything right now. Or move, really. Nothing under here works for itself, any more.” Longbeam patted her enclosure with her stump. “I’m not sure which is just me being broken, and which is the medics switching slag off? That flying pitglitch missed my magbottle by this much;” she held up her hand, thumb and forefinger so close Pulsar couldn’t even see the gap between them without zooming in, “so it probably makes sense? Survive getting shot by a ‘Con; kill yourself by moving funny.”

“Did they say how long they think you’ll be stuck in here?”

Longbeam blew out a long rattly sigh of stale exhaust and refused to meet her gaze. “Waiting for a new frame from the production facility. They say it’ll be a few more orns yet.”

Pulsar straightened, just a little. “A new frame?”

Longbeam muttered something poisonous and glared up at the ceiling. “They say I’ll need so many spare parts, it’s safer and easier just to rebottle my spark in a new body. I guess it makes sense. I’ll be in here for like, vorns, if they don’t, and when you think of all the time it’ll take, and… I’m a bike, anyway, right?” She snorted a sour laugh. “Not exactly an exotic frame. Almost an off-the-shelf model.”

“That’s a good thing, though, right? If it means you’re out of here quicker?”

Longbeam made a spirited effort to cover her face with both hands. “I’m gonna end up short, Pulse.”

Pulsar caught her good hand and held it for an instant. “I’m sure Vector will still love you even if you’re not all tall and bendy.”

“Yeah but I was, it was-… I liked being a bit different? Mighta been a factory fault, but I liked being tall-…” Longbeam swallowed the rest of the complaint, pursing her lips in an attempt to look a little less petulant. “So, uh. H-how’s Thundercracker…?”

“Aside from a migraine? Recharging while he gets a medical patch to take, I think. He and Celerity have been holed up in their room for a while, and I didn’t want to disturb them. I don’t think they really know how to deal with this, right now.”

“I figured. Vector’s a bit… spacey, as well.” Longbeam closed her fingers over the cleaned stump of her injured arm. “I don’t think she wants to talk about it. Maybe it’s a twins thing, I don’t know.” She finally met Pulsar’s gaze, and after a second of effort managed to get the words out in a whisper; “Thanks for coming.”

“I’m sorry it took so long.” Pulsar found her sister’s hand and interlaced their fingers. “Took me a while to stop running in circles. We’re still firefighting, mostly.”

“Ah, it’s no problem. I-I know you had things to deal with. And, and… Well, I’m here and I’m alive, right? So. Uh.”

It wasn’t just the injury – Longbeam just looked… drawn. Dusty and gaunt and very small. Pulsar didn’t remember seeing her like it before. She squeezed her fingers, gently. “Hey. You don’t have to tiptoe around what’s bothering you.”

Longbeam squeezed out a little noise that sounded like it was trying to be a laugh but came out more like a choke of pain. “Thought you guys weren’t gonna forgive me. A-and that’s why you hadn’t come yet. For-for… not being fast enough. Not spotting them before they were on top of us. Shoulda been paying more attention. It’s meant to be my job and I was too busy chatting to keep my attention on anything other than candy-”

“Hey, Beemer-! Stop that.”

Longbeam swallowed the rest of the sentence. She slipped her fingers free of her sibling’s hand and covered her face, and Pulsar realised her sister was shaking. “Primus. What a family to frag it up for.”

“You don’t think they’re gonna take it out on you-”

Longbeam gave a staticky laugh, but she didn’t sound amused. “Thought had crossed my mind, yeah. I-I mean.” She let her head bonk down against the wall behind her. “What if I’m what triggers this all to fall down again? Wars have started over less, and-and Primus, the little sparks are trapped with Megatron and I’m more scared about what might happen to me-”

Pulsar mostly fell out of the big chair, and gathered her sister against her in a hug. “Hey. You’re allowed to feel scared, all right? I mean, slag; I’m overthinking this all too. But someone not being able to stop a whole trine she didn’t see until they were right on top of her isn’t going to be what breaks us. Please stop punishing yourself over it.”

Longbeam shakily brought her arms up around her. “S-sorry. You get plenty of time alone with your thoughts in a place like this. ‘Specially since Vecks hasn’t really wanted to talk about it. Those guys aren’t so talkative either, haha.” She nodded to the dormant bodies on the other berths. “Guess I have been kinda chewing myself up over it all.”

“Look, I’m gonna have a word with Vecks, and the medics. All right? If all they’re going to do is give you a new frame, maybe you don’t need to be stuck up here with no company the whole time.” Pulsar glanced around the ward. “Where is Vector, anyway?”

“Nightsun dragged her away to refuel. She was down to vapours already. Be kinda embarrassing to have to get a surgeon in here just to carry her out if she ran dry, ‘cause there’s no way Nightsun woulda been able to pick her up.”

“Probably not a good time to say I brought you some candies.” Pulsar set a clear box full of sparkly cellophane-wrapped pink crystals on the table. “The idea was to cheer you up, buuut.” She shrugged, sheepishly. “I can get you something else if you’d rather.”

Longbeam snorted a more genuine laugh – the same brand of confectionery she’d stolen off Pulsar’s desk to share with Whitesides, before the Coneheads rocked up in their patch. “Thanks. Guess I’ll save them for when I actually have tanks again.” She nudged it with the back of her knuckles, thoughtfully. “You managed to keep Warp from eating them. Colour me impressed.”

Pulsar sighed and covered her face in both hands.

Longbeam’s optics tightened, fractionally. “What’s he done now?”

Pulsar groaned and let her helm bonk down on her sister’s berth. “Only flown off to singlehandedly take on Megatron to get the little sparks back.”

Longbeam hesitantly brushed a hand over Pulsar’s antennae. “…do I wanna ask how he is?”

“Still functioning. We think. Megatron sent us a video, which was… kind of him, I guess. I’m not really going to commit to much more than that, just yet.”

#transformers #blue au #skywarp #megatron #dirge #ramjet #pulsar #longbeam

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keaalu · 1 year

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Remember Me, chapter 8

Title (chapter): Remember Me (08)

Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU

Rating: PG-13

Notes: if/when her family get her back, Skydash is going to have a very interesting vocabulary.

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In Nemesis’ monitoring room, it had been quiet for a while. Ramjet wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. He wondered for an instant if the brat had actually died? Or vanished somehow – wouldn’t be the first sparkling with the annoying ability to walk through walls, after all.

Not sure he’d like what he’d find, it took a few moments to summon the desire to lift the databoard.

In the bottom of the bucket, Skydash was cuddled down into a ball, hugging her knees. Still alive, fortunately.

Ramjet waited an astro-second or two for a response before prompting: “Are you gonna behave if I let you out?”

Threads of frightened static emerged from the depths of the pail, but she didn’t respond otherwise.

The big jet vented a terse sigh, optics tightening, and glared down at her. “Fine. Stay in there then.”

Alarmed, the sparkling suddenly came to life – scrambling out and tipping the container over in her haste. “No bucket-!”

“Does this mean you’re gonna be good, now?” Ramjet hefted the pail in one hand, meaningfully.

“No bucket,” Skydash blurted out, scuttling backwards until her back impacted the side of the terminal. “No bucket!”

“I’m assuming that’s a yes.”

She disappeared into a small gap at floor level, still repeating the words like a mantra. “No bucket. No bucket.”

“...frag sake.” Ramjet covered his face with one hand and counted inwardly to ten thousand, before giving the slot a cursory examination. It was too low and awkwardly-angled for him to get much more than a hand into it, let alone grab for the runaway. Getting the sparkling back out would require a plasma cutter, unless she decided to emerge of her own volition.

Although by now she’d picked up a new noise that seemed to make every single last armour plate vibrate against its neighbour, and he didn’t want to get that much closer to it to be able to experiment.

Almost as bad as Dirge. “Am I being too complicated for you?” At least that horrendous siren-scream was still offline. “Come on, Tiny. Please. If you don’t quit making all that fragging noise, Megatron will come down here and silence the pair of us, permanently.”

“No bucket.”

“Fine.” He flipped the can over and propped his thruster against it. “No bucket. Are you gonna finally come out of there now?”

Little blue optics peeked out from the crevice into which their owner had wriggled. She gave a single questioning chirp.

Ramjet wondered briefly if he should attempt a grab, or if that’d just trigger more noise. Instead, carefully, slowly, trying not to spook her, he put out a hand.

Skydash inched closer to it, and stared at it for a very long time before finally climbing into his palm. He could feel her vibrating very subtly as he lifted her back up to the top of the terminal.

When he opened his fingers, she slithered limply off his hand like a rag doll, flopped out across the top of the terminal, and just lay there, unmoving.

Ramjet watched her, and pinched the bridge of his nose. A mixture of relief (because damn did the silence feel good) and concern (what new horror was the tiny brat cooking up?) washed over him in equal measures. “Yeah. That looks like a good plan.”

No new horror was forthcoming, though. Perhaps those tiny batteries were finally depleted? Her dim blue gaze slipped briefly sideways. “Sorry bite.”

Ramjet shrugged. “Eh, no big deal. Had lots worse than bites before.”

“Day say bite bad.”

“Figures that the master slaghead would be the one to teach his sparklings what’s good and bad.” Ramjet snorted. “He's probably right.”

She was silent for a few astroseconds, before adding, in a watery voice; “No bucket.”

“Sure. Whatever. No bucket.”

Peace reigned for a few breems. The sound that finally broke through the quiet was one of subtle movement – a little scuffly noise, as of someone trying not to draw attention to himself. Ramjet glanced behind to find Thrust lurking in the hallway, trying not to make it too obvious that he’d positioned himself within lunging distance of a strategic doorframe.

“So, Dirge said you smashed a mop over his helm and kicked him out,” Thrust said, warily, by way of greeting. “Is it safe for me to come in there?”

Ramjet’s expression flattened into a tired glare. “Well that all depends on why you’re here. If it’s just to heckle and make my life difficult? Then no, probably not.”

“Well, I’m meant to be on duty now, so I guess I’m here to relieve you? Buuut I can just go back to the galley if you’d rather, the Triples broke out some high grade and y’know.” Thrust jerked a thumb in a backwards point over his shoulder. “Ain’t gonna say no to that.”

Ramjet snorted, and stood up. “If anyone deserves the high-grade, it’s me. No way am I gonna stay here and let you scurry off to have fun while I do all the work.” He offered Skydash his palm and she climbed uneasily onto it.

Thrust slipped into the unoccupied chair. “You’re taking Tinybot with you?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go stash her with her bro, assuming Hook managed to get the kid to finally stop bleeding.” Ramjet let Skydash perch on his arm; she clung to it unsettlingly tightly, turning her face away from Thrust. “Why; you wanna look after her?”

Thrust actually leaned away, subtly. “No-ot especially?”

“Then there’s your answer. Good job.” He gave his wingmate a condescending pat on the helm; Thrust swung a half-sparked return fist at him but missed by several miles. “Besides, you’d only end up scaring her into running off. There’s plenty of derelict bits on this tin can and I’m not keen to go hunting through all of ‘em.”

“That’d make being on sparkling duty pretty easy, though.”

“For you, maybe. Personally? I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life tearing the ship apart looking for a friggin’ sparkling that you couldn’t even keep one optic on.”

“Yeah yeah, fine, whatever. Don’t go blow a fuse, Captain Overwound.” Thrust put his hands up in surrender. “Anyone would think you were worried about it.”

Why was he being so careful with it, anyway? Ramjet shooed the niggles away before speaking; “Just taking a sensible precaution. Don’t wanna think about what might happen to us if we go and break it.”

“Dude, seriously – why would it matter if we did?” Thrust turned to scowl up at his wingleader. “You’re not actually scared of that bunch of cowards back on Cybertron?”

“I… didn’t say that?”

“Megatron’s not gonna care, ’specially if it gets the Screamer over here quicker.” Thrust blew out a loud sigh and let his arms flop down. “Can’t believe you, sometimes. We’ve got the upper hand for a change and you’re assuming we’re gonna lose already.”

“Hate to remind you that losing is kind of a habit, for us? Even when we do have the advantage, someone will take time out to gloat, or work on their own little scheme in the background, and oh, will you look at that, it’s all gone to slag again.”

“Right, except the usual reason it all goes to slag is sat there on Cybertron, smirking at us from a distance.” Thrust’s voice descended briefly into unintelligible mutterings. “I just wanna see the traitor get a decent punch in his ugly face, all right?”

“And when we screw up because you’re too busy trying to punch him, then what? You think Megatron’s gonna pat you on the head and say ‘never mind, at least you tried your hardest’? Or d’you think he’s gonna maybe kick you into the closest smelter?”

Thrust sulkily pursed his lips and didn’t reply.

“If we have to go plead our case with those guys, I don’t wanna be shot on sight for breaking Tiny.” Ramjet tried to swallow the words but they mostly blurted out anyway: “I don’t know about you but I’m not feeling like the most happy, fulfilled little Seeker right now, having seen how nice home looks right now.”

“Well I’m sure happier than I would be playing beast of burden under Acid Trip’s command.” Thrust’s sneer chased him across the room. “When did you get so scared of a couple of ex-Cons, anyway?”

Ramjet paused in the doorway, and looked back to meet his wingmate’s glare. “They’re ex-Cons, right. Ex-Decepticons. Traitorous slaggers, granted, but we fought alongside ‘em long enough to know they’re not that woolly in the struts. Do you seriously trust them not to run you through a mill a few times when they get their claws in you?” He shrugged, one-handedly. “Three fit, healthy, well-built mechs with a whole army behind them. How long do you reckon we’d last?”

Thrust made a psssh sound. “An army of dirt-crawling non-warriors, sure, and even they’re not scared of that blowhard slaghead. Who, by the way, hasn’t had to fight anything ’cept his own spreading aft in vorns. So y’know. Whatever. Forgive me for not immediately lubricating myself in fear.”

The white jet sighed and covered his face with his hand. “You’re worse than Dirge. Do you seriously think that’s it? There’s a reason they let the Screamer keep his helm bolted to his wings, and it wasn’t ’cause they liked his voice when he asked nicely not to be executed.”

Thrust gave him the world’s most condescending long-suffering look, and it was only the idea it’d get the kid squalling all over again that squashed Ramjet’s urge to punch him in the faceplates.

“When all you have are your wingmates, and one’s dense as slag while the other couldn’t make a decision to save his spark? The Strutless Wonder was outnumbered,” Thrust explained, sounding like a teacher with the world’s dimmest pupil. “What other option did he have except squeal and beg for mercy, like he did every time with Megatron?” He directed his glare back onto the monitors. “…Sucks to find out my wingleader’s scared of a glitching slagmunch that even a bunch of dirtbots aren’t even afraid of any more.”

“Thrust.” Ramjet leaned his head against the doorframe, letting his free arm dangle. “Primus. I just wanna be able to go home, some day. My life right now revolves around mud, and you guys, and there’s only so much of either a mech can take without going completely barking. Right now I’ve had it about up to here with you guys, today.” He waved his hand in the air as far above his helm as he could reach. “So if you’ll excuse me…” He bowed, steeply. “There’s some high-grade with my name on it, and I think I actually deserve it.”

Thrust grunted a dismissive goodbye, and sat and stared at the monitors for all of ten astroseconds, before blowing a tired raspberry and letting his arms flop down at his sides. “This is such a fragging waste of time.” He rocked his chair back onto its rear legs and propped his thrusters on the bank of terminals in front. “What are we even meant to be monitoring for these days anyway.”

He directed his attention up at the ceiling and tried counting tiles to encourage his brain to cycle into a dormant state, to take away thoughts of the high-grade his wingleader had made him miss out on. But there were only a half dozen really big tiles up there and it didn’t take very long.

“You really suck sometimes, RJ.”

The chirping alarm became the unwanted topping on Thrust’s personal slag-pile. He covered his face with both hands and tried to ignore it, for a few seconds, but it felt particularly shrill. “Agh!” He used the rim of one thruster to deliver a sour-tempered stomp to the terminal’s speakers. “What’s a mech gotta do to get a few fragging breem’s peace and quiet around here, anyway!”

The kick jogged the terminal out of sleep mode, and a fast-moving blip showed up on one of the screens. Thrust eyed it uninterestedly for a second or two, then frowned and rocked his chair back onto all four legs, leaning closer for a better look. “Oh, hey. What are you?”

The blip didn’t seem to just be passing; it drew a series of wide, flat loops through the air above the sunken Nemesis.

Thrust toggled the display to a live satellite feed for a better look.

Skimming low over the ocean like a giant black alien albatross, drawing big circles and throwing up spray from his wingtips, broadcasting an array of threatening insults on as wide a frequency range as he could access, was a former comrade.

Thrust promptly lost all desire to nap. His lips widened in a smirk.

“Mighty Megatron, sir? We’ve got company…”

-------

Starscream looked nowhere near ready to back down, doubly infuriated by the chastisement by Skyfire, of all people, so when the communications terminal in the corner of the room chimed, it was only having Thundercracker sitting in the way that stopped him outright shooting it. He let loose a volley of inventive curses instead, stomping across the room and punching the accept call dialogue hard enough to break it in half. “What?”

The screen came online to reveal a single Autobot, sitting primly at his desk; Prowl. Nobody seemed willing to commit to a decision on whether the fact it was just Prowl was a good sign, or a very, very bad one.

Unfortunately, the Bot’s politely inscrutable half-smile made everyone fairly confident that Prowl himself wasn’t entirely sure that this conversation was going to be a good thing, either.

Starscream threw up his hands, and resumed pacing. “What do you want, Autobot.”

Almost anyone else would probably have stammered their way into an apology, but Prowl was far too habituated to the red Seeker’s histrionics, and didn’t so much as flicker. “Would you like to explain why Skywarp just came through the spacebridge?”

“No.” Starscream folded his arms and lifted his chin, just a little. “Was that everything? Because we’re quite busy here.”

“Allow me to rephrase, as you seem to think I’m giving you an option. Why did Skywarp just come through the spacebridge?”

“Changing the way you ask the question doesn’t change my answer.”

One brow came up. “Am I to assume he’s flying solo for some reason?”

“Assume what you like. I have far better things to be doing right now than stand here talking to the likes of you-”

“To what end, Starscream?” Seeing the blue palm descending onto one of the buttons, Prowl hastily added; “Do I have to come and confront you in person so you can’t switch me off?”

A microsecond away from ending the call, Starscream caught himself with his fingers hovering just above the broken control panel. “It’s none of your concern! We have precious little time as it is without you wasting it all for us-”

“Then explain why your wingmate has just flown back to your former base! Reassure me you aren’t about to follow him!”

“Just tell him, mech. Primus!” Thundercracker snarled, feebly, from underneath his icepack. “They’re meant to be our allies, now. And we need all the damn help we can get.”

Starscream gestured grandly at the terminal with a swoop of one arm. “There’s a difference between being an ally, and expecting to be privy to all our private trauma-!”

“It’s hardly private if they’ve already spotted him, is it. And I’m pretty sure we can trust Prowl not to let the entire Autobot army get themselves involved until we invite them to be.”

A flicker of blue and white in the periphery of his vision caught Starscream’s attention. He turned just in time to focus on Celerity as she stepped up close enough for their static fields to mesh uncomfortably together. Before he could react, the giant lifted a hand and firmly pressed a big finger to his lips; so startled by the unexpected invasion of his space, Starscream actually just complied.

“Please,” she said, faintly. “Keep them in the loop. Just this once. Just until we have our family back.”

Starscream backed out of range, visibly puffing up, wings flaring. “We don’t need-”

“We do need. Please. Even if it’s just for them to keep us informed. They’ve already proved they can see what’s going on better than we can.” Celerity drew in a long draught of cold air and folded her hands together, straining to keep her self-control squeezed between them. “If you let our tiny ones get hurt because you’re too proud to accept Autobot help…”

They were all looking at him, now.

“Fine! Fine.” Starscream jerked his arms folded across his chassis, huffily. “So long as Prowl gets to the point sometime this Vorn.”

Prowl’s expression flattened into an unimpressed glare. “I see why Thundercracker handles most of the calls to Earth, now,” he drawled. “Fine. Let me use short words. When an ex-Con arrives unannounced through the spacebridge, fails to respond to greeting hails or transmit his own, and flies directly towards the site of his former base, concerns are immediately raised. Even you should understand the rationale behind that.”

“You don’t seriously think he’s defected”

“It’s a reasonable assumption to make. He always was the most loyal of the three of you.”

Starscream’s optics tightened. “It’s funny that you notice Skywarp come through, within mere breems of him slipping away from our attention, but don’t notice three fully armed Coneheads making a return trip, with hostages.”

Prowl sat quietly for a while, his gaze slipping to one side to check a display screen just out of view. When he spoke again, it was with an anxious, measured quiet; “I’d not been made aware of that.”

“Well, consider it a favour. Perhaps Red should spend less time spying on us, and more time upholding your end of our agreement. Now perhaps you understand our urgency to figure out what to do?” Starscream resumed pacing.

Prowl let the professional mask slip, just a little, swallowing a sigh and resting his chin on his laced fingers. “What can we do to help?”

“Stay out of our way. We’ve already been pushed off-balance. I don’t need the added stress of wondering what a bunch of overzealous Autobots are going to leap in and do.”

“Slipstream is one of us, remember? He has plenty of friends here who’d be willing to help you if they knew he was in danger.”

“That’s the whole point.” Starscream ground the words out from between gritted teeth. “Warp may be renowned for his lack of brains but you’re not short on idiots either, over there. It’s halfway to the Pit already. It’ll turn into outright war if Prime’s Merry band of Morons decide to try and leap to the rescue.”

One eyebrow crept up, ever so slightly. “Well. I’ll do my best, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to keep our ‘merry morons’ from taking it upon themselves to defy you if they find out.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Starscream flapped his hands, exasperated. “Just… give me a heads-up when Warp starts back. If he starts back. I don’t know.”

“Of course. We’ll keep you informed if anything else meaningful happens.”

The instant the call ended, Starscream plonked down next to Pulsar on the couch, smarting, features compressed in a glare, almost bouncing her into him. The bike hastily scooted herself back into the furthest corner, leaning away but unwilling to relinquish her spot.

Starscream gave Thundercracker a loaded glance. “That icepack looks really good, right now.”

Thundercracker found a tiny smile from somewhere. “You can have my icepack when you prise it from my dead grey fingers.”

After much gentle cajoling from Celerity, the blue Seeker finally acquiesced and allowed himself to be led away to his room, to defragment and let the medical patch finally take.

...leaving just Starscream and Pulsar in the lounge. For almost a whole breem, they studiously ignored each other. The sour feeling of stressed electric fields saturated the entire building; even the potted maple had pulled in on itself, folding its leaves into staticky needles.

Finally – unexpectedly – Starscream broke the silence. “Sorry.”

Pulsar glanced up at him. “…what?”

The bigger mech rearranged his folded arms and glared off into a corner. “I don’t have a lot of people I consider friends, so it matters when they seem intent on inadvertently killing themselves. Taking it out on you was probably counterproductive.”

“Uhm, apology accepted.” She felt a little lost for words and for an instant nothing would come. She rebooted her vocaliser. “For the record, I don’t particularly like Skywarp’s idea.”

He snorted a curt laugh. “That wasn’t difficult to work out for myself. You didn’t even try to call it a plan, this time.” He finally glanced down at her. A little of the overt sneer had gone from his expression. “When we eventually get him back, you can punch him first,” he offered.

“That’s… rather generous of you.”

Starscream curled his lip. “There might not be much left worth punching if I get to him before you do.”

She smiled back, although her denta showed through a fraction and it looked somewhat like a snarl. “You’re assuming there’s going to be much left when I’m done with him. I’m pretty persistent, for a small bot.”

“Touché,” he accepted. “Let’s just hope we get him back in one piece, then. It’ll be very unsatisfying so find someone walloped him first.”

The silence drew out between them.

“I have to kill him,” Starscream said, quietly. “Megatron. And I’m not sure how.” He studied his fingers. “You’d think all those millions of vorns of failure would have given me a few ideas on what might not be a total disaster.” When Pulsar didn’t reply, he found a sour smile. “Still surprises me a little when I’m seriously discussing killing someone, and even a committed pacifist Autobot doesn’t argue about it.”

Pulsar looked back, unflinching. “Surprises me a little that we’re discussing the only way to stop the greatest threat our world has ever seen, and you think I’ll argue against it.”

-------

Megatron heard them approaching long before the origin of the infernal noise appeared in his throne room. He settled more comfortably in his seat to watch as his loyalists half-marched half-carried their new prisoner through the doorway.

The teleport was definitely making them work for their prize – fractionally smaller than the warlord remembered, with lighter armour and a sleeker build, but no less spirited, and definitely no less violent. It took four mechs to control him; everyone was equally covered in black and purple scuffs of paint already.

For almost half a breem, Megatron just studied their new prisoner, chin propped on one hand.

Skywarp glared back, optics blazing, no hint of fear in his bearing. He glowed with the faint purple nimbus of personal shields, making him difficult to keep a good grip on – almost slippery. His cuffed wrists kept his arms pinned at his sides, but he leaned forwards in the restraining hands, like a prizewinning terrier waiting to be released into a dogfight.

A few vorns of being allowed to fly solo had filled the mech with undeserved confidence. It was obviously going to be necessary to remind him why anyone with half a brain still feared him.

Of course, Megatron noted, not everyone in the room actually possessed half a brain.

Finally the old warmech straightened, drawing himself up to loom more effectively over the small assembly. “Skywarp. Good to finally see you again,” he drawled. “Rumours of your untimely death were obviously somewhat exaggerated.”

Skywarp wasn’t interested in pleasantries. “Where are they?”

Megatron shrugged one shoulder. “Somewhere safe. While I decide what to do with them. What value they may provide. Although I won’t make the same mistake of allowing them to live, seeing what a noble little Autobot you allowed your offspring to turn into.”

Skywarp made a strangled little noise of fury and struggled briefly in the retraining hands, almost succeeding at jerking himself free.

Thrust kicked him in the back of one leg and took him heavily down to his knees. A little ripple of jeers followed him down.

“And where is your pathetic excuse for a wingleader, I wonder. Trying to sneak up on us with force, no doubt. With his, ah.” Megatron chuckled. “Army.

Skywarp glowered up at him, darkly. “I punched him in the head and locked him in a box because I didn’t trust him not to come after you, Megatron. He’s a liability.”

The warlord actually laughed out loud at that. “I would be more inclined to say you coming here on your own was the liability. Now I only have to wait for two more idiots to come and join the party.”

“You better hope they don’t come here. I came alone to give you the opportunity to end this peacefully, Megatron.” Skywarp used his best ‘official’ voice. “You know who we are. You know what we can do. Release my family, and it won’t go any further.”

“I remember a bunch of cowardly, poorly-organised thugs who couldn’t have co-ordinated their way out of a wet paper sack if you gave them directions.” The warlord smirked. “Yes, Skywarp, I know you very well. And I don’t think I’ll be running from you in terror just yet.” He leaned down, just close enough for the trapped Seeker to hear the low throb of the big generators in his broad chassis. “Perhaps I need to remind you why you all followed me so loyally for all those vorns…”

#transformers #blue au #starscream #skywarp #megatron #Ramjet #skydash #pulsar

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