A winged grey mech slipped through an inconspicuous side door, nodding his thanks to the artist standing beside him. Through the door he escaped the clamor and festivities taking place in the cool night air into the unmoving silence of the gallery. Rows of statues loomed above him, larger than life, but it was the first row that caught his optic.
The statues were to be revealed the next decaorn, in a monument to the leaders who lost their lives in order to preserve the last of their race and give it a chance to regain its former glory. Bluestreak stood staring in aw. The detail was impeccable, they looked like they could come to life at any moment.
He had assisted Sunstreaker with the gathering of basic resources and the building of the base, but he and Sideswipe had been unceremoniously booted from the golden twin's workplace when the actual sculpting began.
Bluestreak's gaze traveled along the rows of gleaming metal. Optimus Prime, perfectly centered towered over the others on a raised pedestal with Elita One at his side. Closest to Bluestreak stood Ironhide, Chromia, and Ratchet, their optics looking down at the viewer as if the statues were apologizing for not being able to prevent the deaths of countless cybertronians. A golden wall stretched carved with ornate glyphs stretched behind them, a memorial to all those lost in the war. His hands traced the placards at their feet that displayed their name, rank and achievements, but also information that had been deemed trivial to the historians that the remaining ark inhabitants, including himself, had fought hard to include.
Little things such as Ironhide's favorite earth song, or the story of how Ratchet had, miraculously, assisted the twins in one of their pranks also graced the metal plates. It served to remind the population that would soon come in throngs to the memorial that all of these bots were not just the heroes, Bluestreak scoffed at the word, but bots who loved and laughed and lost with everyone else.
He forced himself to tear his optics from the statues closest to him and looked at the bots on the other side of Elita. Their conveniently matching black and white paint stood out in stark contrast with the grey metal of the memorial building, and a blue visor and golden optics gazed blankly at the entrance. Prowl and Jazz, the second and third in command of the Autobot faction. His creators.
Bluestreak moved slowly towards the placks at the base of the statues. He knew what was on them, he had assisted the historians in writing them and been there as Jazz had approved of them. The sabatoir had added his own parts with a laugh at how funny it was that he was writing his own memorial.
His spark twinged at the thought of when the words would bring. His entire life he had been known at large as Prowl's younger brother, and that had brought him enough attention much less now that the truth was going to be known.
No one alive besides a select few former autobots knew the truth, and the citizens of the rebuild plant would soon be in an uproar. Bluestreak paused, his creators truly had been adept at keeping his origins and their own relationship a secret from the universe at large.
Jazz and Prowl had met on a mission back when they were the heads of the Polyhexian and Praxian enforcers respectively. It was far from love at first sight, or so he had been told by a laughing Jazz. The two had been completely at odds from the moment they met. Prowl's calm and calculating demeanor clashed with Jazz's outgoing and just plain /loud/ one.
For vorns, they had argued whenever their branches had to work together. Despite the seeming battleground the chosen headquarters seemed to become, the two lead the most effective divisions in all of Cybertron and if the head of whatever city had a mass murderer or terrorist running rampant could handle a bit of arguing, well then they were the first outside help called. After all, they were formidable on their own, but as a team their success rate nearly doubled.
This had happened for nearly a decavorn before the stubborn enforcers had realized, after they finally got to know each other, that they really had many common interests and that their differences complimented each other rather then clashed. Chromedome, who had been a high ranking officer and been Prowl's close friend, had once grumbled that it had taken him, Smokescreen and a long dead femme named Hopper who had been Jazz's second in command at the time, nearly a vorn after that of not-so-subtle hints and leaving them alone in awkward situations to finally get the two together.
At Prowl's ten thousand vorn sparking day when only the bots close to the small family remained after the official celebrations were long over, his creators along with Ratchet, had, slightly drunkinly, recounted early days of the war. Namely, the early days in Bluestreak's creation.
The couple had been trying for a sparkling in the early days of the war, but after that seemingly failed they stopped once it looked as if the war would be drawn out much longer then expected. After an infiltration-gone-wrong Jazz had been in for a routine repair and check up by Ratchet, when the medic's scanners had picked up a slight change in spark energy levels, which was usually the first sign of a major virus or systems breakdown. He ordered Jazz to allow his spark to be examined, fearing that the Decepticons had successfully implanted a virus after all but was shocked to see a small, almost unnoticeable, growth on the edge. A sparkling, still too weak to separate.
The resulting yelling had apparently made Wheeljack knock over his current experiment at the time, blowing yet another hole in the side of his lab. Jazz was promptly removed from active duity and placed on medical leave, and Ratchet had spent joors lecturing the couple. He /had/ to know of all of the spark bonded couples in the army, much less on the command team to keep his medical information up to date. If one of a pair died, he had to know so he could attempt to save the other from automatically deactivating. While unlikely, some chance was better than none.
After the spark had matured enough to be transferred to his sparkling frame, Jazz took a 'vacation' to Praxus to see a 'specialist in frame repair' and the operation was preformed there. The newly sparked Bluestreak had been sent to live with his sire's brother, Smokescreen, where the public story was he was the younger brother of Smokescreen and Prowl who had been sparked just before their creators died. This gave Prowl and excuse to visit and visit more often than his schedule should have allowed.
Bluestreak himself had grown up partially resenting the situation. His sparkling mind had been unable to process the reasons behind his creator's actions, he only knew he was left with a bot he barely had a bond with and his creators rarely came, not that he could complain out loud.
From before he even got his vocal upgrade he was reminded to never, ever mention his creators. If anyone asked, they were dead and he lived with the older brother Smokey.
His youngling years past by in a blur of resentment, deception, and middle-of-the-recharge-cycle visits. Then came the fall of Praxus.
He was quickly ferried out of the dying city and brought to the Autobot headquarters in Iacon. At long last he would be with his creators! If only that was the way it worked. Even right beside them he could never hint that Jazz was more than his commanding officer, and Prowl was more than his usually distant older brother.
That was the way it had remained up until their deaths; that was the way it would remain up until today. Bluestreak laughed bitterly to himself. It hadn't been safe to publicly admit the truth, not until everyone was dead.
A sharp bang on the door and the following gruff voice nocked the former gunner out of his thoughts. "Time to go. The news bots will be here soon, no need to start gossip before they bother to read the biographies."
This made Bluestreak crack a slight smile. "More that the famous artist back from the dead creating an Autobot memorial? Come on Sunny, do anyone's opinions really matter anymore I mean they're going to talk anyways and you know I'm hiding out with you and Sides until it calms down a bit 'cause with all the publicity this is getting and the bios coming out you know the reporters will be following Smokey and I around they don't care Jazz just died." He gave a small grimace at his glitch acting up again but followed the mech out of the back door again.
After the building was far behind them they approached a small shop, no spoken words need to know where they were going. The two mechs ignored the 'Blaster's is closed' sign on the blacked out front door. Light and music pored out onto the street, only to be cut off as they slipped inside. "You made it!" A sightly overcharged red and yellow mech called and steered them over to the bar, shoving high grade cubes with the Autobot symbol into their hands.
Bluestreak relaxed his door wings as he sat alongside his former shipmates at the bar, while others partied behind them. This was their own privet party, their way to honor the dead and celebrate the living away from the prying eyes of those who would never understand. No matter what happened in the next few orns, the former Ark mechs would always be there.
The gunner looked to his companions to his left and to his right as he sipped his energon, and he cracked his first true smile in almost a vorn. Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to turn out all right.
Wow, this has been my slowly-updating project for the last few months, so I hope you all enjoyed it. This was originally intended to be a one shot in the G1/IDW 'verse, however while I was writing it, as you can probably tell, my muse got away with me when it came to developing the prior events in this story.
So on that note, other stories in this universe will be written, and I have a prequel in works.
Anyways,
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it!