Transformers: Prime – Mutuality
General Disclaimer: Transformers: Prime and all related characters does not belong to me in any way, shape or form. Their use in the following fan fiction is meant for entertainment purposes only.
Associate Disclaimer: This story is a tribute sequel to, and inspired by, the story "Deja Vu" by the author Foxbear. If and when this story is posted it will only be done with Foxbear's explicit awareness and permission.
Enjoy – BMillsWrites
Rafael Esquivel walked along the sidewalk of a now-familiar neighborhood in Jasper, Nevada early on a Saturday morning that was actually much brighter than the boy's mood. The young genius knew he should be taking the time to enjoy this walk. Just walking around in the open like this was something he, Miko and Jack didn't do a lot of anymore. It was easily too dangerous for providing the Decepticons with vulnerable targets to be used mercilessly against the trio's Autobot friends. Raf's current awareness of that vulnerability was first underscored for him as the personified collateral damage when Megatron shot Bumblebee with Dark Energon. Now the all-too-recent accidental groundbridge detour to pre-war Cybertron with Jack drove it home. As bitterly as the youngster hated the reality of it, he was the most vulnerable member of Team Prime.
Raf wasn't worried about any immediate 'Con danger, not with Bumblebee in vehicle mode trailing his broad daylight walk through a residential area – just far enough away not to look weird. The Autobot scout had been dismayed – a huge understatement – when Raf declined the usual Saturday morning ride to the Base, and then would not accept a ride to the place he was going now. 'Bee almost never took an authoritarian tone in his guardianship of Raf, but he came very close to doing so before the boy permitted following him like this, and they both understood that 'Bee would have followed in any event. The young Esquivel sighed. Even though he had assured his guardian about feeling well, it was extremely likely that 'Bee had alerted the Base to their non-arrival, and his alternate destination. The boy probably owed it to Optimus Prime that Ratchet did not snatch him up with a bridge in mid-stride. OK, so be it if all of Team Prime knew where he was and had the person he was going to see expecting him. That didn't mean they had to know why until what needed to be done got done. Most people thought that being a child genius was knowing the neat stuff kids weren't really supposed to get about numbers, words, theories, and such. But genius also pushed you toward intellectual maturity. One Jack Darby had suffered physically in obvious obligation to protect one Rafael Esquivel on Cybertron. Therefore restitution was now in order to the Darby family at personal cost to Rafael Esquivel. In truth, the undersized boy ached thinking just how big time the personal cost he had chosen to offer up was to him. That's where the intellectual maturity had to kick in. He could not take no for an answer in this matter, because a man has to do what a man has to do – even when the man in question is just twelve-and-a-quarter years old.
The pre-teen reached and assessed the Darby house. The garage door was conspicuously open. The absence of Arcee in motorcycle form, and the presence of Mrs. Darby's car were just as conspicuous. Raf knew he and Miko now had standing invitations to knock on the garage door for entry straight into the kitchen whenever Jack's Mom was home. Instead, the boy resolutely climbed the steps of the outside slab porch to knock on the front door. As the door swung open, he tried to firmly lift his bespectacled gaze to meet responsibility eye to eye.
June Darby greeted the youth on her doorstep with an intentionally disarming smile. Years of triage nursing allowed her to make detailed physical assessments of people while putting them at ease. She assessed Rafael Esquivel in a glance – it was professionally automatic – a fact he accepted as he stood before her. Here, as usual, Raf wore oversized clothes in intellectually buttoned-up layers. It wasn't that he tried to camouflage his injuries. June Darby would bet anything that this boy had even told his parents the truth about his recent bruises, cuts, and lesser burns – so far as the truth involved their bookish youngster "keeping up" with the "adventures" of his older friends Jack and Miko. Mr. and Mrs. Esquivel seemed to tolerate these hazards with a "good-try-Rafael attitude", probably a hold-over of bearing Raf up through a bullied boyhood. The kid also obviously needed more and better sleep – a good six to eight hours of medicated bed rest right now still wouldn't hurt, judging from the look of him. The weight loss was less noticeable, thank goodness. After all, there wasn't so much of Raf to begin with that he could stand losing much. In the little that Jack had told her about surviving Cybertron, he'd said that he'd made sure that Raf got the majority – and the general purpose of Rafael Esquivel's morning visit dawned on June Darby, filling her with new concern for the tense young boy who lacked his trademark half-smile. "Hello Rafael. What brings you …" The nurse saw the boy heave a brief sigh, and she dropped the engaging pretense. "... Look, we both know that Ratchet called me as soon as Bumblebee told him you were coming over here, so we could talk out here on the porch, but my living room is more comfortable."
"Inside is good Mrs. Darby, probably better," Raf agreed, "I won't stay long, I promise."
She wanted to knit a scrutinizing eyebrow when he said that, but held off on such a classic Mom expression, and managed a simple, "Oh, OK Raf." Still, as she gently rested a hand on his shoulder guiding him through the doorway, June felt him tensely cringe under her touch. Raf wasn't just nervous, he was afraid – afraid of her. Reminding herself to avoid the juvenile milk-and-cookies cliché, she tried offering some mind-easing hospitality, "Can I get you a soda? You know, a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches wouldn't take too long either. Contrary to Jack's opinion, I can cook those, so how about it?"
Raf's response was completely unexpected, "Stop it, Mrs. Darby. Please, just stop it, OK?"
"I don't understand Rafael," and the true confusion in the woman's voice was evident, "Stop what?"
The boy hesitated for a moment, but his round face set with the determination to finally say it, "Stop trying to be nice to me, I don't deserve it – not after Cybertron – not after I got Jack hurt so bad."
The nurse was beginning to wish she'd attended more of the offered sessions on child psychology during her recent continuing education seminars. If she completely dismissed Raf's sense of guilt as imaginary, he could do something a lot more drastic to assert it. On the other hand, how could she possibly let him hate himself like this? June silently realized that poor Raf had already prosecuted himself and delivered a guilty verdict. Now he was turning himself in to her, the sentencing judge, for punishment. That gave her one chance – make him restate the case. He needed to have his say, and get his remorse out in the open, but getting what he deserved because of what happened to Jack – and to him – was going to be very different than he thought. "I see," Mrs. Darby noted, hoping for more of a so-that's-it than a is-that-so tone. "I have to think about what to do about that, now that you've told me."
"I know," Raf admitted, "I brought pictures of my remote control cars – all of them – over on my laptop for you to look at. You … you can sell them for restitution."
"I'll take a look them later," June blurted. The boy probably mistook the speed of her response for annoyed anger. It was actually heartbreaking realization of the merciless penalty Rafael suggested for himself. Second only to his laptop, the RC cars were Raf's prized possessions and the "hobby" he now shared with Bumblebee had apparently been the shy boy's chosen refuge from loneliness before meeting the Autobots. Thinking quickly, the woman positioned a winged-back chair for herself at one end of her living room's coffee table. "Your cars are one idea Rafael, but I'm going to need answers to some important questions before I decide if they are what I want. This situation calls for a hearing right now. Pull that chair with the arm rests over to face mine across the table here. You're probably going to be here for a while now, so go ahead and park your backpack over on the couch. Is all that clear, Rafael?"
Raf nodded, acknowledging that Mrs. Darby was totally in charge, "Yes ma'am."
"Good," June's real eagerness was to get beyond the motivating ruse of being stern with Raf. "Then let's get started." When they were both seated as Mrs. Darby directed, Raf's face took on a uniquely pitiable "Principal's Office" worried expression, though June was sure his visits to the inner realm of academic authority rarely involved disciplining him. She just knew from experience that if she stared long enough, expecting him to start talking, he would. Here, it was really important that Raf begin this process himself.
Quietly he did, "I'm sorry about Jack getting hurt like he did Mrs. Darby. I know saying that can't be enough and if I can do more than my cars to make things better just name it, but I really am so sorry."
June honestly wondered, "Why not just settle this between you and Jack?"
Raf gripped the arms of his seat with urgency "I've wanted to and I tried a couple of times, but when I try to apologize he tells me to stop it and that never lets me offer him anything to compensate. It just made sense to come to you next because you're the head of the household."
She needed him to open up about his determined sense of responsibility for the harm done to Jack. "Rafael, do you know what it means to be negligent, I mean in the legal sense of being found or determined negligent?"
"Kind of," Raf admitted. Prodigies were expected to handle advanced concepts, even if they were outside a favorite specialty. That didn't mean he was always eager to discuss his non-tech knowledge. "It's something like failing a duty to care about something or someone in ways you should have done better."
"I'll make just one adjustment to that," Mrs. Darby noted evenly. She quelled the urge to smile because he'd provided a perfect set-up for her, "I'd say that the negligent fail their duty to care in what they should have done because they actually could have done better at the time. That's what I'll go by in considering what you did."
The adult's last sentence was enough to keep Raf from over-thinking his response, "Yes ma'am," he submitted again.
"You admit that you not only should have but that you could have done better on Cybertron, and Jack would've been safer?" June asked.
He paled and noticeably braced himself against the back of the chair. "I could have at least done as much to physically protect myself as Jack actually did, and really – because there were two of us – I should have done as much to protect him as he did to protect me, and I could have because I was there, but I didn't. I was negligent Mrs. Darby, I know I was. That's why I'm trying to make things better now." The youngster nodded slightly after he spoke to affirm his statement, and did not not look up from it.
June Darby recognized the small boy's self-expectation of matching physical heroics with the same, but there was no way she could legitimize it as reasonable, and she wasn't going to let Raf plague himself that way anymore either. She had to play this turn the right way if it was going to snap his thinking like she hoped. "So, you were negligent because you could have instantly aged to be as old as Jack when you got to Cybertron, and didn't?"
Rafael's head finally tilted upward toward eye contact, angled in pondering. He blinked in objecting surprise, "Well, no I couldn't have done that – but …"
"… Then you must have been negligent because you could have instantly grown to be Jack's height, and didn't." The nurse pressed on immediately.
"Mrs. Darby, you're making this confusing. I couldn't do that either …" Raf realized.
She added one last item to the absurd litany to shake him. "Fine, then you were negligent because you could have instantly added to your muscular weight to match Jack's physical strength, and didn't."
"You know I couldn't do that Mrs. Darby, I couldn't have done any of those things. That's not …" Raf didn't know how to take the woman's unusual tactic, and assumed she was working up to override normal adult politeness so she could properly vent anger at him. "I'm just making you mad. I'll leave my backpack here for the day so you can look at those pictures, and I printed off information on some good dealers too," he stood up from his chair, "I'll let 'Bee drive me to the Base now and come to pick up my stuff on the way home tonight. I-I'm sorry Mrs. Darby."
Much to the pre-teen's alarm, June Darby stood up just as quickly and blocked any chance he had of getting to – much less out of – her front door. "Rafael Esquivel, do you think I'll be any less mad if you just leave? You're not getting past me. You came here to admit responsibility for Jack's injuries on Cybertron, but you couldn't suddenly age, or grow, or get stronger, so try again Raf. How did you fail to care for Jack in a way that you really could have?"
He shuddered and turned away from her. Raf was sure she already knew how he'd really failed, she was just making him say it, "I wasn't as smart as I know I should have and could have been on Cybertron." Bitter self-sarcasm crept into the boy's voice, "I fell for a cutesy trap and got us both caught. Then, because I was younger, smaller and weaker I-I was used to make Jack fight. But, my stupid mistake made Jack do more than just fight." The twelve year-old gulped as stinging tears gave him no quarter, "I made him do … it."
Maternal concern for both boys begged tense questions from June Darby, "Do what Raf? It what?"
He still could not turn to face her, but she saw the narrow shoulders jolt protectively up to brace the back of Raf's head against shock. A moment later they sagged and his gaze fell shamefully lower to the floor. "Jack's going to be so mad that I told you. He had to … to offline some kind of little Cybertronian drone Mrs. Darby." Raf sobbed painfully, "That means Jack killed it! He didn't want to kill anything, maybe not even to save himself. I was Jack's reason to kill, that's the worst thing I did to him. Nothing will ever make up for doing that to Jack, but please take something from me because …" A firm cross-handed grip on his arms before he could finish deliberately spun him into the gaze of Jack's Mom – it was the only way Raf could think of her at the moment, "... I'm sorry!" The young tech whiz had a distressingly wide range of experience with being on the receiving end of juvenile cruelty. Raf flinched beween June Darby's passive hands on his sleeves, unreasonably, but instinctively preparing for harsher contact. The woman's arms only encircled the boy in an intense hug that he was not prepared for at all. "Don't feel sorry for me Mrs. Darby! I-I mean how can you? Not now that you know what Jack had to do … what I made him do to save me."
June held onto Raf in spite of his rigid posture. "Truthfully Rafael, Jack hasn't told me exactly what he had to do to get through that Pit fighting experience, but he hasn't had to. When a mother is afraid for her child, her mind naturally goes to the worst-case scenario, and I don't have to understand much about Cybertron to suppose that the Pit was fight-to-the-death sport there. You aren't breaking any secret with Jack. I guessed the truth and Optimus confirmed it. Yes, Jack still hasn't talked to me about it, and he doesn't want to talk to me about it. That's why I asked Optimus to talk to him. I know Jack didn't want to harm anyone or anything, or go through anything like the Pit at all. Of course no mother wants her child to be forced into making decisions like that, and I'm not entirely thrilled with the direction Jack sees for his future in his processing of what happened. But Raf, Jack is recovering from Cybertron – from everything that happened on Cybertron – so Jack's getting the support he needs. The real problem here is that you aren't getting that same support. Jack may not want to talk about what happened here at home with me, but at least he can if he wants to. You can't really open up to talk all about it with your family, and you need to let it out to someone at least, Raf – because it happened to you too, not just Jack."
"N-no way!" Raf insisted, defending – as strange as it seemed to need to – Jack to Mrs. Darby. "Jack was the hero. He was my hero, especially after we got stolen from Hunter … Optimus. I got chained up to a wall and Jack even had to bring me what they called food for us because I couldn't reach it. Nobody needs to talk to me. I-I mean what is there to say?" The boy mocked himself angrily, "Good job being chained up, Raf. … Nice job being hungry, scared, and a total tool for making Jack a deadly fighter. Jack fought, Jack kept us both alive long enough to be rescued. All I could do to be any less of a burden on Jack there was listen." Raf didn't struggle against her. He didn't come here to be coddled, but it wasn't in him to wrestle away from her either. Why wouldn't she just let go of him?
"This is still my hearing Raf." June reminded firmly. "You listened to help Jack understand what he was up against, didn't you? You recognized the older form of Cybertronian enough to do that. Don't forget that I've seen the way you hang out with both Jack and Miko at the Base. You listen to them, letting them vent all their older teenage angst or schemes just like any quiet little brother would at home. When they brought Jack back from his fight … you were there to listen to him if he wanted to talk about it – or are you going to tell me I'm wrong about all that?"
Raf's jaw quivered as he tried to form only the most necessary words from his oncoming memories, "He didn't talk, he didn't want to, but I knew anyway because of the shock collars they made us wear. They set our collars to the same controls. If Jack got shocked, so did I. If he failed we'd both be electrocuted – shocked to death! Sure, I sat there and listened to anything I could, because it was the only way I could not think about being fried all of a sudden. I got a couple of jolts while Jack was gone, and I was so afraid for the both of us. When he was brought back he knew what he had done, and he knew that I knew it too. I-I begged Jack to stay next to me then, hoping that being together could somehow make it less horrible. He was ashamed Mrs. Darby, and he didn't deserve to be. I was even more ashamed of myself than that, though I had no right to compare, I-it was my fault! It was all my fault!" He broke down in full-blown crying and trembling.
"No!" June declared forcefully. She jostled him by his shoulders back to arm's length ever-so-slightly, as if waking his focus from a nightmare. "Rafael Esquivel, since you want me to take something, I'm taking those words about what happened in the Pit on Cybertron away from you! That was not your fault, and you are not to say that it was, ever again, you hear me, Raf?"
"But it – …," Raf started, then stopped as he watched the what-did-I just-tell-you look on her face. The nurse took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She did it again, making it an obvious recommendation for Rafael to follow suit. He complied as she prompted him through a few repetitions. The boy's trembles subsided and he stepped back a little to dig a balled handkerchief from a hip pocket. June watched as Raf made wiping off his glasses much more for her than necessary in order to justify wiping his eyes dry as a last step in the process to re-establish the frames in place. When his handkerchief was stuffed back in pocket, Raf took one more deep breath and spoke with quiet embarrassment, "Thanks, Mrs. Darby."
She gently swatted the awkwardness between them away with a that-was-no-big-deal wave of her hand. "It's alright Raf, and the more you can talk about what happened the more alright you're going to be. So …" June put a guiding arm around the young genius' shoulders and turned with him, sweeping Rafael back to his "witness chair", motioning him to sit down again. "Do you feel safe enough here with me to confront the way you boys were both mistreated on Cybertron?"
"I'm safe, I know I am," he offered, though Raf knew that his articulation of the fact was still far from convincing. That's partly why it was taking him so long to get to sleep recently. "Confronting gets tricky for me Mrs. Darby. See, I'm pretty good at confronting logical situations – pointing out reasons, and options, and necessary processes – all that kind of stuff. When I was a prisoner with Jack I wanted to think through a solution. I tried and tried, but I was so afraid and my fear just swallowed every idea I had. There was no reason to do any of that stuff to us, so it was irrational. That's super hard to deal with – much less confront it."
June listened while she returned to her own seat as a sign of giving him the space of his own say so. She turned to comment before sitting down, "Raf, being scared as a prisoner in a death match setting was the normal, instinctive human reaction. Factor in giant alien robots, on their world, and being practically stranded in time away from home and safety – scared shouldn't even begin to describe it – any normal person would've been terrified! I think you felt that way, you had every right to be, and you internalized it as weakness compared to Jack. Then you came up with your own rationale for being in that position – you've blamed and gotten angry at yourself. That's keeping you from getting angry at the Cybertronians who kidnapped both of you. I want you to vent your anger the right way – at them – right now."
Rafael hesitantly puzzled over the nurse's prompting, wanting and needing to feel the correct and justified emotional release, but intellectually geared to mitigate for an advanced alien race of robotic beings. "I don't know if getting mad about it does any good now Mrs. Darby. The time travel involved means it all relatively happened a long time ago, and who knows whatever happened to the Cybertronians running that fighting, right? Jack and I were so out of place, and so many odds were against us that I guess I accepted falling into the dark side of Cybertronian culture some way as inevitable."
"Being technologically appreciative and culturally sensitive isn't going to cut it Rafael," she told him with a serious, narrowing gaze. "Their being technologically advanced didn't give those Cybertronians less of an obligation to treat both you and Jack as intelligent, living beings. If anything that technology gave them more of one. Instead they were beyond cruel – barbaric even. It happening well back in Cybertron's past doesn't change the fact that you two feel you recently endured that cruelty. That's what you need to let loose about here, so I'll ask you directly. How do you feel about them – those Cybertronians?"
For a moment Raf stared steadily into June Darby's eyes. She realized he was analyzing the opportunity she was giving him with a level of adult seriousness she'd never seen from him before. He probably wasn't even aware of suddenly being that intense, and June didn't let it unnerve her. Just as suddenly the youngster's expression gentled into a look the nurse got daily from people of all ages: vulnerable uncertainty looking for someone to confide with in trust. "Please don't let any of the Autobots know what I'm about to tell you, OK, Mrs. Darby? – especially not Optimus or Ratchet."
She answered deliberately, "I won't tell anyone else at all Rafael, you have my word about that. You might tell them for yourself – that is, if and when you find how doing that could be part of what it takes to handle the way you're feeling now."
"I don't know if I can do that ever, Mrs. Darby," Raf admitted, "The truth is that right now part of me hates them, and I don't just mean the Cybertronians who kidnapped us or even the Decepticons, I mean … I mean all Cybertronians – Optimus … Ratchet … even 'Bee. That can't be right Mrs. Darby. 'Bee's become the best friend I could ever ask for. Ratchet still plays at being a grump for appearances sake, but he's helped me learn so many things, and I know he's proud that I'm learning from him. Optimus Prime is a hero precisely because he cares so much about protecting everyone else. I really don't understand how I can feel mad at them just because they're Cybertronians – but I do. That hurts worse right now than anything that's happened to me physically. Do you know enough about mental health to tell me how badly I'm losing it Mrs. Darby?"
June fully shifted toward counseling, "Let's go through it step by step, and I'll try to help you process your feelings. Here's the thing though – you have got to let those feelings out, so don't think up any excuses or take on anymore blame about what happened. Now, take your time to reflect on it. Tell me why you're mad at Bumblebee, generally as a Cybertronian?"
The nurse saw that just mentioning the young Autobot's name brought out the boy's thin half smile, but as Raf focused on June's question the happy look faded into a bothered expression. Rafael nodded to himself abut something specific and unpleasant. When he shared it, the words were quiet and dry. "Remember when Jack and I got back, and we got the chance to tell everybody some of the good things about being on old Cybertron … like seeing the sunset there?
Mrs. Darby nodded, "Yes, Raf, That was the one time it felt like all the Autobots wished they could've been with you two for more than just protective reasons."
"Right, and that's the thing, Mrs. Darby. 'Bee was all excited thinking about how great seeing Cybertron in its 'glory days' had to be, and at first it felt OK because at least it seemed like one good thing we could bring back to share. Since then, though, the more I think about it the more it bothers me. How can my Cybertronian friends admire the best days of Cybertron's past when it accepted forcing helpless organics to fight in Pit matches?" Raf continued and his emotions intensified each sentence in turn, "I mean, come on! even before knowing any details of what happened to us it had to be obvious that we were in pretty bad shape when we got back – especially Jack. We'd been through something bad, but once everybody found out it happened on old Cybertron Arcee, Bulkhead, and 'Bee still wished they could've been there to see it. I resent that, especially from 'Bee because he is my best friend!"
The boy caught his breath in seething pants, alarmed to realize for himself just how loud he was – how angry he was. There was more color in his face than June Darby had ever seen, and she wasn't about to let him lose it. "Don't stop Rafael, just let it out. What are you feeling about Ratchet?"
Raf thought through his answer, charged feelings still behind it. "Ratchet forgot." A cold disdain edged the normally amiable youngster's conclusion. "A little while ago, I'd asked how 'Bee lost his voice – his speaking one anyway – and Ratchet knew all about it. He didn't say so, but I think Ratchet was the field medic that kept 'Bee alive, even though he couldn't save his voicebox. Maybe that's why he remembers it that well. My point is, Ratchet remembers it and so many other things that he's told me about – but he didn't remember ever seeing me or Jack before we discovered the Autobots were here in Jasper. He didn't remember us from Cybertron, or that he fouled up a bridge experiment there. I feel like something should have reminded him that Jack + Rafael + bridging = be careful, but nothing did. I know it's unfair. It's like thousands of years later, and we'd been through the groundbridge lots of times with no problems, but I'm just really mad that Ratchet forgot!"
She saw that the boy was close to breaking again. Talking about Bumblebee had forced him to face a feeling of displacing betrayal from the Autobot scout. Adding in Ratchet further twisted Raf's pained look with a sense of discounted importance. The nurse knew who came next. Rafael knew it too, and his tween-becoming-teen pride notwithstanding, he managed a look that invited her to say what she had to. Mrs. Darby obliged, "Now for Optimus Prime."
The prodigy nodded, "The thing that upsets me most about Optimus Prime is that he wasn't Optimus Prime when we met him on Cybertron. I don't even know if he was the way I imagined Orion Pax being. I just thought of him as Hunter the whole time we were there. Hunter was a nice Bot, the nicest one to us – and we wouldn't have made it without him – but even Hunter didn't treat us like equal lifeforms, not at first anyway, he treated us like pets. He took us to that vet's office, and let us be marked with the nanobots. Even though Ratchet has managed to make the markings dormant, those nanobots are still inside us. I think Hunter finally knew we weren't pets when he rescued us from the Pit. From then on, everything he did was about sending us home. If he'd only stayed Hunter in my mind I'd think of him as a well-meaning friend who had the wrong idea of us until it was almost too late. When we found out that Hunter was really Orion Pax, and he became Optimus Prime I was so … disappointed. Optimus – the way we know him here – has always treated human beings like persons, equal to and probably greater than the value of his own life. When I found out that he'd been Hunter, or Hunter would be him; well you know what I mean, I feel Jack and I could've been home a lot sooner and safer if he had always valued organic life like Optimus does now! Rafael felt every bit of his anger when he finished and he tried fighting it down in silence. He gulped in shuddering breaths while his eyebrows knitted fiercely around closed, teary eyes behind his glasses. The boy was trying not to cry again.
"I know you love Bumblebee Raf, you appreciate Ratchet, and admire Optimus." June comforted, "Now you know your negative feelings about them have been hurting you down deep, but admitting those feelings was obviously painful too. There's no shame in …"
"Yes there is!" Rafael insisted sharply, "Feeling that way makes me want something from them that they shouldn't have to give me because they don't deserve my anger at them … so I can't really have what I want from them because it's not right that I want it in the first place. Me, the little kid genius is stupidly irrational … wanting something that he knows he has no right to." Raf's tears streamed all the more, and he yanked his glasses down off of his face to rake his sleeve across his cheeks and eyes.
June Darby stood up and pulled a couple of facial tissues from a box on hand at one of her end tables, but she drew attention to a question as she walked them over to the boy, "What is it that you want from the Autobots, Raf?"
He didn't want to say it, and he didn't want to play games about what she already knew as she approached him, "You know, Mrs. Darby."
"I'm sure I do, but say it anyway Rafael," She coaxed as she bent down to him with the tissues. She thought about dabbing at his eyes for him, but simply handed him one in turn for his eyes, then the other to wipe his glasses. Raf re-mounted the eyewear and handed the balled tissues back into Mrs. Darby's waiting palm. She smiled to see him take a couple deep, calming breaths on his own as she turned and walked away to discard the tissues in a well-camouflaged wastebasket. "You've come this far Raf. You need to say it. Don't focus on wanting it, just focus on wanting to say it, then say it."
"I want … an apology." Raf finally admitted, "I want them to apologize to me for what happened on Cybertron … but that's ridiculous. They don't have anything real to apologize for about what happened – if I asked them for one I'd be selfish and wrong … and they'd be so upset and offended that I'd lose them as friends. I can't have what I want from them, and rationally I shouldn't even want it. I've been trying to just tough out the fact that none of the Autobots need to apologize to me, but I haven't been any good at that."
The nurse nodded frankly, "That's because, irrational as it may be, you really do want that apology and you really don't want to 'tough out' not getting it – so you blamed yourself and made apologetically seeking punishment into a substitute for wanting an apology."
Raf Esquivel sighed, conclusively frustrated, "See Mrs. Darby, it's … unthinkable." He meant it with all the intellectual disdain he could muster. Needing an apology from his Autobot friends was not worthy of thought.
"Rafael, what if Optimus, and Ratchet, and 'Bee all felt the need to apologize to you about what you went through on Cybertron – only worrying if you'd accept the gesture from them on behalf of their planet or not? What would you think about asking for that apology in that case?"
"Do … do you really think they would … I mean would they want me to ask that?" The woman's suggestion boggled the boy's genius mind, and the hope in it made every word out of his mouth brighter than the last. Still, he picked up on her framing the possibility as an opportunity to help the Autobots too. "If apologizing to me is something they need, then I think I can … I think I should … talk to them about – everything we've talked about."
June Darby brought her palm down decisively on the arm of her winged-back chair. "So ordered! Rafael Esquivel, my hearing determines that I do not want your remote control cars as compensation for injuries to my son Jack Darby on the planet Cybertron. I'll agree that you were negligent Raf, but only in letting yourself believe that Jack's physical advantages made him braver or more successful in both of you surviving than you were. Jack was just as negligent for putting you up against language that he wasn't capable of helping you overcome. The negligence was mutual, so the restitution should be mutual as well. Normally, I would just say they cancel out – but I have a better idea than that, Raf."
Rafael meant to tease with his reply, and tried to get over the fact that his still higher-pitched voice became melodic in doing so. "You almost sounded like Miko saying that Mrs. Darby." But the sly look on the woman's face turned the boy's chuckle to a gulp. "What's your … better idea?"
"Oh Raf, I think you know that the Mikos of the world are easy compared to Moms – and that's my idea. Rafael Esquivel, I am going to find you guilty of a lesser included charge, the on-going endangerment of a minor, the minor in question being yourself. I find that you have violated the Darby family code of sensibility that way. However, that is concurrent to Jack Darby's violation of putting too much pressure on you. So here's what we're going to do. I'm assigning Jack Darby's sentence to myself. From now on, when you are away from your family and in my presence for any Autobot-related reason whatsoever, I will act in the place of your parents to keep you out of harm's way. That's Jack's penalty – now he has to share me with you as a "Base Mom". Your sentence, Rafael Esquivel, is that you have to let me do that.
For a moment Raf couldn't say anything in response, but he tilted his head and looked up into the eyes of the caring nurse. His eyes pondered the proposed "imposition" behind the heavy frame of his lenses. The boy decided with a big heave of relieved tension, then nodded. "I thought that was already happening, Mrs. Darby, at least from the moment you made me get in your car to try take me to the hospital for Dark Energon poisoning, though we came closer to winding up in Oz that day. Anyway, if doing that will make me right with you and Jack again, and you officially want that job – because sometimes I'm not as easy as I probably look – then I accept the sentence. I think I can take it. … Uhm, when did you want that to start … and how long am I in for?"
June Darby smiled, offering the seated boy her hand as if to shake on the deal, but she used the clasp to pull him up on to his feet and into a sudden hug. "I was thinking along the lines of life – with good behavior, Raf. As far as starting goes, we start right now." She released him from the hug, then picked up his backpack without handing it over to him before saying, "I've got this and I'll get my purse, then we'll be going."
"Going?" the young Esquivel wondered, "Going where?"
"First of all," Nurse Darby explained, "outside to let Bumblebee know that I'll be driving you to the Base myself, after I take you to lunch at KO Burger. Their open air dining area will be perfect for us with today's nice weather. I'm sure Jack won't mind taking his lunch break with us."
Raf benignly suggested an objection, "Mrs. Darby, I really will like to talk to Jack about all the stuff we've talked about here – and he'll know to listen to it if you're there with us – but you don't have to treat me to lunch to make that happen."
June made sure to level a serious look directly into the boy's eyes. "Oh yes I do Rafael Esquivel. You are going to eat every bite of the biggest burger and drink every drop of the largest shake the place sells … that is, if you want to get this back anytime soon." She indicated his backpack, still firmly in her grasp. Is that clear?"
"Yes, ma'am." The youngster responded reflexively to the maternal authority in the woman's voice. She patted his shoulder, and released his backpack to him. As he put the familiar carrier on he offered a more reflective concession. "Well, if you insist on that kind of meal for me, I guess like they say – tough job, but somebody's got to do it – so thanks Mrs. Darby."
"As always, you're learning quickly Raf … and you're welcome. I think expanding a sense of family is something we Darbys – and the Autobots have learned best from you. It's time for you to know how mutual that feeling is. Now, let's go get lunch."
Raf Esquivel did as he was told, and he also realized that facing up to really challenging responsibilities could mean gaining something special without losing anything at all.