Title: Rewound
Warning: Written right after More Than Meets The Eye #16, so spoilers for #15-16.
Rating: G
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Rewind, Scavengers, Grimlock, Chromedome, Brainstorm
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): 'What happened to Rewind?' + Scavengers + "And be strong." Then Shibara pointed out something, and I had to rewrite everything to make it part of the story as well.
[* * * * *]
It's a miracle he's alive. Rewind knows that, honest. The Decepticons were under no obligation to chase him down when his frame hurtled across their flight path, still propelled by the blast that'd destroyed the time displacement cell. And yeah, they only keep him around because Krok wants another hostage to make sure the Autobots on Cybertron don't immediately pitch the whole unit into incarceration. Especially after Rewind broke the news that the Decepticons had indeed lost.
But it boggles his mind that he came back online at all. It is a miracle. He thinks it's kind of a cruddy miracle, but it is one nonetheless. He's grateful for the rescue despite a lingering hurt that the Lost Light didn't track him down. That Chromedome didn't come after him. That he didn't -
(No, Rewind can't face that hurt. More accurately, he can't face the associated pains. There is too much there to shoulder yet, even after all this time.)
The blast that hit the cell obliterated most everything inside it. At least he sincerely hopes so, because Overlord had been a handspan from catching him when everything went blank in his memory. The Phase Sixer's insanely tough body probably took the brunt of the explosion. Overlord likely saved him.
Rewind tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about a lot of what happened before his rescue. He tries to dismiss the hurt by rationalizing that the Lost Light considers him part of the shrapnel, presumed dead. That he sacrificed himself instead of being thrown out and abandoned. Nobody knows to search for him. Chromedome doesn't know he's alive, or the mnemosurgeon would stop at nothing to find him. The flashdrive tries not to think of how there's no proof of death, because while that has always been enough for him, Chromedome isn't -
(Rewind stops those thoughts. He can't think of the present in terms of the past. Even if it's never been the past for him. This isn't his search, not this time.)
Sometimes, rationalization works. Sometimes, it doesn't. He's pretty distracted aboard this new ship, thankfully. The Decepticons of the W.A.P. (what kind of name was the Weak Anthropic Principle, anyway?) treat him like a thing instead of a person, which is an unpleasant echo of the past, but it's still better than he ever expected capture by enemy forces to be like. Although these Decepticons aren't really…typical. Or maybe they are, and the 'Cons who fill his archives were the abnormal ones and got filmed because of it.
That is a thought worth having. Rewind's found that most mechs in the Autobot ranks aren't saviors or heroes; they're just mechs like everyone else. The Decepticon ranks could very well be similar. These 'Cons are certainly less like ruthless enemies and more like Cybertronians who'd casually wandered into disliking Autobots while being heavily armed.
They're definitely not saints, but even so, they only push him around a bit. Usually into walls, or down to the floor. Crankcase kicks him when he's down, too. Spinister's trigger finger twitches alarmingly, and Rewind's dodged a few half-sparked swipes from the surgeon's rotorblade. Misfire tries to shoot him occasionally, but even the flashdrive laughs at that. Fulcrum bullies him because he's smaller and weaker, which is apparently a novelty, and the way Krok glares at him frightens him. He gets the feeling that the 'Con officer blames him for something.
It's not a big deal. Maybe it would have been one, once upon a better universe, but Rewind has lived a long time. He's been of the disposable class and then a tiny frametype in the middle of war. Other Autobots have scared him equally as much in the past. Right now, even Grimlock is scary to a teensy mech who barely reaches knee-height on the other Autobot. The Dynobot doesn't remember warnings well, and he doesn't look where he's stomping. It makes every day life aboard the W.A.P. hazardous even without taking the Decepticons into consideration.
All in all, Rewind adjusts remarkably well to the new situation as prisoner. Sort of prisoner. Guest with negative benefits. Because for as mean and petty as the Decepticons can be, they're also weirdly nice.
"Watch it, ya big lug!" Misfire snaps after darting down the hall to push the tiny Autobot out from underneath giant Dynobot paws. The jet frowns up at the Dynobot and bats at the toothy maw that opens expectantly toward him. "No treats! Go lay down! Shoo, Grimsy. Git." With a mournful nuzzle, Grimlock obeys.
Meanwhile, Rewind sits up and stares at his savior. Treating Grimlock like a big clumsy pet is odd but understandable given the other Autobot's poor state of mind. Saving Rewind from a squishing is another thing entirely.
Gratitude, he knows by now, will only result in a flustered backlash of macho Decepticon-ness (it's now a word, he's convinced), so he asks, "How'd he end up like that?"
The purple jet blinks at him. "What, nobody's told you yet?"
Misfire: transform. Altmode of chatterbox.
Getting Misfire talking is an easy way to keep the purple jet happy, but it's kind of fun for Rewind as well. Talking with the mech is more entertaining than he'd have believed possible, considering Skids' evasive but emphatic hatred of this 'Con. Hearing the other side of that particular tale is way more hilarious than it should have been. Rewind thinks that Skids is lucky amnesia took that memory, because Misfire is positively gleeful.
Rewind laughs and trades stories with the jet. It's wonderful distraction from worrying about how Chromedome is doing, or -
(No, not thinking about him, he can't think about him or he'll break. He's not that strong.)
So, yes, in some ways it's great, but it's torture as well.
Spinister tries. Rewind is surprised over and over again when the brilliantly dumb surgeon snags him for another session in the W.A.P.'s unstocked, under-equipped medbay. Using nothing but salvage and pieces of living metal shaved off the inside of his own leg plating, Spinister has reconstructed the Autobot's shoulder, but the arm is only a spindly limb made of welded, makeshift struts and a bare few panels to shield the slowly repairing sensor network. It looks horrible and feels worse, but it works.
There is nothing to be done about the side of Rewind's helm.
The camera is gone. The equipment loss is bad enough, but an explosion is not surgically precise by any means. The blast ripped away his camera along with a hefty chunk of his cranial casing and visor. The equipment is gone. The equipment docks are gone. There is nothing left to connect to even if Ratchet appeared to whisk him into medical paradise right this moment.
Worse, Rewind knows he's lost a portion of his archive. Bits were destroyed. The majority is still there, still in him, but he can no longer access it. The databanks are there without equipment to access them. Not all of them, but he can't access them to find out what's missing, and he's never had to rely on only main processor-accessed memory banks before. The limitation is painful. He's crippled, function disabled.
What's agonizing is not knowing how much is still there and what's gone forever. There's so much he can't recall even thought he remembers having it on file. It maybe still be there. It may not be. Not knowing is the worst.
(Not the worst worst, but he's not thinking about that. He's not wondering how many videos and memories of him are simply gone. He can't bear thinking about that.)
His T-cog's so damaged Spinister's repeated, finicky tweaks are all that keep it functional enough to sustain him. He can't transform to let his compacted remaining structure heal via self-repair. Without that, the medic tells him, his body's walking junk until they get back to Cybertron. He's essentially a monoformer on Decepticon life support, a living Schrodinger's box containing a priceless archive of information that may or may not still be inside.
No one can touch the archives, including him. That includes adding more data. So talking with Misfire is both terrible and glorious, because for a few minutes it feels like he's performing his function once more. He interviews Misfire, and it feels like he's whole and healthy instead of a shattered wreck who will never directly record anything into his archives again.
Crankcase brings him back to reality with callous commentary on how useless he is now. It's to be expected, and Rewind is only slightly bitter about it. Crankcase may be a pilot and a mechanic and a decent janitor when he puts his mind to it, but he's also a brute and a cad.
He also sighs in the most exasperated way when he comes upon Rewind huddled on the floor in the hallway. Sensory feedback has flattened the tiny Autobot, and Crankcase shakes his head at the little mech. "Quit your whining. You get used to it."
Rewind looks up through his fingers, hating how a quarter of his vision is just gone. The remainder is spitzing static that obscures Crankcase's ubiquitous scowl. "I don't believe you."
Maybe it isn't smart to doubt a mech twice his size who scowls like that, but right now? Right now the Autobot is wounded and hurting and doesn't fragging care. The side of his head aches where cold air keeps wafting against exposed components. His brain module fires random blitzes of sensation through him, fuzzing his thoughts and causing his limbs to jerk unpredictably when the temperature changes. He smells faintly of frying circuitry now, all the time.
If anyone can understand what he's going through, it's this Decepticon. That doesn't make Crankcase any more sympathetic. "Get up! Pipsqueak, get your rusted rattletrap aft off the floor!" The kicks that accompany the order sends Rewind scrambling to obey. He is - kind of, in a backward way, when they remember to abuse him - a prisoner.
Crankcase leans down to grab Rewind's undamaged shoulder. "Feel this?" He shakes the flashdrive irritably. "Feel it?"
"Yes, I feel it!" He doesn't understand, and he tries to stay on his feet as the shaking threatens to send him crashing back into the wall. Much closer, and he'll bash his open wound into it! "Careful!"
"See?" The 'Con drops him and straightens up to fold his arms. Rewind stumbles back and cautiously meets the glower directed down at him. "You've already started figuring out how to deal with it. You know how to turn your head to keep away from potential danger."
"But that's just common sense!" Rewind protests.
"No slag, cogsucker. What were you expecting, a magic medical ship to appear and escort you through life?" The taller mech gave one of his notorious 'bah' scoffs. "It's a head wound. It's not gonna up and vanish overnight, so vacuum your spilt energon off the floor and filter it. Nobody else is gonna wipe it up for you, and you're not getting any more."
As far as comparisons go, these oddball expropriation specialists do tend to use resource-related ones. Rewind gets the feeling that there's been a lot of spilt energon in Crankcase's life. He uncurls from his defensive hunch, but that seems to have been the limits of the mechanic's sympathy.
Crankcase turns to go and tosses over his shoulder, "Life isn't fair for anybody. It's either go on or give up."
It's probably supposed to be a grand statement of independence and forging it alone, but Rewind starts climbing up to perch on the equipment in Crankcase's small repairbay. As long as the conversation is suitably grouchy, the mech doesn't protest. And sometimes, when the pain blinds Rewind or his remaining arm starts losing feeling, Crankcase talks him through the feedback. It doesn't always help sort out the problem, but it calms the flashdrive down. A bit, anyway.
Fulcrum panics almost as bad as he does when the seizures start, but the K-Con just picks him up and runs to Spinister. "He's broken!"
The surgeon peers down at them both. "Well, yeah."
That's singularly unhelpful. Rewind's cracked visor twists as he grimaces up at Fulcrum, who hugs him closer to his chest and doesn't even seem to realize it. The Autobot sighs and turns forward to stare at Spinister as well.
Bemused, the surgeon looks back at them. "What?"
Fulcrum hoists the tiny mech up higher without even noticing. "Can't you do something?"
"Not really." Rewind folds his arm and prosthetic on top of Fulcrum's forearms, letting his legs hang limp to twitch and kick in uncoordinated, unnerving spasms as Spinister runs a scan over him. The warrior medic blinks at him for a moment before shaking his head. "I could shoot him, but - "
"No, thank you," Rewind says, raising a finger as if in a vote. "Not an option!"
" - Krok said not to."
Fulcrum finally appears to remember that the doll-like mech he's hugging is actually an Autobot. It only prompts him to look down at Rewind in bewilderment. "You're not doing it anymore. Why?"
"It's a false-connection seizure. Most of them pass pretty quickly," Spinister says, ending the scan series after another pass for good measure. "How's your head feel?" he asks the flashdrive.
"Excruciating."
"Okay. Just checking."
"Um, thanks."
That's the end of the matter, until the next seizure. Fulcrum seems to have a low threshold for fear. In a way, it's somewhat telling that the mech grabs him to run to the medbay instead of just running away. A bully Fulcrum might be, but he has an amiable smile and a wry twist of friendly humor when he forgets he's supposed to be cruelly taunting a prisoner. Which is most of the time, because the W.A.P. is barely scraping by. None of the Decepticons onboard have time to play jailor full-time.
Also, Rewind is beginning to think that Fulcrum is the K-Class' sole nice guy. A coward, fine, that's bizarre but not unthinkable. Nice? Where has this version of the berserker fanatics been hiding the whole war? It's like the K-Con's only weapon is his sharp tongue. Weaponized sarcasm tempered by absentminded politeness. And Fulcrum is strangely prone to standing around holding him in his arms, too, which is odd beyond words. It's one thing to absently scoop a small frametype up in a hug for easy carrying, but quite another to continue carrying him around like that long after realizing what he'd done.
Macho Decepticon-ness? Not so much.
"I really do that?" Fulcrum blinks and thinks about it. "I…suppose I do. Uhhh. Sorry, I guess. I don't know where I picked that up from."
Rewind bursts out laughing. Fulcrum grins ruefully as the Autobot giggles. It would have been more awkward if Rewind hasn't chosen to inform the K-Con of the strange habit while Grimlock is toting Fulcrum around in much the same manner Fulcrum does Rewind. Fulcrum, like Rewind, doesn't struggle. In fact, he seems just as resigned as Rewind normally is when it comes to being mechhandled by larger frametypes.
It's funny. Fulcrum's funny. Misfire's a laugh riot when he gets going, and Spinister's quick-fire shifts between surgeon and simple-minded fighter becomes more amusing the longer Rewind knows him. Crankcase never gets any more tolerable, but in general, he likes these 'Cons more than he should. Their quirks help, because most of the time he can avoid thinking by being around them. Spinister operates, Crankcase sneers, Misfire tells wild stories, and Fulcrum works. It's almost enough to keep him from remembering.
From remembering Chromedome's frantic last words, and the silenced attempt to speak through the window. From remembering -
(Not thinking about him. He can deal with a broken camera and an open head wound. He can't deal with remembering him.)
Not all the time, however.
There are times when Rewind quietly sneaks away to the W.A.P.'s bridge. He shouldn't go. He knows he's not allowed. Krok made it clear where he's allowed in the ship, and the bridge isn't on that list. But the bridge is the only place with a functioning console that Rewind can splice into, so to the bridge he goes.
It's not a mission of espionage or attempted sabotage. He's not out to fight these Decepticons, or even cause them more grief than the universe has already plonked upon them. They're bullies and thieves, killers who don't really care because it's just a job. Their respective factions are nothing personal. Rewind's met a lot of Autobots like them. Since all they want is to return to Cybertron, he thinks remaining their hostage/prisoner/victim/guest/friend/huggable buddy is okay.
He's lost big chunks of his memory. The archives inside him are missing here, inaccessible there, and it hurts to search for what he might not find, both physically and mentally. Yet he can't stop himself from ever-so-carefully hooking his main processor memory into the W.A.P.'s computer console, opening a text document, and writing down as much as he can remember. He cannot play the video files, but his processor memory retains vague impressions of watching them.
A picture's worth a thousand words. Rewind's function is - has been, no longer is, can no longer be - to store data in the form of videos, pictures flashing by in their billions. He cannot play the video files, but his processor memory retains vague impressions of watching them.
He writes as fast as he can.
The color of Chromedome's visor in sorrow. The length of the needles springing from his fingertips. What he looked like from below, looking at someone else. What he looked like from above, focused on Rewind and Rewind alone. The colors and the measurements; the timing and the gestures; the times when he left and those he returned.
Rewind writes and writes, trying to transcript what his processor memory recalls of far more extensive archive memory now out of his reach. He writes, and it makes him as miserable as Chromedome's deception does, and he writes that, too. He writes about Chromedome because -
(Not that. He is terrified of that. He cannot make himself discover what is missing. He doesn't want to know he can't remember.)
He sneaks onto the bridge, and he sneaks away again. It's a task that cannot be finished, however, so he inevitably sneaks back to write some more.
He writes until a hand falls on his damaged shoulder.
"Waaugh!"
Krok looks down at him, narrow optics inscrutable, before he goes back to reading what Rewind had written. The flashdrive squirms uncomfortably under the Decepticon's heavy hand. There's no point in trying to get away. He's caught with his hand in the goodie jar, nowhere to run and no excuses to give. Stupid, but he can't make himself regret trying. He doesn't even feel embarrassed by someone else reading what he's written.
Then again, Rewind's never been much for privacy.
When he reaches the end, Krok keeps looking at the screen. "A good friend?"
Rewind hesitates, but he doesn't see much point in concealing it. "My conjunx endura."
He thinks for a moment that angered the 'Con officer, but no. Krok's hand tightens to a firm hold, not a painful one, and the optics turn downward to give him an evaluating look far less harsh than the normal judgmental stare. "You outlived him?" The question is subdued, almost respectful.
He can see why, looking at the things he'd written, Krok might think that. "No," Rewind says softly. "He thinks he's outlived me."
He rereads his own words, and they're not enough. They can never be enough to fill in the gap where his archive had been. Chromedome has no idea how obsessively the tiny mech has watched his every moment, dreading a time when he might no longer be there. How strange that their separation came about while they both live, and how spark-wrenching that Rewind's preparations for this moment are rendered useless. He's afraid, very afraid, that his faith has been misplaced, the strength he believed in was a lie, and these lost memories are all that remains of their relationship.
Krok says nothing for a long while, long enough that Rewind tentatively puts his hands back on the console and starts writing again. It's like a compulsion. It hurts to drag descriptions out of his inadequate memories of past videos, but not any more than his spark already pains him.
The Decepticons stands behind him and watches, reading as he writes. Perhaps even the 'Cons respect the sanctity of love. Perhaps Krok remembers what being someone's conjunx endura used to mean. Perhaps he's just bored.
After some time, he speaks.
"I don't remember how I lost my unit. I woke up, and they were gone." Rewind pauses, fingers on the keys as he listens. "I wasn't out in the open. A decent search would have turned me up, but only if they'd known to look for me. I don't know, but I think...I think they did what any group of us would do: they went on." Krok's voice holds gravel and old determination, and Rewind finds himself thinking about how it would sound played through his speakers. If he still had speakers. He wishes he could record this, but he can't. "Survival is the priority for a unit, even at the expense of an individual. Even at the expense of me."
The hand on the Autobot's shoulder opens and draws away. "I don't blame them. They wouldn't have left me if they'd known I was under the rubble, and I'm proud," he hesitates, turning that word over in his mind like it's a piece in a puzzle. "Proud, yeah. I'm proud that they went on without me. They made it. That's more than a lot of units have done. I'd rather they got up and kept going than wasted their lives scrounging around after me. Where we were, if they'd have stayed, Autobots would have picked 'em off." Krok sighs. "It's not a perfect parallel, but we're different than Autobots. Picking up the pieces and getting the frag on with life's the important part."
Oh, Primus. Rewind puts his banged-up head down and prays that Chromedome is that strong. Decepticon unit strong. Strong enough to get on with life. And he will be so proud if that's true. He promises whomever can hear him that he'll be proud.
"What about you?" he asks hoarsely, finally thinking about the trust gaping like split plating inside him. He's tried so hard to avoid touching it, but every word he writes picks at the tender, seeping wound where Chromedome's lies slashed doubt through him. And then the Lost Light didn't pick him up; the W.A.P. did, and some part of him wonders why. If maybe the wound is wider and deeper than he'd known. "Didn't you feel betrayed at all?"
Krok snorts, breaking the weighty silence indelicately. "Of course I did! But you bet your open head that I'm still going to track them down and resume command. Mechs like us," Rewind's fuel pump skips, "we don't let go. Some say we're insane to hold this kind of loyalty in war, but frag. It's lasted us this long."
Of all the things to hold in common with a 'Con. "Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Yeah, it has."
He's held on. He's pulled Chromedome back from the brink and trusted him even when he apparently shouldn't have. But loyalty forgives separation. Love can mend damaged trust, and Rewind grinds doubt under it. Loyalty and love can forgive, and hopefully not forget. He'll mend the gaps in his memory. Chromedome is strong. Rewind can't - won't - doubt that anymore. Chromedome will help him fill in the missing bits when Rewind returns to him.
Because he will return. Because Chromedome might not be searching, but Rewind will.
He cycles his vents slowly and has to ask, has to reach for something solid. "You'll find them again?"
"Try and stop me." Krok barks a laugh, and it lifts the mood. Rewind's heard the story of the D.J.D. and Clemency by now. He knows Misfire exaggerated everything for comedic effect, but it's still a profound tale of these mechs' refusal to give up.
It's…reassuring. Stupid, stubborn, bright, and blandly normal Decepticons being themselves and making up their own version of living while the rest of the known universe has forgotten them is somehow a decent metaphor for his situation. Not very flattering, really, but it works.
Suddenly inspired, Rewind flicks his working wrist and opens a new document. He holds his hands over the keys, one intact and one a scrapheap replacement, and flexes them. "Tell me about your unit, Krok."
The Decepticon officer speaks well into the next shift. Rewind writes the whole time. He writes after Krok leaves for other duties. He writes when Spinister shows up to check life support's latest venture into attempting to kill them all. He writes down what Spinister remembers of Clemency, and the medic's blurry recollection of joining Krok's new unit. He writes Misfire's bald-faced lies of the same. He convinces Grimlock to sit on Crankcase until the pilot reluctantly vomits forth a profanity-laced account of the battle against Thunderwing. He coaxes Fulcrum to talk about the K-Class reforging process and isn't offended when the slender ex-technician shoves him off the chair a few times during the telling. It's an admittedly upsetting thing to talk about.
He writes it all down, every word he can catch. Krok's passion draws him in as much as Spinister's slow thoughts about the obvious. Crankcase's obscene suggestions are creative - if physically improbable - while Misfire's lies are woven into the truth almost seamlessly. Almost. The archivist picks at the facts, questioning the jet until Misfire makes up an emergency to escape the nosy Autobot. Rewind snickers in his wake and resolves to keep asking later.
Fulcrum is more complicated. The flashdrive finds the K-Class alarming for entirely different reasons now, and kind of pitiable. The slender 'Con backhands him when he says so, however. Rewind is shaken by the abuse but isn't deterred by it. Fulcrum storms off the bridge with his impressive chin set at an angry angle.
He returns an hour later trying not to look shamefaced, and he offers the Autobot a ration cube like an apology that will never be spoken. Rewind takes it and lets the matter drop. It isn't like he'd expected interviewing Decepticons to be easy.
Later, he sweeps through the document and adds physical impressions: what the mechs looked like as they spoke, where they were standing, what time it was. It's not the same, but it is. It's still recording. It's rebuilding an archive, the only way he can.
This is his function, fulfilled as best as is left to him.
This is satisfying his curiosity, as well. He finds out things about these Decepticons that he marvels at. They are, no matter the propaganda fed to the Autobots throughout the war, people too. And they're pretty peculiar ones, at that.
Krok's a military historian who speculates on past battles. He wonders out loud about what the generals and soldiers must have been thinking, barely remembering that Rewind is in the room as he muses. The flashdrive writes and carefully inserts his own observations and theories into the mix. Somehow, it turns more into conversation than monologue, but Krok doesn't bring them back on track.
Rewind is still afraid of the officer, still sees the narrow optics judging him, but not so much. Not anymore. He looks at the 'Con and sees a mech who will never give up. After Fulcrum takes him aside and whispers the fate of Krok's old unit, Rewind's wariness transmutes to a kind of sorrow.
The parallel Krok has made between them has ominous overtones, now. The flashdrive doesn't dwell on it. Chromedome is not a Decepticon unit.
He focuses on the Decepticons, instead. It's best to keep busy.
Misfire and Fulcrum will bicker like old lovers given half a chance, the K-Con's good-natured humor absorbing Misfire's more caustic hyperactivity, and Rewind's spark flinches in his chest. He keeps his head down and writes, and he's amazed when the two go their separate ways without noticing the comfortable groove they've fallen into. The urge to match-make is getting harder to ignore the more often he sees them interact.
"Yeah, we noticed," Crankcase says. He's booted Rewind out of the chair so he can lounge on it. He's working on something small in his hands, but mostly he just wanted to make the Autobot stand while he sits. "What's the point of bringing it up? It's not like we're gonna stick together past getting home, so getting attached? Dumb." He shrugs. "You 'Bots are set to shoot us on sight, anyway. No point to giving a frag about this unit when we're all just targets waiting to get sniped."
Crankcase has a unique viewpoint on life. Translated from Grouchy Pessimist, what he probably means is that Krok's salvaged band of yahoos has nothing to keep them together but a common goal: returning home. Well, that and a possessive officer.
Rewind's got even less than that keeping him with these 'Cons, at least on the surface. Technically, he's an Autobot prisoner. Technically, he should try to escape. Technically, the only reason he could possibly have to stick around is a gun held to his head.
Technicalities aside, he stays with the group when the W.A.P. docks at a Neutral station. He can justify it if he really feels like it, with not wanting to abandon Grimlock, or how slow his own crippling injuries make him, or even how he wants to go home in order to start his searching again. But he doesn't give any of those reasons. He just limps off the W.A.P. like of course that's what he should do.
It takes about half an hour for the group to realize that usually prisoners have guards set on them. Rewind can almost see Krok tense to speak - and then let it go.
Possibly because, at the time, Rewind is tag-teaming a fuel vendor with Misfire. "I wouldn't pay half a shanix for this quality!"
"Right, I know! Tastes like somebody stretched their shipment with crude oil."
"You're being too generous. I swear I smell a rotted organic in here, still." Misfire scrunches his face up and passes on the next sample vial. "No!"
"Why?"
"Silica flakes."
"What? I mean, seriously. What."
The vendor is beginning to look a bit nervous, and Crankcase smirks when subtle rearrangement of stock happens before Misfire can work his way down the counter. Misfire's loud proclamations of horrid quality are doing this guy no good, but Rewind still had his Autobrand and is highly visible from where Fulcrum heaved him up to ride perched on Grimlock's altmode. An Autobot and Decepticon condemning a mech's wares is not good publicity. They're beginning to attract a crowd.
"Who does that to a perfectly good grade of energon?" the flashdrive asks, waving his good arm. "No! Don't give that to me. I don't want it!"
Misfire stops trying to force-feed the little mech into sharing his revulsion when the next vial is practically pushed at him. The vendor has a distinctly hunted look from all the negative attention the small group is bringing him. Krok doesn't have many shanix to his name right now, but handing Misfire cheap swill to evaluate has done this vendor no favors. Rewind knows showmanship, and Misfire knows energon. Together, Autobot and Decepticon drive the Neutral vendor into a bargain that buys them a third again what their few shanix are really worth.
Crankcase doesn't even bother holding in the triumphant cackle when they leave the counter.
Krok does some quick mental equations, gives Rewind a considering stare for half a minute, and turns an inquiring look on Spinister. "How are you for medical equipment?"
"Uh…I could use some stuff? But I thought you said we couldn't afford it." Spinister is perplexed by the change in plans.
His officer just pats his arm. "We'll see. Let's go see how expensive the shinies are, okay?"
"Ooo, I like shinies!"
"Not shinies for you, Misfire."
"Awww…"
The group goes tromping off in a search for the right vendor, Rewind and Grimlock in their midst. The fuel vendor curses their names in their wake. The tiny Autobot virtuously denies Fulcrum's accusation of smug self-satisfaction. Both Crankcase and Fulcrum claim not to believe him. Misfire waits until they're both walking on Grimlock's left side, bitching in chorus, before ducking around to walk on the Dynobot's right and casually raising an arm.
"What was that?" Fulcrum looks off in the wrong direction, and Misfire innocently flits on up ahead as if Autobot flashdrive and Decepticon jet didn't just slap palms in passing.
"What was what?"
"Thought I heard somebody get hit."
"Huh. I didn't hear anything."
From behind them, Krok shakes his head and doesn't say a word. Misfire looks back and winks. Crankcase is suspicious, Fulcrum is still looking around for who got smacked, and Spinister homes in on a medical supply counter as if it's magnetic. Grimlock galumphs after. Krok stands back and lets them get to it.
That's how he's the only one to see the departure list on the far wall of the marketing bay change. It seems that a certain ship's captain has abruptly become restless.
Misfire's fast. Very fast. Fast enough that Rewind has no time for surprise before he's snatched off Grimlock's back. The Dynobot whips around, confused, but the flashdrive gets a glimpse of Crankcase and Spinister suddenly herding the large Autobot behind the concealing shelter of the vendor booth. The 'Cons look grim.
"Hey!" Rewind shouts around his shock, but Misfire grips him tight. "Hey, c'mon! What's your problem?"
"Hold on, hold on," the jet mutters. His thrusters are lit, propelling them across the station in utter disregard of base regulations. That's going to get the W.A.P.'s crew kicked off the station, but apparently that doesn't matter right this moment. "Gotta make the launch slot."
"What?"
"The ship. Your ship. Lost Bulb, right? She's set to depart in fifteen minutes."
The Autobot sucks in a stunned vent, clutching the arm holding him pressed to the purple jet's chest. "The Lost Light!"
"Knew it was something like that," Misfire mutters. "I can get you to the docking tube, but you gotta walk the rest of the way. No way are we getting our afts burned 'cause of some shmoopy love story."
Rewind has nothing he can say to that. He can't speak, because he doesn't know what to say.
He can't think, because an impossible thing is happening. This is the well-worn plot twist of a cliché story, remixed for the times. He's never asked these Decepticons for this. Never dreamt they would care about the romantic notion of reuniting lost conjunx enduras. It's a war and rival factions away from the idea of help, and he can't believe it's happening even as Misfire zips through the station.
The Decepticons…they're just mechs, all of them. Nice and terrible in turns, ugly and full of laughter at the same time. Sometimes, Rewind's thought so. Sometimes, that thought's proven right.
Just one time brings him back home.
"Frag!"
Hissing under his breath, Misfire lands and dodges around the nearest corner out of battle-honed reflex. Rewind's fuel pump hammers where it's jumped into his throat, and he's suddenly struggling against the arm across his chest. "Domey! Domey!" It was a split second glimpse, but that's Chromedome up ahead!
Misfire blinks down at him, smiling in bafflement. "Is that really his - okay, y'know what? Whatever. You!" He peeks around the corner before giving the tiny mech a stern look. "Go. And don't run your mouth about us, or I'll murder you, and him for good measure. Got it?"
He doesn't care. He's been threatened with worse. "Fine! Just let me - "
" - go!" And he's running. Limping, rather, weld-scarred hip screaming pain and shoulder a searing lump as his bad arm jostles. Air streams past his open helm and sends fizzing spurts of static across his vision. Phantom hot and cold liquid spills down his limbs. He's running in a wounded stagger he doesn't even feel, because up ahead is the familiar two-pronged white helm of home. Chromedome had left him, but Rewind sees him moving on just like he should, speaking with Brainstorm, and the little flashdrive is so slagging proud of him. The arm is still missing, but Chromedome is up and talking and -
"Domey!"
Brainstorm pauses first, wings perking slightly up as if he's heard something over the ordinary babble of Neutrals past him through the hall.
"Domey!"
He's definitely heard this time, but Brainstorm whips around before Chromedome even turns. The scientist's arms draw up, fingers clawed and optics wide in appalled horror. He checks himself, however, as the familiar helm turns, and Brainstorm offers Chromedome an awkward shrug that hides the slew of emotions that cascaded through his optics just a second earlier. Rewind doesn't understand, and the scientist's odd reactions hardly matter when Chromedome is right there!
Chromedome regards his friend inquisitively, then glances down the hall. His visor locks on the teensy mech stumbling toward them, good arm outstretched and cracked visor desperately happy. For a second, the tall mnemosurgeon just stares.
Puzzled, the yellow visor moves on, sweeping the rest of the hall as if searching for whom the tiny flashdrive is running toward. Chromedome even turns to check behind himself and gives the Neutrals filling the hallway the same assessing look he gave Rewind.
It lands like a physical blow, punching the archivist straight in the weak scar where trust broke and doubt bled. "Domey?" His limping steps slow, and his throat squeezes shut on his vocalizer as Brainstorm's pitying optics register.
Brainstorm shrugs again when Chromedome returns to giving him that inquiring look. "Nah. I don't know him. Do you?" the scientist said loud and clear, purposefully projecting his voice down the hall in answer to an unheard question.
Rewind can't hear Chromedome's reply, but the headshake is unmistakable. The yellow visor turns to impassively look down at the small Autobot now stopped dead in the middle of the corridor. "Do you need help?" is called down the hall brusquely, and the flashdrive nearly chokes on his spark.
Oh.
Oh, no.
No, he couldn't have. He couldn't have. Chromedome's stronger than that. He is, he is, Rewind has convinced himself it's true, that this time will be the time that the mnemosurgeon doesn't -
(Not that. He is terrified of that. He cannot make himself discover what is missing. He doesn't want to know what can't be remembered.)
Brainstorm dims his optics and shakes his head behind Chromedome's shoulder, for once giving a slag that someone cares. That the flashdrive right there in front of him is numbly sinking to his knees: a mech presumed dead and now spark-damaged to the point where he wants to be. The straining gasps of Rewind's vents are audible even from where the scientist stood, and while there is no sympathy in Brainstorm's voice, there is pity. Resignation, too, because sadness would be a waste of time.
"Do you need a ride?" the scientist asks after a brief glance at his friend. He shakes his head as he says it. It's not a good idea. For either of them, honestly.
Rewind's limited visual range is zeroed in on a yellow visor, hoping for recognition but finding only the impatience of someone waiting on a stranger. "No," he whispers. "I've…got a ride home, thank you."
(What kind of name was the Weak Anthropic Principle, anyway?)
"Are you alright?" Chromedome asks, the voice Rewind loves gone snappish. "Why are you sitting there? Do you require medical aid?"
"Yep! But our medic says he's gonna stay broken until we get back to Cybertron," is declared from behind him, and there's a jet bouncing down the hall. The larger Autobots fall into defensive poses immediately, but Rewind doesn't even flinch as Misfire clangs to a halt behind him. The Decepticon raises both hands in surrender. "Whoa, hey, war's over!" He continues only when the safeties snap back on the weapons. "Guess this didn't work as planned, huh? We just thought maybe he'd want to join your crew 'cause, eh, Autobots and Autobots, am I right?"
Brainstorm seems intrigued, like he's just dying to know how this came about, but Misfire's bending to look down at the flashdrive sitting at his feet. "Uh. Wrong ship, maybe? Try again next station?"
There's no worry in Misfire's face or voice. It's a plausible story for why an Autobot would be gradually slumping back to lean against a Decepticon's leg, but the yellow visor is now almost hostile. Chromedome's hatred of Decepticons isn't forgiving of those who voluntarily associate with them.
Rewind lowers his visor in despair. It is so difficult. Something thins, stretching fragile belief, trust, and hope until the threads snap in Rewind's chest. They snap between them, and it is the worst thing he's ever felt.
(Maybe the worst worst, but he's not thinking about comparisons. He's not wondering how many videos and memories of are simply gone, to never be replaced. He can't bear thinking about that.)
"Then we'll just be going," Chromedome says coldly. "Our ship is about to leave. Brainstorm?"
"Yes, of course." The scientist hesitates for less than a second. "Good luck," he adds, like a farewell to a friend, and promptly ruins it with an off-handed, "Looks like you'll need it."
"What?" he says in response to Chromedome's peeved look as they walk away. "Did you see that helm injury?"
Whatever Chromedome might say to that is mercifully muted by the babble of the Neutrals walking through the hall. The short drama took forever and no time at all. It has dragged on and ended too quickly. Echoes of single words keep ricocheting off the inside of Rewind's head in a constant din of memory just like the day -
(Rewind stops those thoughts. He can't think of the present in terms of the past. Even if it's never been the past for him. This isn't the beginning of a search, not this time. This is an ending.)
For once, Misfire keeps his mouth shut. He just hauls the tiny mech up by his uninjured arm and pushes him the other direction down the hall. Rewind trips over his feet and cannot walk a straight line. The jet nudges him forward. Rewind doesn't care. He feels…nothing. Everything is distant, and it's hard to think. The droning replay of his limited, paltry memories is dense enough that Misfire's report to Krok is muffled background noise.
It's all a blur. The station becomes a muddle of colors, and none of the sounds register. The Decepticons prod him along, pick him up, push him here, pull him there, and he lets them. Being a thing in their hands would be a better fate. Look where being a mech had gotten him, after all. Millions of years of fighting for the right to be considered a sentient being, to the right to live, and here he is wondering if he was meant to die in that cell with Overlord. It would a more painless solution than living like this.
(He isn't thinking about him. He can deal with a broken camera and an open head wound. He can't deal with remembering, not these raw memories, but he can't file them away when his archive is inaccessible.)
The Lost Light leaves before the Decepticons bring Rewind back to the W.A.P. The Neutrals are kicking them off the station after Misfire's stunt, but Crankcase only grumbles a little as he pilots the ship away.
Rewind doesn't listen to him. He sits on the bridge and stares sightlessly at the stars as they turn toward Cybertron again. There's a long journey ahead of them, still. Days of facing this. Alone.
Rewind's spark screws in itself. He's not strong enough. He wasn't strong enough before, and Primus help him, he's not strong enough now.
"I love you," he whispers to the stars and the mechs he's lost to them, and that will never change.
"Are you going to kill yourself?" Krok asks him bluntly, later.
"No," Rewind answers softly, still star-gazing. "I'm going to go home."
"With us."
"Yes." With a bunch of 'Cons instead of Autobots.
He's going to go home, because Chromedome wasn't meant to remember. He believed the mnemosurgeon was strong enough to persevere against his innate function of form, but he'd been wrong. Chromedome edited the record to erase Rewind clean away, and there is no way to retrieve what has been lost. Not just the data, but -
(No, Rewind can't face that hurt. More accurately, he can't face the associated pains. There is too much there to shoulder, even with all the time he knows will pass, and it is as terrible to stop as it is to face it.)
So he will go home and start searching again, because even if Chromedome has forgotten him, Dominus is out there somewhere. Rewind knows he is. Preserving history is like inflicting an eternally fresh wound upon himself, but it is still his function to remember.
However much he wants to forget.