It wasn't that Thundercracker was a veteran as some younger mechs had mistakenly assumed from his surly demeanor; he had been constructed not long before his trine leader first came online, and his experience was likewise limited. They were simply very good at what they did, and what they did was think too much.

It was a bad habit that he constantly attempted to shake, but after so many vorns it seemed unavoidable. Their mind would wander at the most inopportune times, particularly in quiet moments as they lay on their berth before recharge, the only distraction from their own thoughts being the slow, rhythmic vents softly drifting from their black and purple trinemate.

At other times he would attempt to busy himself to occupy his processor; often he would offer himself to tasks his comrades considered too menial and insignificant to bother with. He had tried spending more time with his allies but their presence had only reminded the blue mech that he detested a majority of them, considering them lacking in honor with a surplus of unflattering cruelty. After a while he became increasingly reclusive, mostly spending time with Skywarp, Starscream, and—to his trine's chagrin—Soundwave.

The command center was silent except for the video feeds and occasional commands, but while he was there Thundercracker found it easiest to distract themself. Soundwave seemed ever-present in the dark, lonely room, and the seeker had come to have a sense of solidarity with the quiet mech after it became apparent that they had known about his disloyal thoughts and never intended to tattle. "Thundercracker: poses low risk of desertion," they had monotoned; it was somewhat disheartening to find out that they simply thought Thundercracker's loyalty to the trine and fear of punishment would prevent him from ever leaving. It originally alarmed Thundercracker that the empath could know him just as well as he knew himself, but in the end the near-solitude of the command room suited his needs, and he had eventually grown to like the second-in-command. They would assign him tasks, simple chores and busywork, and Thundercracker hoped they could sense some of the gratitude he felt.

To his discomfort, he had realized one cycle that those were the assignments he enjoyed most, in contrast to the energon raids favored by the rest of his faction. Great, he had thought bitterly, now I'm even thinking too hard about what I do to not think. It was because of the risk, he told himself; he was a Decepticon warrior made to die in battle for the sake of his cause, but that was what he was afraid of. He didn't allow himself to think about any other reason.

They didn't think about how their species was driving itself to extinction for causes that had long since changed, murdering those who might have been friends in another life only because of the marks they wore. They didn't think about how the Autobots—soft-sparked and tame, the Decepticons had called them—were winning, despite the claims that their kindness would be their downfall. They most certainly didn't think about how the native inhabitants of planet Earth were proving to be as capable as some of their own kind on many occasions, yet they looked at the Decepticons in fear, wide-eyed, as though they felt emotions in the same way Thundercracker feared they did…

He didn't think about those things the day he realized he disliked the fighting. He couldn't, even in the relative safety of his room, far from Soundwave's location.

He thought about his trine.

The trine gave him identity and purpose; they were the reason he joined the Decepticons in the first place, not any semblance of loyalty to the steely leader he had only read about at the time. As long as he was with them, he knew who he was: Thundercracker, Decepticon seeker in the most powerful trine still online. Being with them made him powerful; alone he wasn't particularly special except for his sonic boom, and if it wasn't for the trine he suspected he would be utterly unnoticeable. That's how it was before he met Starscream and Skywarp. He was constantly aware that he had been extremely lucky that either of the two had noticed him, though he could hardly admit that.

Their thoughts inevitably shifted back to the one they constantly sought to avoid: they didn't belong.

No, they weakly tried to convince himself, they were an integral part of the trine now and belonged in it as much as the other two. He wasn't ambitious like Starscream or straightforward like Skywarp, but he was the one to balance out the trine. That's what everyone said. He was sensible and—and…

That was the problem, wasn't it? He wasn't anything. Everyone else aboard the Nemesis had something about them that made them an invaluable member of the Decepticons, or at least entertaining enough for Megatron to keep them around. But him? All he really had was the ability to fly with Starscream and Skywarp without trying to reduce either one to a scrapheap. And unlike his trinemates, he couldn't even enjoy fighting together anymore.

That wasn't to say he wasn't loyal enough; he fought just as well as anyone else, only without the cruel sense of enjoyment from the violence. There were times, though, when he would miss a target he could have hit, times when he might have offlined an enemy for good but flew past. The others could pick off the weaklings, he always claimed. He didn't want to waste ammo.

He had had some bad days, he reasoned. He was loyal.

Thundercracker was perhaps not the best liar.

Thundercracker had thought about offlining for good plenty of times: in the heat of battle, fearing that the next time he crashed to the distant ground would be the last; in his quarters on the days he couldn't stop thinking, ever aware that Soundwave might discover his disloyal desire for the war to end; as he flew over the ocean and wondered what it would take for him to go into recharge and never online after yet another battle he couldn't himself to celebrate with his peers.

Laying prostrate on the ground and dragging themself partially behind an outcropping of desert rock, offlining was decidedly not what they wanted.

He had been brought smoldering to the ground by the terror twins in battle after the Autobots had arrived at the solar power generators chosen for the day's raid. Normally such injuries would be minor, but the jet hadn't had time to recover since the last battle and was unable to brace for the impact, instead spiraling out of control into another stone outcropping, decimating a large portion of it in the process. They swore that next time they would get a full recharge cycle and refueling in before they went to fight again, an oath they bitterly knew could never happen in the current energon shortage.

Pulling himself behind the larger outcropping—hopefully out of the Autobots' line of fire—the mech attempted to move his prone body upright and, failing that, settled for rolling onto his back. The leading edge of his wings had been wrecked upon impact and sharp, stinging pain filled his sensor net at the movement. He vented harshly and angled his helm to assess the damage to himself.

The scuffs and shallow scrapes along their body were superficial in comparison to the rest of them. Sparks still flew from one torn wire before flickering out, leaving one servo out of commission. Energon leaked slowly from a nearby tear; not imminently fatal, but they would have to get that patched up sooner rather than later. Their cockpit was—not in shambles, at least, but there were areas cracked and missing their protective glass. Their systems were low on energon; the raid was out of necessity, after all, and the Decepticons couldn't afford to fuel up completely.

There wasn't anything Thundercracker could do. It took what little energy he had to take cover, and even if the world wasn't dimming as his optics automatically switched to a lower-energy setting he wouldn't be able to patch a leak with one servo. He sent out a distress beacon and commed his trine his location, knowing full well that if they came it would only be after the battle had ended. It would be a long wait.

It wasn't a Decepticon who first picked up the distress signal. In fact, Thundercracker wasn't quite sure whether the Autobot medic had picked up the signal at all or simply stumbled into the hidey-hole the downed flier had found. She had frozen when she had seen the seeker, though, so they supposed it might be the latter.

"I won't shoot," Thundercracker stated plainly, his optics turned to the newcomer. "Gonna show me your Autobot hospitality?"

"And why should I trust you?" Ratchet shot back acridly. "It wouldn't be the first time I had an ungrateful patient."

"I'm not your patient, Autobot." The blue mech was unsure whether to glare or shrug, but found their body rather unwilling to do either action. It crossed their mind that being repaired by an Autobot probably wouldn't be considered traitorous enough to warrant deactivation. At the very least she could stop them from going into emergency stasis. "It's safer in here than out there, though."

"You're talking to a medic who actually follows her oaths." The CMO eyed her enemy cautiously before approaching, and grimaced at their wounds. "Everyone's my patient nowadays." With a vent of frustration—primarily at herself—Ratchet kneeled beside the grounded jet and reached dexterous servos between plating to repair torn wires. She noticed with some worry that, though the leak had been small, energon pooled underneath an inoperative servo; Thundercracker had been here for some time.

"Fuel levels?"

"Twenty percent," Thundercracker replied brusquely.

"Twenty per-! How much when you left?"

"Forty percent."

Ratchet groaned in exasperation despite the mech in front of her. "Flying under sixty percent is-"

"You think I don't know?" the seeker growled, but the noise had no venom to it. "Not enough energon to go around. There's never enough. And my trine needs it more than me. Warping ain't exactly fuel-efficient."

"A Decepticon caring about another mech?" Ratchet chuckled drily. "What's that you 'Cons are always saying? 'Compassion is the greatest weakness?'"

"Unfortunately," scoffed Thundercracker. "Nothing wrong with giving a scrap about anyone."

The white mech raised an optic ridge in interest. "For a high-ranking Decepticon, you don't, well…"

"Fit the image?" the seeker smirked bitterly.

They stared pointedly at the Autobot's chest, unable to move either servo with their current energy levels.

"What does that mean to you?" Thundercracker asked neutrally. "Your Autobrand."

Ratchet paused, caught off guard by the question. "Family," she replied after a moment. "Loyalty. Equality. Why?"

"And mine?"

The medic vented slowly to delay her response. She didn't doubt her honest opinion would stir up trouble, but the questioning mech was vulnerable and couldn't exactly resort to physical violence in their current state. "Deception, of course. Tyranny. Oppression." She pulled her spinal struts stiff, daring the mech to react and expecting at least a weak roar of anger.

A low rumble came instead, a sort of ponderous humming produced half by the seeker's engines and half from his vocalizer.

"I guessed as much," the seeker admitted, and Ratchet, erring on the side of optimism, could have sworn she detected some sort of remorse in the voice.

There was a long moment of silence in which Ratchet searched for what to say. Just as she had thought of what to ask, her patient's optics flickered to darkness.

"Thundercracker?" Ratchet said questioningly. The concern in her voice was genuine, and the addressed mech made a low rumbling sound in reply. "Stay online if you can. It'll be harder to get your systems functioning if they have to force shutdown."

"Funny how we're fighting over badges that don't mean anything," Thundercracker muttered lowly. "Maybe you remember when this one meant liberation, back in the beginning. Starscream always said yours was peace through stagnation, said it with the sneer in her voice she reserves for Megatron now. The ideaology was too mild, not revolutionary enough back then. She always said nothing would change once you took over, 'cause you weren't the ones on the streets. And it didn't, really. You were always too comfy with your power."

"That changed-" Ratchet began defensively, then hushed herself. It wouldn't do to get a patient worked up, and the moment seemed… intimate, somehow. She had never heard a Decepticon speak in such a soft voice, lamenting the past. It was much easier to hate all 'Cons when you weren't being reminded of their pre-war conditions.

"Changed when Prime took over, I know," the seeker grunted. "She'd be great if she wasn't always saying change has to be slow. Buncha slag, really. Really showed her when Shockwave took over, good luck getting through that crankcase with bureaucracy."

"You can't completely upheave a system," the medic reasoned calmly, careful with her words.

"Tell that to Shockwave. Tell that to my trine, back when Warp and I and half the faction were on the streets." The Decepticon's voice slurred at points, their low energy levels clouding their processor. "Didn't want 'em just being acknowledged, I wanted 'em to be as happy as anybody else. Go back and tell us we needed to wait for change when half of us were starving and the other half were caught up in the idea of hurting the mechs who hurt us first."

Ratchet was stunned into silence by the impaired enemy's unabashed honesty and emotion. She got the distinct feeling that the things he was hearing were too personal, not meant for her. She doubted the esteemed warrior would speak so passionately to their foe if his processor had been running at higher fuel levels. Not wishing to break the spell that seemed to have settled around the scene, she remained silent.

"'S not even about getting rights now. No point anymore except everyone wanting to offline everyone else," Thundercracker mumbled. "Why can't somebody just slag Megatron and get it over with already?"

Ratchet blinked. "You… don't want Megatron to win?"

"He's the worst. Been waiting for Star to scrap him…" The voice dropped slightly, and Ratchet's worry deepened when a barely noticeable keen escaped. "Wouldn't really mind even if Prime did now. Star's getting too scared to try lately."

The medic waited for them to continue and jumped when static shot from their vocalizer. "Warp…" Thundercracker whined, and shifted his helm to his companion. "Skywarp's coming."

The Autobot nodded, taking that as her cue to leave. The warning was rather considerate. But first, she had to at least try…

"It's not too late to switch sides, Thundercracker. I could comm Optimus now and—"

"I'm... not an Autobot," Thundercracker protested. "Never an Autobot."

Ratchet hesitated, nodded, and turned away, only to be surprised by a ping. A comm frequency being sent to her. Accepting the frequency, she instantly received a faint message.

[Thanks.]

Skywarp arrived minutes after the medic's departure, faceplates arranged in more of a pout than anything.

"Jeez, TC," the seeker substituted for a greeting. "You really got yourself slagged this time, didn't you?"

Thundercracker made a low wordless noise in response, optics offlined. They still had sufficient energon, thanks to that Autobot medic's foolish aid—enough that he wouldn't offline—but he didn't trust his vocalizer after his last embarrassingly honest exchange.

"Alright," sighed Skywarp, not-so-gently lifting their trinemate from the ground. The more beleaguered of the two slung an arm around the other's shoulder to stabilize himself. "Starscream already left with Megatron and the others, so it's about time we head off."

Thundercracker's hum of agreement reverberated in the warper's audial, and the blue seeker could feel the strange sensation of teleportation, one jump after the other, until the world finally stood still. He was dimly aware that Skywarp was walking him somewhere, telling him they'd see him later, pushing him towards what felt like a circuit slab. With a world-weary ex-vent, he climbed onto it laboriously and switched his systems into an even lower energy setting, but one that would alert him to any sudden stimuli.

They awoke to servos on his plating, realized that his damaged limb was merely being repaired, and spent the rest of the procedure in a half-aware daze.

The seeker left the poor excuse for a medibay with a nod and a still-broken wing, hoping that his trinemates would be in a gracious enough mood to solder it for him—which all depended on the success of the raid, of which he was uncertain. It certainly wasn't mechs-drunk-in-the-halls successful, but so far at least it didn't seem to be at the Starscream-will-need-someone-to-make-sure-she-doesn't-get-a-bad-memory-purge-later level of failure. That wasn't saying much; the latter was only common for their more risky raids, of which today's was not, and the former had only happened once since the time Thundercracker got drunk off his aft in the desert and swore to never drink highgrade with Skywarp again. (He had broken that oath at the nearest opportunity.)

As it turned out, Megatron wasn't furious, and Starscream had not made any unplanned attempts at leadership, so everything seemed rather fine. (Thundercracker would sooner face the Prime himself in battle than tell their more cunning trinemate that he worried for her, but he would make sure to remind her to wait for more opportunities rather than attack at the first sign of weakness.)

"So it looks like you're the one who got slagged in Screamer's place," Skywarp had joked in the confines of their shared quarters, each sitting on berths across from each other. Thundercracker smirked at that. "And I commed her telling her to get aft over to the usual slab for the communal boasting-slash-repair session, so we'd better get over there too." With that, the dark-colored seeker swung to their pedes.

Thundercracker put pressure on a pede and unconvincingly faked a wince. "Oh no," he sighed semi-theatrically, "my injury is acting up, I'll just recharge for a while and meet up later—"

His trinemate let out a snortlike vent and stood before him, servos on their waist components. "What are you, an Autobot? Get your aft out of berth. I'm not teleporting you there."

"Stingy."

"Lazybot."

Thundercracker's facial plates flickered into a smirk, and he finally pushed himself into a standing position. Their one operable wing canted intentionally down, up, down again and gently tapped against their companion's wing.

Skywarp copied the gesture and grinned back.

They—the two of them, the trine even—had tried to put the meaning of it into words countless times, but the three had agreed that perhaps no spoken language could accurately convey the emotions and relationship that it encompassed. It was used commonly in trines and less frequently in partnerships and friendships. Soundwave had tried explaining it to Megatron; they had offered words like trust, kin, connection, affection, teasing,and comrade. The phrases were never sat right with the trine; it meant so much more, something that non-flightframes just could not understand.

The two eventually did make their way to the trine's usual place, a section of the medbay that they unofficially commandeered for wing repair. Starscream had been in a rather lenient mood, only chiding Thundercracker for their mistakes in the previous battle until the welding was done. By the time she had carefully begun to paint over the soldering marks and other minor, unrepaired injuries on his wings, she had drained the subject dry and moved on to chattering about her latest experiment. At times Skywarp would interrupt with sarcasm or genuine inquiry and—though they rarely did, Thundercracker felt at home.

For now, they had a place where they still belonged.