A/N: This little fic was inspired by softlight289's (on Tumblr) adorable Praxian Brothers cartoons and headcanons.
Jack found Smokescreen on top of the base.
Technically, he wasn't supposed to be up here without a bot with him – his mom had taken one look and said something like "there's no guardrails" or something like that – but he wasn't actually alone, since Smokescreen was up here, too.
He had seen Smokescreen slip away during the raucous discussion taking place down inside the base. Wheeljack and Bulkhead were regaling Miko and Raf with stories of their time in the Wreckers, and other bots they had known. It had seemed strange that Smokescreen had left during that... Jack thought that those kinds of stories were exactly the sort of thing Smokescreen would have been interested in. But instead, Smokescreen had left without saying a word.
Very strange. So Jack followed Smokescreen up top.
"Hey, Smokescreen," Jack said, walking up next to the white bot. "Mind if I sit here with you?"
Smokescreen's wings were low on his back, broadcasting his mood in a way that Jack hadn't ever seen on him before. He gestured at the rock beside him. "It's a free planet," Smokescreen said, and continued looking out over the Nevada desert.
Jack settled down onto the rock. It was still warm from the sun, but he could feel the chill in the air now that the sun had set and the stars had started to come out. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You left sort of suddenly."
"I'm fine," Smokescreen said. "It's just that... All that talk about other bots they used to know..." He shrugged, his optics dimming in thought. "It just got me thinking." Then he fell silent again.
Ah.
Jack waited to see if Smokescreen would say anything else. When he didn't, Jack asked, "Do you miss anyone? You know... From Cybertron."
Smokescreen looked down at him, his wings rising in what Jack assumed was surprise. Then he looked back out at the desert. "Yeah," he said finally. "My brothers."
Jack glanced up at Smokescreen. "You have brothers?" He knew that 'family' was a concept that the Autobots had learned on Earth, so the fact that Smokescreen had brothers didn't seem to jive with that.
"Yeah," Smokescreen said again. Then he paused and shrugged. "I mean, really, they're my –" Smokescreen made one of the strange, melodic, electronic sounds that Jack recognized as Cybertronian (and not the 'binary' that Bumblebee spoke in). "But the language pack Ratchet gave me doesn't have an exact translation for that word. It's telling me that 'brothers' is as close as it gets. So... yeah, I guess. I miss my brothers."
"Oh," Jack said.
They lapsed back into silence. A meteor streaked across the sky overhead.
"Tell me about your brothers," Jack said.
Smokescreen looked down at him again, and his wings rose fractionally. "Really?" Smokescreen asked.
"Well, yeah!" Jack said. "I mean, besides you guys and the Decepticons, we don't know anything about any other bots, really." He floundered for a minute, since that wasn't exactly true... They'd heard about Cliffjumper and Tailgate and Seaspray and a few others, but all of those bots were dead. Jack didn't think it would be nice to make that comparison, especially since he didn't know what had happened to Smokescreen's brothers. "I don't have any siblings... It's just been me and my mom for as long as I can remember. So, tell me about yours. What are their names?"
Smokescreen's wings rose some more, and he smiled. "Prowl and Bluestreak," he said.
Encouraged by Smokescreen's shift in demeanor, Jack nodded. "Are they like you?"
Smokescreen scoffed. "Hardly. I'm the best looking of all of us." He paused, and his wings sank again. "We're all pretty different."
Jack's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a text from Miko. Dude, where did you go? Arcee is looking for you!
He tapped back a quick reply. Just talking to Smokescreen. I'm fine. Tell Arcee I'm still on base, and I'll be here a little while longer. He shoved his phone back in his pocket, hoping that his guardian wouldn't come find him right away; he had a feeling Smokescreen needed to talk out whatever was bothering him. "Tell me about Prowl," Jack said.
Smokescreen hummed for a moment. "Prowl is... Prowl." Then he laughed. "I know that doesn't tell you anything. He's... really dedicated to his work. Like, all the time. When the war started he became one of the Autobots' chief military strategists. And before the war, he was a cop."
"Really?" Jack had never been able to convince Arcee to talk about Cybertron before the war; it was just too painful a subject for her. But it seemed simultaneously weird and totally normal that they would have regular things like file clerks and cops. "What else?"
"He always looks out for us. Me and Bluestreak, I mean. And he's tough. You don't dare make a mistake around him... Although I think he's a bit softer on me and Blue than he is on other bots." Smokescreen thought for another moment. "It was his actually idea for me to join the Elite Guard. I didn't want to at first, but he convinced me to do it. And..." Smokescreen vented a gust of air that whistled through his air intake. "Prowl was right. It was the right decision for me to reach my destiny. I mean, if I didn't join the Elite Guard, I never would have ended up here, on Earth, fighting alongside Optimus Prime!" he said, shooting Jack a proud smile.
Jack nodded, trying to encourage Smokescreen. This was the Smokescreen he'd gotten to know, not the strangely quiet bot he'd seen when he first came to the top of the base. "And what about your other brother... Blue?"
"Bluestreak," Smokescreen said. His smile became softer. "He talks. A lot. Even more than Miko. I know his talking annoyed some bots, but not us – me and Prowl were used to it." Smokescreen thought for another minute. "Bluestreak never liked fighting, but he still wanted to help the war effort. So instead of joining the Autobots as a warrior, he studied to become an engineer. And he ended up becoming a really great one. He can fix anything! I mean, if he was here on Earth, him and Ratchet could probably cobble together a working space bridge in a week!"
"A week? Really?" Jack asked dubiously. When Smokescreen glanced at him, Jack added, "I mean, Megatron's had the entire Decepticon army working on a space bridge, and it took them months to get one working."
Smokescreen thought for a moment before shrugging. "Ok, maybe it would take them two weeks. But I'm sure they could do it. Bluestreak's a genius when it comes to stuff like that." His wide smile returned. "Me and him would prank Prowl so bad... The best was when we got three – uh, I guess you'd call them chickens? Robo-chickens? Anyway, Bluestreak got the idea to get three chickens, and we numbered them one, two, and four... And then we let them go in Prowl's office." He leaned over towards Jack and gleefully added, "Prowl spent days looking for chicken number three!"
Jack laughed. "That's amazing! What a great idea for a prank! And Bluestreak came up with that?" When Smokescreen nodded, Jack shook his head. "Did Prowl ever figure out what happened?"
"Bluestreak couldn't keep the secret after a week or so," Smokescreen said. "He finally told Prowl what we'd done. And Prowl..." He laughed again, quietly this time. "I think he was just glad that he didn't have to worry about chicken number three anymore."
Jack hesitated before asking his next question. He'd wanted to ask it from the beginning of their conversation, but knowing how many bots had died during the war had made him hesitant. Encouraged by how Smokescreen seemed to think of them in present tense, rather than past tense, Jack took a deep breath and asked, "So... Where are they now?"
Smokescreen's wings fell again, and for a moment Jack had a horrible feeling that he'd guessed wrong. But Smokescreen lifted his head to look up at the stars and said, "Out there, somewhere, I guess." He turned his head slightly, seeming to scan the stars as if he could pick out his brothers from the points of light. "They were still on Cybertron when the Hall of Records in Iacon got attacked and I got put into stasis and throw onto that Decepticon prison ship. But Optimus told me he knows that Prowl got off-planet during the final evacuation of Cybertron. And Prowl would never have left Bluestreak behind. So they're still out there, somewhere." He looked down at Jack, his expression somber. "And once this war is over, I'm going to find them. Wherever they are... I'll find them."
There was a certainty in Smokescreen's voice that made Jack pause. Then he reached over and patted Smokescreen's hand where it rested on the warm rock beside him. "I'm sure you will," he said quietly. "And I'm sure that they're looking for you just as hard."
Smokescreen made a strange noise, like a feedback squeal from a microphone that got too close to a speaker. Then he made a clicking noise and nodded. "I know they are," Smokescreen said.
Silence fell between them once more, as they watched the stars slowly wheel overhead.