A/N: This is a bit confusing and probably overly dramatic/unpolished but I like it. I hope you do, too.
Slingshot was dying.
He had to be. He'd climbed - hand over foot – to the highest point of the Ark he could reach and sprawled there, limply, under the sun. Energon was smeared and already drying on the orange hull, the burn of the overheated metal stinging at his open wounds, and he was dying.
No, no that was the wrong memory. A corrupted file. He'd climbed through snow to the tip of a mountain and the cold was freezing his joints and dropping his internal temperature at an alarming rate. It felt like being burned alive from the inside out and the outside in, and he was still dying. And that was the truth.
Agony.
His jet was gone, and with it his wings.
His back was far too light.
Then there was the dark place in the ground. It was cold there too, cold enough to burn, but it was quiet. Until the roar of jet engines rattled the walls and dropped rocks on his head and sprinkled gravel in the open, wet wound that was his back.
Grayscale world.
Sometimes he would bite down on his wrist to keep from screaming when the seekers flew by overhead, and sometimes that didn't help at all. Sometimes his audios would flare with sensitivity and he couldn't help but scream, and sometimes everything was far too quiet. Sometimes he couldn't see at all.
The energon dripped steadily down his back, and his self-repairs sent warnings and reports and then red-blaring panic when they couldn't block it off.
Extensive damage: unable to repair. Warning: Seek repair immediately. Seek repair immediately.
But those stopped too, once the gravel and dirt from the ceiling finally clumped and gathered and clotted the wound on his back.
There was a poison in the fuel remaining in his body now, because of it.
He couldn't scream anymore. His wrist was mangled. The energon dripped.
He tried, sometimes, to climb out of the hole in the ground he'd curled up in, systems overheating before he'd moved three feet. He knew he shouldn't, but he had to try to help himself, right?
You're far too stubborn, Slingshot, his brothers would say. His brothers.
Sometime, in fever dreams, he'd think he'd heard his brothers calling but they couldn't get to him and he couldn't get to them even though he tried and tried. He'd come out of the dreams sick with disappointment and illness, hands scraped painfully on rock and low – too low – on fuel.
Why hadn't he shut down?
Still in the dark.
He didn't know how long it had been. Not too long. He wasn't dead. Far, far too long.
He wanted to cry for help, far passed the point of caring about his pride. Locked in a state of anything, I'd do anything, just make it stop.
It took a long time to realize he wasn't hurting anymore.
The snow was making its way into his dark place, but Slingshot didn't notice it anymore. He couldn't online his optics and he couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He couldn't even bleed; he couldn't even hurt.
It was like he was dead. He was just waiting for it to be official.
His fingers couldn't twitch.
Why hadn't he shut down?
His sickness brought images of four jets, silver and white and black and red. A yellow flash on gray wings. Lightning raining down around him. Laughter and a smile and war game flights in the skies that were theirs.
He wanted his teammates. He wanted them near. He couldn't call for them. Why hadn't they found him?
Where are you?
Sometimes he dreamed that they hated him and sometimes he dreamed that they were dead. Face after face after face until they all blurred together Superion and left him emptier and warmer than before.
Sometimes the dreams were happy memories that probably weren't memories at all but he didn't care anymore and wished they would be. They were all he had now, waiting to die because he couldn't save himself and he thought the seekers were still out there. Most of the time the dreams were sad. Most of the time they were full of hate and death and pain.
His systems stuttered, and he was far passed the ability to care about how long he'd been waiting for that.
Time was skips and sketches now, anyway.
He still listened for the familiarity of his teammates in the sky, but he didn't know if it was hope. Expectancy, maybe.
They would come.
(Self doubt was a horrible thing. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they didn't care.)
And in his darkest moments.
(Maybe they knew and they weren't coming anyway.)
He wasn't shutting down. He thought that might be for the best.
At least he'd be aware when he died.
And he might as well be dead. He was dying.
Slingshot was dying.
Skydive's optics onlined in a dark room. Silverbolt bent over him with dimmed-hope optics.
Skydive sat up and braced a hand on the berth and thought of the pain and the dark place and the pain and of illness, hopelessness, and hope.
He thought of probabilities.
He looked at Silverbolt, and he looked at Fireflight and Air Raid behind him, all watching with wary curiosity and concern, and he was calm. His injuries should have prevented him climbing to his feet, but he did it anyway, gently maneuvering out of reach of Silverbolt's alarmed attempts to push him back down.
He wavered for a moment, then stabilized, and straightened against the pain.
"I know where Slingshot is," he said, and they went still, watchful, their minds sharpening and becoming hard as one together and focused. "We have to go now."
Then he took a step and held on to Silverbolt for support. After a moment, Silverbolt held on to him back. Good. Skydive was satisfied. He wouldn't be ordered to stay behind. He wouldn't have to disobey Silverbolt.
He took another step and Silverbolt slung Skydive's arm over his shoulder and helped him hobble to the doors of the medical bay without a word – they didn't need them. Air Raid and Fireflight moved to either side of them, ready to intervene should anyone try to stop them. And they would try to stop them, an injured wing of jets trying to take to the skies. That was okay.
It was an immediate sort of trust. They had been told that Slingshot was dead, but he wasn't, and they knew he wasn't, and Skydive had always known especially. Skydive had said so anyway, and so they knew for sure. They watched for Autobots as much as they watched Skydive hobble along at Silverbolt's side, energon leaking from the torn wounds on his legs and shaking with the strain but uncomplaining. He knew where his brother was in ways that couldn't be described in words, not even to his gestalt. He could still fly.
Sometimes they were reminded that Skydive was Slingshot's best friend.
Then they were reminded why.