goodluckdetective prompted: Rewind from an alternate universe where Domey died trying to save Dominus and Cy from an alternate universe where Tailgate died trying to save him in the big battle enter our verse and have some words for their alters; let them know how much you care because they have no idea.
Transformers and related properties © Hasbro
story © RenaRoo
A Special Spark
In an instant, Cyclonus felt himself grow almost feral with his protective instincts.
He had not been speaking merely in grand gesture before on the Necrobot's planet with Whirl, and though the threat had seemed mostly over months later, seeing his own haunted face before himself and Tailgate reminded him of his promise.
Cyclonus would split this – and any other – world open and tear down the sky before allowing any harm to come to Tailgate.
"Behind me," he ordered, harsh and cold as ever, as he put himself between the minibot and this facsimile of his own make and model. His great sword was quickly drawn and he readied for a true battle.
The 'other' Cyclonus merely stared with haunted optics.
Behind Cyclonus, Tailgate sputtered indignantly, not taking kindly to how Cyclonus' freed hand was over his faceplate. "Wait, Cyclonus!" he managed, not batting at the other mech despite knowing fully well he had the strength to send Cyclonus sailing. "Look at him! I think he's you!"
"I am me," Cyclonus snapped. "That is all the information I need to know about whether or not this one should be trusted."
After a loud exvent, the other Cyclonus shook his helm. "I am different enough that I hope I can finally consider myself wise," the Cyclonus said deftly. "But don't test me. We may have started in the same place, but you and I have lived very different lives by this point, my other Cyclonus. And it has cost me what patience you have as a virtue now."
"Psst, Cyclonus," Tailgate continued behind him, tugging on the sheath plating of his back. "We should at least try to listen to him. He's not tried to do anything yet. And if he is you then we know that I'm going to be stronger than him if he does. I'll protect you."
While as a warrior Cyclonus' concentration was rarely broken, Tailgate didmanage to make him blanche long enough that his counterpart was able to dive forward and disarm him. A move that Cyclonus then promptly responded to by lashing out with a kick to the other's helm.
Once out of the shadows, Cyclonus could see the facsimile's true distinction from himself without shadows.
Three rigid, ugly scars rippled through his faceplate in a way that was unkindly familiar.
"Cyclonus!" Tailgate admonished, pulling him away from the other. "I really think we need to talk first!"
"Talking is precisely why I am here, little one," the other said, straightening up. But there was something broken in his vocalizer, the crackle of static enough to make Cyclonus – the real one, the one not marked with shame and grief – take true pause.
"Okay," Tailgate said, a little more warily of the other Cyclonus by that point. But at least he appeared satisfied to have the natural one under hand. "Talk. Right? We can all talk. I'm very good at it. Actually maybe we should get someone else here who's good with talks, too. Swerve?"
"It only needs to be us," the other continued gravely.
"Enough from you," Cyclonus warned.
"Good."
At the new voice, both Cyclonus and Tailgate turned around and looked to Rewind. But like the other Cyclonus, this Rewind was visibly not their own – not the one who they had spoken to down the hall just minutes before all the nonsense began.
Like the other imposter, the other Rewind was damaged and muted in his palette. His camera hung loosely from his helm, something that Cyclonus had never seen even in Rewind's most damaged of states.
And most confusingly of all, the other Rewind was wringing his servos, like he was timid and nervous. Things that the will-of-steel Rewind could never really be in Cyclonus' estimates.
"What's the meaning of this?" Cyclonus demanded, drawing Tailgate close yet again.
"That's exactly what we're here to tell you," other Rewind said.
Being locked in a habsuite with two facsimiles that claimed existence in a collapsing alternate dimension was not the most absurd thing that had happened to Cyclonus since boarding the Lost Light and that in itself might have said more for their crew than any of the most elaborate of testimonies their own Rewind had recorded over the years.
Tailgate sat beside Cyclonus, legs hanging over the edge of his berth and kicking while the minibot scratched at his helm.
"So you're… not Rewind-one, but also not our Rewind-two, but you're also here because of a quantum skip?" Tailgate attempted to elaborate, as if the other Rewind had not already explained as much to them.
"Afraid so," Rewind said. "Only, since Cyclonus is here and I'm here in this reality, I imagine I will be folded into nonexistence with the rest of our fading timeline."
While his eyes never left his own doppelganger, Cyclonus wasn't put much to ease by the Rewind either. Anyone claiming dimensional knowledge after his own eons lost to the Dead Universe earned a mark of skepticism from Cyclonus, however.
It wasn't exactly a difficult feat.
But these two mechs made his energon run cold. Their own timeline was not so far off or dissimilar to their own.
And he did not like the way his other stared so intently at Tailgate.
"But things went somehow worse for you on the Necrobot's planet?" poor Tailgate pressed, now holding his helm. "I don't even know how that's possible. It was so horrible already."
"Not as horrible as it could be, little one," the other Cyclonus spoke out of turn.
Immediately, Cyclonus bristled. "Either your commentary can be useful or it can be not welcome at all," he warned.
The other's glare intensified but at least it was no longer on Tailgate.
While all out war could have erupted between the two Cyclonus at any moment, other Rewind seemed intent on paying the tension no mind. He stepped up and adjusted his recorder.
"Given how quickly our remaining crew disappeared the moment we stepped foot into this reality, I estimate that Cyclonus – my Cyclonus – and I do not have long here," the memory stick explained flatly. "I think our extended stay here has more to do with willpower than anything else. And I doubt that will be enough for long."
Tailgate's fingers tapped against each other nervously. "Willpower?"
As much respect as Cyclonus had grown for Rewind over the years, he turned to his own copy for real, understandable answers.
His other nodded gravely. "I live now only for my mission. I have no illusion that anything else grounds me to here," the facsimile agreed, looking to Tailgate again in that haunting way that Cyclonus so despised. "I have no one to keep me going once I am assured of your safety. And of your knowledge."
Visibly flustered by the attention, Tailgate rubbed at his helm. "Oh. Well, gee, Cyclonus. Um. Other Cyclonus. I don't know about knowledge but I can tell you for sure that I'm safe as can be."
"And I have every intention of keeping him that way," Cyclonus interjected.
"But does he know," the other pressed, as if it meant something.
Cyclonus narrowed his optics but gave no response.
Something that prompted an aggravated vocalization from Rewind. The minibot held his helm in his hands as it shook. "Of course not, of course everyone is going to be obtuse as can be." He then looked up, rather angrily, and pointed at Cyclonus. "Do you not get it? You have to tell him. That is the whole reason we're here. Because this guy," he pointed at the other, "needs to know that some version of him out there doesn't mess up so entirely as to throw away a second chance." His shoulders dropped and he shook his head. "Just like I… I can't feel right about blipping out if I know that I'm so stupid, so self-absorbed that I've missed a third and fourth and thousandth chance to let my Domey know that I would give up all the stars and moons and space for him. That he's my one, and I'm foolish for never realizing he didn't…"
Visibly moved by the broken bot's words, Tailgate stood on his pedes and neared Rewind. "Is that why you're here? Do you need to see Chromedome? Or the other Rewind? We can get them for you real quick, can't we, Cyclonus?"
Tailgate's bright optics turned on him but Cyclonus stood somewhat dumbfounded by the situation.
"If it were so simple for him, he would already be on his way to them. Not standing here with us," Cyclonus informed Tailgate softly. "Isn't that right, Rewind?"
"If it were simple, I wouldn't need this dying wish at all," the other Rewind said bitterly. "If I was half as good at saying what I know, my Domey wouldn't… he would have known who my choice would be. He would know that my spark is with my Conjunx."
The pain in those words was almost tangible, but the moment faded fast when Rewind shook his helm and focused instead on Cyclonus.
"But I am good at knowing what's right in front of me. And, Cyclonus, I know what's right in front of me right now is a mech who won't say what needs to be said unless he gets a kick to the aft." His optics narrowed. "Consider me the boot."
Torn by the array of emotions on display, Tailgate turned to Cyclonus and tutted. "What's going on here?"
"They want me to confess to you," Cyclonus elaborated, receiving a thoughtful nod from his other. "Though I don't see the good it will do. Our realities are not the same. Their regrets cannot possibly line up with our own–"
"Oh, for crying out loud," other Rewind bemoaned, smacking himself in the face.
As the other Cyclonus seemed ready to step in, Cyclonus knelt beside Tailgate and strongly placed his hands on the minibot's shoulders. "But that does not mean that I do not carry my own regrets, little one."
There was a certain tension in Tailgate's shoulders that melted at Cyclonus' touch. "That's okay," Tailgate muttered. "I mean, it's okay to have regrets. We all do at the end of the day, don't we?"
"I do not wish for either of us to continue to regret this," Cyclonus said as softly as his vocalizers could ever manage.
"Oh," Tailgate said back, sweet and gentle. "Okay, Cyclonus. What do you regret?" he asked, as if expecting it to be a truly terrible thing.
"I carry many regrets with how I have treated you," Cyclonus said, feeling as though someone had taken his greatsword and dug it between the panels of his armor. "But nothing do I regret more than any moment I have made you feel as though your spark is not the star which has guided me to my home. I regret any moment you have ever feared that your boundless love has not touched my ancient self and changed it for the better. And I regret that I have searched so long for any word to describe such things other than the one that it is."
Tailgate's wide optics could not have grown larger, but he waited and leaned forward into Cyclonus' touch all the same.
"Love, Tailgate," Cyclonus clarified for his minibot. And, despite himself, he found a smile etching itself across his faceplate.
"Oh, Cyclonus," Tailgate all but weeped, crumbling into the old mech's arms. "I-I was always too scared to say it first!"
And with the dam broken, it was such a simple thing for Cyclonus to wrap his arms around Tailgate and hold him. Not like he was the most breakable and precious thing in existence – be that as he may to the purple mech – but like the part of Cyclonus that had always belonged melded to him, like a piece he never knew was missing.
Though he didn't want the moment to end, he could not help but glance over Tailgate's helm and look for the visitors who had brought the moment to fruition.
But as he did, Cyclonus saw that his likeness was no longer in the room. Vanished without trace.
But the other Rewind was leaving through the door, head downcast and hand dragging against the walls as he swayed out.
Separating from Tailgate had been a near impossible task after their shared confession, but the barest mention of the others reminded the minibot that he had others to tell of the confession. Which made parting somewhat simpler.
Cyclonus had every intention of rejoining Tailgate later, no matter how difficult it would be to muster up a presence with others in the face of them knowing he had certain emotional burdens.
But his first priority was to finding the other Rewind.
There was a certain sense of debt he felt toward the memory stick for having prompted his confession. And he knew that with oblivion on his mind, the other Rewind's strong resolution might not have been as brave and forthright as it seemed.
Instincts guided Cyclonus to the habsuite shared by Chromedome and Rewind of their own reality, and sure enough, the other Rewind stood outside it, looking in with longing and fear like only Cyclonus himself could understand.
He stood beside Rewind, waiting patiently and watching too as Chromedome and Rewind shared an intimate conversation across the room in hushed tones – oblivious to the other and Cyclonus.
"They're talking," the other Rewind whispered.
"They have been to themselves for that a lot as of late," Cyclonus informed him. "Since the rescue, that is."
Rewind's optics squinted. "There's no way I – him, that is to say, me – is saying the right things. There's no way I'm telling Domey what he needs to hear. There's no way that me can know what has to be done to make things right." He looked to Cyclonus brokenly. "Right?"
"I believe my spark needed a kick in the aft from you," Cyclonus said softly. "But I believe our Rewind already is you. He carries your spark. He knows what his spark wants. And he kicked himself already."
Nodding quietly, Rewind stepped back. "I think I can live with that. I think I'm okay going on if there's a Chromedome and a Rewind together out there, somewhere. I'm just glad I got to see it."
"As are all of we," Cyclonus said softly. "Go in peace."
He watched the eerie fade of Rewind's colors to monochrome gray then, as quietly as he came, he went.
"Cyclonus?"
The mech turned to see a baffled couple nearing their habsuite door, hand in hand. Chromedome seemed weary, but Rewind as usual took the charge.
"Is there something up?" the minibot pressed.
"Yes," Cyclonus said, voice tight. "Tailgate is telling the rest of the ship, I'm sure, but… We are… I told him how I feel. We are going to try to be… together. As one."
They looked him over before Rewind nodded. "That's wonderful news, Cyclonus. Thank you for thinking to share it with us."
"However awkwardly," Chromedome cracked in good humor, the most himself he had sounded since his color returned. "I mean, if you were to tell anyone I would've expected you'd tell Whirl or… Well, really that's the only bot I see you with other than Tailgate."
"I suppose I felt you should know that the strength of your own bond has had influence on mine," Cyclonus acknowledged. "Thank you," he said more specifically to Rewind.
"You're… welcome?" the minibot said, tugging Chromedome along. "Come on, let's see if this inspires a special at Swerve's."
Cyclonus watched, feeling a new satisfaction in his spark with the knowledge that when he joined the others there would be a special-spark waiting on him as well.