Once Escaped

Shockwave had never wanted Cybertron to go to waste as it had, but as he dragged himself through the wreckage of a destroyed settlement to lose the Autobots still on his trail, he could only be content with the cover it provided him. Escaping had been easy- the meek Autobots had not aimed to kill, but rather to incapacitate. Shockwave's legs ached.

His newly bonded sparkling was with him. He closed his servo tighter around the trembling little frame, and tried to ignore the feelings it was sending him over their bond. It was in an endless stage of fright, and it cringed with every step Shockwave took. Logic surmised that the sparkling could probably feel the pain in Shockwaves legs. The Autobots had all but fried his pedes during his escape attempts. If the sparkling hadn't been screeching its head off, Shockwave felt that a few Autobots might have shot for his spark regardless of his hostage. It was unfortunate that the bond went two ways. Shockwave could feel the unsettling ache of parted spark-plates ghosting over his sensorgrid.

There was a pulse over the bond, a slight tingle that brought the sparkling's tank-lunching fear to Shockwave's processor, and he slammed it away. He forced his own waves of cold, calculated contentness over the bond, and the sparkling twitched feebly in his hold, sending another uncontrollable tendril of fear to Shockwave's spark. Shockwave's systems jarred, and he tried to close the bond as much as was possible.
The Autobots had been aiming for the least responsive pain receptors, obviously in an attempt to bring him down without hurting the sparkling too much. They should have fired to kill, because now Shockwave had escaped them. He was free! Stranded on a half-dead planet, with Autobot stragglers soon to come in from all over the galaxy and soldiers scanning every scrapheap for Decepticon activity- but he was free. Shockwave had confidence. There wasn't much that could destroy a well-informed being of pure logic.

His labs had all been compromised, but it was not the first time Shockwave was left in the rubble with nothing but his own servos and wits. Starscream briefly came to mind, and the sparkling in his hold cried out at the wave of dislike and anger coiling inside Shockwave's spark. Shockwave sent a punishing wave of ice through the bond to silence it.
He already had a list of locations best suited for a temporary base. He had deactivated his comm, and forced the same on the sparkling. All that could be sensed now were their sparks, but there was no Autobot in range to scan the landscape, not after he'd lost them in the ruins of some forgotten city.

Shockwave paused inside the shattered remains of a medic-post. He had a new location for his base picked out, just barely in the range of the Autobots, right under their radar. According to his data, it had been abandoned due to a cosmic rust infection. Shockwave felt that the risk was worth it. If there was cosmic rust in that base, he would simply have to postpone his other experiments and make a cure. It was not too complicated if you knew what you were doing.

The sparkling's fear had died down, and it had made place for a detached kind of clingyness. Shockwave could feel the tiny presence of the sparkling no matter how tightly he shut the bond, and with every moment the sparkling seemed to be scratching at his walls- trying to contact with his spark. It was highly unsettling. Luckily, Shockwave no longer needed the sparkling. It was a simple matter of destroying the remains of his experiment, and moving onwards. He could always bluff that it was still bonded to him.

Shockwave reached for the small Cybertronian's spark, and hesitated. He could feel the ghostly sensation of claws reaching for his spark, and it was making alarms pop up on his HUD. His claws lingered over the tiny spark, before moving to the sparkling's unprotected neck, and snipping one of the vital energon lines. He could reuse the frame and melt it into his energon for additional supplements.
The tiny bot cried at the pain, and then started panicking as the systems started draining. Shockwave recoiled as he felt the tiny spark clawing against the closed bond, screeching in panic and fear, longing for comfort.

Shockwave reinforced the walls keeping their sparks separated, but the tiny spark did not cease its frantic scrabbling and he could still feel it. Shockwave's systems were pinging him with an error, and his spark was pulsing faster. Something was …. strange.
A whisper of incomprehension, unease and curiosity running through Shockwave's processor were all it took for his mental walls to drop. The small spark clawed into Shockwave with a wail so loud it seemed to come from within his own audials. Shockwave seized, and his vocaliser let out a horrid sound. It felt like there were claws hooking into his spark, and someone was pulling it out of his chest. The sparkling was fading, pulling away- towards the allspark, but the claws in Shockwave's spark were not loosening their grip. The sparkling-... no. Shockwave was dying!

Their panic connected, and Shockwave's frame gave a violent tremble. Errors peppered his screen, critical systems suddenly stalling and long suppressed coding surging to life. Logic processors were thrown for a loop as emotions took hold of his system for the first time in eons.

Fear, worry, gut-wrenching pain! Shockwave dropped to his knees, and tried to stem the flow of energon from the sparkling's neck. The slick feeling of energon was like acid on his servos, and the bond with the sparkling magnified the pain, echoing it back with screaming terror. Shockwave had nothing to substantially repair the sparkling with. His knowledge reached the sparkling, and their panic resonated in twisted harmony.
Shockwave forced a burst of power into his systems, his fuel pump straining as he did so. No. Logic would prevail. He would not die! His processors strained, but Shockwave used what little power he had to force his emotions back down.

He could not weld the sparkling's wounds. No welder- no emergency patches, a clamp would only inhibit energon-flow-... Shockwave clawed into his own plating and forcefully pulled out a set of his own fuel-lines. He cut one open, and pulled the sparkling up to his chest, his shivering servo hastily trying to connect the sparkling to his own frame to save it. The sparkling's fuel lines were small enough to fit inside Shockwave's, and the sensation of his emotional coding falling dormant again was like being doused in coolant.

The sparkling was safe, crudely connected to his body by stuffed-together wires, but safe and alive. Shockwave was safe and alive. The residue of his emotional coding was still buzzing in his lines, and Shockwave pulled the sparkling closer to him, his chestplates sliding open. The spark of the youngling was unprotected, and their sparks latched together in a snap.
Shockwave sprawled back against a heap of rubble and tried not to feel the echoing emotions from his bondmate. Shockwave curled his spark around the essence of his bondmate, and tried to consume it. His processors were running wild with calculations, even as his backstrut arched at a clumsy touch of his bonded's spark. Shockwave had overlooked something- something immeasurably important. Killing the sparkling- it should not have felt like that. He should have been able to extinguish the spark with only minor discomfort!

His spike was pressurised, but it went ignored in the face of the overwhelming sensations that came from the writhing spark that was held against his own. A sound escaped his vocaliser, but it was lost in the panicked sobbing of the sparkling.
Shockwave had hardlined with dying mechs in the past, and experienced every single moment of their passing. He had assumed this would be the same, but in those experiments his own spark had not been pulling towards the All-Spark. No. Shockwave had miscalculated. Shockwave was losing himself in the merge, and the energies from their spark were building. The sparkling had stopped crying, and was making stressed little moans as it rubbed its tiny frame against Shockwave's chestplates.

What had he done?!

Overload hit him, and Shockwave's vocaliser spat obscene noises at the air. Shockwave clung to the sparkling as if it was all that mattered, and his left pede twitched in the rippling waves of overload. Logic dictated that he offline the sparkling, and rid himself of the immense weakness it posed to him. His spark dictated that regardless of what Shockwave's logic dictated- he would follow the young spark to the well.

Shockwave sagged against the rubble, and held a trembling hand over the shaking body of his bonded. It had leaked a small trail of fluid over his chassis, and it was radiation pleasure, tinged with shaken and hesitant affection. Shockwave's spark felt warm. The haze of his overload slowly dissipated, and the touch of the sparkling's spark against his own was suddenly stifling. He closed the bond, snapping the connection as well as he could, and slid his chestplates closed.
The sparkling whimpered in his hold, but Shockwave ignored its pleas to reconnect, and sent a one-way wave of cool reassurance. The sparkling didn't have to be afraid. Shockwave would keep it alive by any means possible.

Shockwave held the sparking close to his chest and acclimated his systems to the small parasite feeding off his energon. Shockwave fashioned a crude seat for the sparkling to hang in from a few pieces of thin scrap, and he continued along his way to the location of his soon-to-be laboratory.

A/N: Opinions and thoughts are appreciated :)