"Ice In The Valley"

Narrated by Autobot Ironhide

WARNING THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS

Torture

~*~

We were Autobots. I knew what that meant. I knew the literal definition, I knew what it meant to us as a group, I knew what it meant to each individual I met, and I knew what it meant to me. But that definition was... fading. I could feel it slipping through my fingers sometimes. War was doing things to us - changing us. Sure in one way war had really made us Autobots. It had solidified our bond with each other and made us stronger, uniting us in a common goal. But in other ways... War had changed the definition of what we were. War had altered our programming. We were Autobot Warriors now, and that was not the same as Autobots.

I loved parts of war, coincidentally. I loved the way it made you think, about how it opened up certain possibilities, certain links of thought that were otherwise unreachable. It opened your mind to different scenarios and forced your central processing unit to work to its max, exploring each and every possibility laid before it. It made you sharper of sense and mind. It tested your limits. It kept you going. It was excitement and strategy. I loved that part of war. I loved the comradery it made you feel - how it forced you to feel like family with others. People you hated in the academy, people who grated your every gear were your closest friends and family in war.

I hated the fighting. I hated the death and destruction. I hated seeing my comrades hurt, and even more I hated seeing them die. I hated watching them mourn loved ones. I hated seeing them suffer. I hated how innocent bystanders always seemed to be pulled into the fray. I hated death. I even hated taking life. I hated knowing that my last blast had permanently ended someone's spark. I hated feeling like I was always being watched, like I was no better than the Decepticon scum we were after.

That's what I felt like now: Scum.

I lifted my optics from the floor where they had focused to our POW: Thundercracker. Ranked 3rd in the Decepticon Air Force, one of Starscream's lackeys and more than responsible for his share of Autobot casualties. He was the enemy, and now he was our prisoner.

There was really only one thing a prisoner was good for, two if you wanted to get dirty and play hostage: Information. The first thing that any prisoner could expect was questioning, and most likely torture. There were a few of us who had bearings iron-clad enough to even speak such a word, let alone put actions forth to demonstrate, and so it fell to us to decide who would handle the task, because we knew that Prime couldn't tell us to do it - it wasn't in his programming. War had made some of us ... evil.

It had fallen to myself, Kup and Prowl. Prowl and I quickly determined that we couldn't put something like this in Kup's hands. He yelled and shouted at us that he was more than capable of torturing a Decepticon for information, he'd spent nearly a year doing just that, but we weren't about to back down. Once Kup was out of the picture my mind had been made up, I just had to convince the stubborn Prowl to back down. He had a bondmate, and not only that he and his bondmate had only just recently been reunited after we thought Jazz dead - so Prowl deserved a break. Not only that but I understood, to a certain extent, how Prowl's inner circuits worked, and I knew that if I let him do this and he'd ended up storing images and sound files of torture in his memory banks, that'd be just one more thing he'd have to keep out of Jazz's reach. He had enough on his mind, and eventually I wore him down enough to see it.

Torture.

It wasn't really an Autobot thing. It was even only slightly an Autobot Warrior thing. Truth was Prime had never asked us to do it. He never had and he never would. But he knew it was necessary. He knew it had to be done and so he let us do it, and harbored dark thoughts and guilt. I thought sometimes that maybe it would be easier on him if he just did the torture himself, because this way all he could do was sit and brood about what we were doing. I knew all his circuits were firing back and forth, whispering hints to him at what we were putting ourselves through for the sake of the Autobots. He would feel guilty because he knew that we knew he wanted us to do it, and he would feel guilty because he could never do it, and would always expect us to do it.

I never held him responsible, really. I just added another mark to the list of things I would eventually repay the Decepticons for.

I heard Thundercracker cough and shut down my optics for a moment upon hearing the sound of energon hit the floor from his mouth. Maybe I'd hit him too hard that last go-round. I sighed out a deep breath of hot air and flared up my optics again.

"Are you ready to talk yet, Decepticon?" I hissed in a deep voice, turning with my arms crossed over my chest, glaring at the Seeker before me. I had done a number on him; there was no looking past that. I'd ripped into his metallic hide like a shredder. Of course Ratchet was responsible for the hole just left of his cockpit, and the scent of singed circuits burned my sensors. He had a deep crack through his right wing and I found myself completely unsure if I had done it, or if it had been a result of the crash-landing he'd made after being shot down. His cockpit was slightly askew off its hinge and the bottommost frame was shattered, still dripping glass when he breathed. The vents on the left of his helm were cracked inwards and two were missing completely. His face-plate sported a deep gash under his right optic and across his nose, and it glowed brightly on his features.

No inner wiring was exposed though. It was just outer armor damage... Of course, I'm sure it didn't hurt any less - no, I knew it didn't hurt any less. It just wasn't terminal.

He laughed hoarsely at me, and lifted his helm. I was, in spite of myself, impressed by his show of pride. Having little equipment to begin with I'd been forced to set him on a recharge berth in the basement of our 'Headquarters'. His wrists were bound behind him and he was straddling the thin slab of metal unevenly. I had expected him to give up and lean up against the wall behind him for support - but he'd done no such thing. In spite of all he'd been through within the past couple of days he remained sitting upright, his fingers splayed behind him to keep balance.

"What's so funny, Decepticon?" I offered, trying and failing to keep my voice malicious. Thundercracker fixed me with his optics and wasted energon to flare them up defiantly.

"You've on-st loose-ocal cords thou-obot." He laughed and I could hear the energon bubbling in the back of his throat. "I'm not rea-talk just yet." His words were nearly impossible to make out, but I understood the message with a dark kind of certainty.

"No?" I sighed, and approached him slowly. Despite all his boasting and his magnificent display I could feel him pull away from me as I did so. It made me sick to my gears. I didn't like people shrinking away from me in fear.

He shook his helm and I watched as his optics fluttered off-line. He didn't want to see it coming. I put myself in his place for the millionth time: Would I want to see it? Would I want my optics to remain functioning until I was forced to shut them down, or would I have the courage to shut them off? I frowned hard through my faceplate. I was quickly losing the will to go through with this.

I wasn't the creative type, and it almost hurt to come up with new ways to cause him pain. I told myself that he was a Decepticon. I told myself that there had been numerous times when my comrades had been tortured at Decepticon hands, maybe even his! He had ripped through my friends and my home planet. I owed him everything that I gave him. But this wasn't war- this was inflicting injury upon someone in cold fuel. Regardless of who it was, and oblivious to the circumstance, that was the conclusion I couldn't stop coming to. I was inflicting pain upon someone in cold fuel. He was helpless to protect himself from me, and I kept going.

"What was Starscream really after?" I voiced after a moment, standing only a few feet from Thundercracker. I saw him twitch slightly, as if my voice had startled him, but he said nothing. "Did he know we had that Cybertronian? Was that really his objective?" Still nothing, and this time he didn't even start at the sound of my voice. "Who is the large Cybertronian, and why does it matter so much to Starscream that he would desert you in order to take him?"

He laughed at this and tilted his helm towards me slowly. He flared up his optics and narrowed them at me as they registered.

"The answer to all of the above is ..." He paused and coughed again for a moment. I locked up and felt my wires twist unpleasantly as he splattered my outer armor with energon. My pity didn't last long, however, for he looked up at me again and smiled at me. It was a smirk very reminiscent of Starscream. His had a bit more bite behind it though, because he, at least, was willing to go through with his threat if he got the chance.

"Scrap you."

I sighed deeply as he continued to laugh after his threat, and made the motion to rub at my helm. Making sure he was confident he'd distracted me for the time being, I snapped out my hand and grabbed his helm by the vents. This startled him efficiently and I caught a small glimpse of fear cross his optics as I lifted his helm.

"What's the answer?" I hissed. He gave me the same smirk and spat energon onto my faceplate. Seeing as how his left vent was already sufficiently destroyed, I shoved my thumb into the small space between the topmost vent on the right, bending the strip slightly in the process.

"The truth, Decepticon." I warned, listening to the hiss of hot air escaping from over my thumb. The prisoner trembled but did nothing aside from power down his optics in response. Turning off my own optics as if not watching myself do it would stop me from doing it, I gripped the right vent tight and pulled my thumb down through the remaining strips, breaking them in half all the way down. He gasped and tried to pull out of my hands, moaning softly, but he didn't scream. In fact the only thing he'd screamed since he arrived was an empty threat, since then he'd been quiet aside from his occasional smart-ass remarks. He was handling himself like a true warrior. I wondered if it was in his programming to resist so fully, or if maybe Megatron had taken certain precautions to ensure that his men would not crack under torture. It seemed a horrific thing to consider, but this was Megatron and I assumed it was possible. That was what separated him and Optimus most. They were both leaders and both, (yes even Megatron) cared a great deal for their warriors. But to Prime they were friends, comrades and family, and to Megatron they were tools. Prime would never be able to willingly inflict pain upon his own comrades, no matter what the circumstance, but the idea that Megatron had tortured his own men to make sure their lips stayed shut was sickeningly plausible.

I pulled my hand away from the shattered vents, listening with grim and morbid satisfaction as a few of them crashed to the floor below. I was proud of myself a little as I stepped back. I hadn't wanted this to continue, and hopefully shattering the remaining vents on Thundercracker's head would achieve this goal. He would be reaching his limit soon, forced to shut down manually, for he'd had a guard at his side since he'd arrived and hadn't been permitted to recharge. His reserve power had to be all but drained away at this point, and now he wouldn't be able to cool down properly. I was done with this, and I figured he probably wouldn't want to continue much longer either.

He made a strange noise and I looked up at him as I flared up my optics solemnly. He was leaning dangerously to one side, seemingly unable to find his balance, and his lips were working slowly, as if he were talking rapidly to someone - but I was unable to hear either voice. I ran a quick diagnostic and knew before the results came back that he was in no way capable of sending a transmission in his current condition. The heat was already affecting his central processor.

Sighing I reached out and grabbed one of the mounts on his shoulder, holding him upright as I used the other hand to hit my comm. button.

"Prime?"

"Yes, Ironhide?" His response was lightning quick and eager - which meant he hadn't left his room since I started. He'd been sitting, staring at his comm. link, waiting for me to call him. I shook my head.

"I'm done here." I said quickly. I heard him sigh, even though I knew he hadn't wanted me to.

"Good." He paused. "The prisoner?"

"Nearing manual shut down," I took a moment to look Thundercracker over once more, "do you want me to radio Ratchet or...?"

"No. I'll find him on my way down."

"Understood." I side-stepped awkwardly around Thundercracker as Prime clicked off his comm. I reached around the stiff wings and released his wrists with one click of a small blade hidden in my index finger. He was nearly limp in my hands, sitting up now simply because he had been doing so for so long and his body had become accustomed to the feeling. Frowning I eased him back onto the recharge berth, listening with another swell of something like admiration as he told me he wanted to stay seated upright, no Decepticon took punishment lying down. I murmured for him to shut up, and opened the recharge berth completely. The slab stretched and grew from the wall until it conformed and supported Thundercracker perfectly. I held off on the wires however, I knew that Prime, and possibly Ratchet, would want to speak to a conscious prisoner for at least a moment or two when they arrived.

I stepped away and towards a small rag I'd left on a table near the other side of the room to clean the energon off of my outer armor. Leaning up against the wall as I did so I wondered idly if I should pick up the vents that lay broken on the floor, or if I should clean the energon off Thundercracker's face. We didn't do this often, and so there really was no protocol, nothing expected of us really, so I assumed it didn't matter. They were going to see the damage when they arrived regardless of the cleaning that I did, so what difference did a little neatness make?

I snapped my head up as I heard clanking outside the door, probably Ratchet telling Prime he would go in first, and send for him in a minute. Prime wouldn't like that, and so he'd shove past Ratchet and-

"Ironhide? We're here." He called as he walked through the door. He carried himself high, like the leader he was, but his expression belayed a leader about to be accused of wrong-doings: Wrong-doings he had actually done. He would take them, learn from them, and carry on. He was a good leader.

"Are those-?" Ratchet began, but quickly stopped himself as Prime and I both looked at him. He rubbed at his throat for a moment then continued towards Thundercracker, taking care not to step on the littering of vent pieces.

I felt Prime's optics burn into my side and I turned to address him.

"I got nothing, Prime."

"I'm not surprised." He said softly, looking towards the prisoner.

"The closest I got to an actual answer was towards the beginning, before I'd even started." I looked back over at Prime. "I don't think Starscream had any of that planned - he just happened to see us carting around a huge Cybertronian and wanted the big guy for his own uses."

"What makes you say that?" Prime asked, though I knew he trusted my judgment.

"He muttered something about how he was only supposed to be answering a transmission, and later something about nameless giants." Prime nodded and we both joined Ratchet at Thundercracker's side. He'd already cleaned up his faceplate, and he gave me a strange look as I walked over. I knew what he was thinking - that I'd been responsible for all of this. Ratchet cleaned people up; he patched wires and replaced parts. Sure he was a warrior, he done his share of damage to the opposing team (some of his handiwork actually laid on the table beneath him) but it was always the heat of battle that drove him to act. I don't think he'd have the sense to smack someone if we weren't in the middle of a war - he just wasn't instinctually violent. I admired the fact that he, and a few rare others like him, were able to think of solutions to a problem that didn't involve risk, danger, violence and death. That's all my mind cooked up, really - War solutions. Ratchet was able to maintain this strange hold on a time of peace before war, and could, when he wanted, retreat into that and make calm, unbiased decisions.

"It's just minimal outer armor damage," He said, as if telling me I'd done the right thing, assuring me that I wasn't a monster. Or maybe I was just reading too much into it.

"How long do you need to patch him up?" Prime asked optics unable to do anything but scan each and every injury. I'm sure he'd lock them away into memory, look at them later and figure out just how each and every scratch had ended up there - and imagine himself doing it instead of me. He was going to run his gears into the ground one of these days with all the weight he put on them.

"Not long." Ratchet said confidently, standing up and putting a hand on his hip. "I might need some scrap metal and a wielding tool down here for a little while, but I'll be done within the hour."

"I'll getcha whatever you need, Ratchet." I said before Prime could answer. "Just make me a list." He looked up at me and caught my optics for a moment. I'm not sure what he was thinking, why he stared at me like he did, but he gave a grim smile after a moment and nodded, breaking the surreal gaze.

"Alright. Why don't you and Prime gather the others and I'll be up in a minute with my list then."

"Good idea." I muttered, reaching out to grab Prime's arm and bring him back into functioning. "Hey, Prime, let's go."

"R-right." He sighed, starting towards the door.

"Radio if you need us, Ratchet." I offered, falling into step behind Prime.

"You don't need to wait for me, I'll catch up when I get there."

I followed Prime silently up the stairs, and it was an awkward silence to say the least. I knew he wanted to apologize to me for what he'd made me do. I'd respond, in earnest, that he hadn't made me do anything. He'd sigh, shake his head and say that no, he supposed not, but he expected me to do it. I'd tell him I was a warrior; it's what you did in a war. He'd reply that he should have been the one to do it; it was his responsibility as leader. Then, touching his arm again, I'd say that wasn't true. After all he did enough for us; we could do this for him. Besides, he had Elita One to think about, he didn't need darkness on his mind. He'd tell me that was no excuse. I'd tell him war was all about excuses. There would be silence, and then we would continue upstairs.

Up ahead of me Prime stopped. Just before I could speak he turned to me and frowned.

"Ironhide, I-" He stopped as I held up my hands and shook my head.

"No need, Prime. I just ran through the whole conversation from my memory banks. Consider it over with." I watched him watch me for a moment, but he nodded and we continued upstairs.

We would now inform the troops. We would gather them all into once place and vaguely explain that we hadn't learned anything. None of the younger troops knew, of course, that we'd attempted to torture the information from our prisoners. No, that was a burden only the older warriors were permitted to carry. Myself, Prowl, Kup, Ratchet, Jazz, Prime, and Elita One were the only ones around now who knew exactly what went on with the Prisoners. I figured that the younger, smarter Autobots would figure it out on their own just like I had, but right now we were all content to pretend they were ignorant to it. Pretend they didn't know how we'd learned nothing, and then spend countless hours talking about nothing, about how to move on from nothing, about what to do with the endless supply of nothing we had, about how nothing was so close and yet so far, about how we all wanted nothing more than to rip into nothing.

I was making my own head hurt just thinking about it.

In the end Prime had told them just that: We hadn't learned anything. We had no leads. They had taken the information better than I thought they would, really. They were disappointed, of course, because they'd all wanted to get back at the Decepticons. Jazz, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically livid. After we'd dismissed the 'children', he'd approached Prime and I. He practically demanded that he be permitted to talk to the prisoner - because he'd knock some sense into him, and some answers out. Prime denied him. Jazz, frustrated, actually began ranting - and I knew why: Guilt. It drove most of us these days, powering us like energon through our wires. He felt guilty because it was his savior that we had lost, he felt he owed the guy (I guess he did, really) and we had no leads on his whereabouts. We had no idea what the Decepticons wanted with him either, so I knew Jazz, being so much like Prime in some ways, would be just beating himself up over the possibilities. Prowl and Ratchet eventually ended up restraining him when Kup and I entered the argument, reminding him that it wasn't his place and so forth. He'd gotten in a good hit to my chin before they pulled him out of arm's reach. Prime tried to talk us all down, but his words only got so far. I could only imagine the ear-full Prowl was getting now, stuck in his room with an irate Jazz. I understood Prowl probably more than either of us knew, because when I was younger I'd been a lot like him. I'd changed, of course, I'd changed a lot really, but I'd started out by the book just like him: Eager and willing. Jazz on the other hand, not only baffled but infuriated me.

The children had been all about action, which hadn't helped things. Bumblebee, HotRod, Blurr and even Arcee hadn't stopped talking about action until Prime shooed them away. They didn't stop to think about the lack of information we had, they just wanted to go in and rip things up. They wanted to tear into Decepticon hide, pay them back for all the things they'd suffered, be heroes, really. I think they were just scared. They knew, deep down despite all the eager talk, that we were helpless at the moment. They knew we were just waiting to be attacked again because we couldn't stage our own battles. They felt like sitting astro-ducks, just like we did. They just handled it better. We ripped into each other, tensions ran high and we snipped at our friends, attacked each other, but they just talked big. They dreamed and planned and pretended they knew what they were talking about when they described how they'd rip into this Decepticon or that one. It kept their spirits up. Children were just, damned good at adapting.

When had we lost that ability? Us war veterans. We were complete slaves to our current situation, we'd been born during peace and grew up in war - and we'd stopped adapting. We were made for war now; it pounded our gears and untwisted our wires. It was what we were good at. We were good at strategies and weapon-making, good at hitting and dodging, good at taking pain and giving it, good at faking nonchalance, and good at ignoring our conscious programs. My internal workings were so fired up for war, for battle, I knew I couldn't get rid of that programming. I was stuck here, and wouldn't ever break away from it. I was a Warrior - I couldn't go back to being an Autobot, no matter how hard I tried. War had... taken about as much as it had given me.

"Ironhide?"

My thoughts had caught up with me, and left me stranded midway up the back stairs to my quarters. I shook my head and aimed my optics into the dark ahead of me, forgetting to flare up my lights.

"Uh - yeah?" I offered weakly.

"What exactly are you doing on the stairs?"

Primus. It was Ratchet. Sometimes he was almost as bad as Jazz about knowing just when to show up to fully aggravate me. Though, I couldn't stay mad at Ratchet - he wasn't as nosy, for one thing.

"I could ask you the same thing, Ratchet. Your quarters aren't only on the first floor, their in completely the opposite direction." I snipped, perhaps a bit aggressively, energon still hot in my systems from being nearly attacked by Jazz.

I could see Ratchet now that my optics were re-setting themselves for dark lighting, and he was fretting, wringing his hands together in an oddly human way, optics on the floor.

"Ye-s, it is." He said at last, rubbing his helm as he looked up at me, "I was actually hoping to run into you."

"You were?" I said quickly. "Why?" Tact was not my forte. The other Autobots could beat around the bush and play nice if they wanted to, I wanted the point and I wanted it immediately. Small talk was cannon fodder.

"I'm - I'm not sure how to... say this," Ratchet started, and I could hear his mind working. It was loud and impossibly complicated, Ratchet's mind. It seemed unlikely, improbable that one spark was able to dictate all that went through that one mind. Ratchet was impossible to describe in less than five words... Unless of course you used 'impossible' to describe him, and then I suppose one word was sufficient.

"What happened tonight," Ratchet continued, bringing me back to the present, "with Thundercracker,"

"It's over and done with." I snarled, now unsure of what territory Ratchet wished to access and I was weary about treading with him.

"I just wanted to say that - I admire you for what you were able to do." He finished quickly, looking up at me with almost hopeful and relieved optics.

"You admire me? Primus, for what? For being able to rip into a helpless life-form in cold fuel?" I growled, taking a step towards Ratchet. "For being able to inflict damage upon a Cybertronian completely unable to protect himself?" I took another step and Ratchet, like Thundercracker, shrunk back from me. I stopped and crossed my arms over my chest, looking away and leaning against the wall.

"Hardly admirable."

"I didn't mean it like that, Ironhide and you know it." Ratchet's voice was dark now, as if he was reminding me that he wasn't always behind the scenes in the war.

"How did you mean it then?"

"I meant that I admire your strength and your will-power. I admire the fact that you are strong enough of mind and spark to put yourself through something like that and emerge, for the most part, the same as when you went in." He shook his head. "I could never-"

"Who says I emerge the same as when I went in, eh?"

Ratchet took a moment to look at me and bask in the harsh words before responding with a softer tone.

"Well, you certainly don't seem any worse for the wear, Ironhide. You seem the same to me." He smiled a little through his faceplate. "And I think I'd be able to tell if you were dramatically different, after all, we have been fighting side-by-side since this whole war began, remember? You saved my aft on Cybertron."

"You locked up; I couldn't just leave you there." I offered with a grunt.

"And you've been stuck with me since... so, take the damned compliment, and recharge." He said, turning and starting back down the stairs, but he paused and turned back up towards me after a few steps. "By the way, Ironhide,"

"What, for Primus's sake?"

"I need three standard size sheets of titanium; silver coating alloy; two infrared lasers one on blue and one on red wavelengths; a blow torch; an extension cord; and two packs of energon."