Here you are! Another nice chapter for you! You will probably laugh at Silverstorm. Hard.
Silverstorm was humming when he got "the sense." Optimus had talked about that to him briefly. It was something that the elder Prime got when one of his mechs was in trouble. The sense shuddered up and down his body and it was intense. The more intense it was, Optimus said, the more trouble he or they were in. He dropped everything and hurried away, telling Mirage and Bumblebee to watch over the construction project. When he was out of sight of the others, he began to sprint. He had no idea where he was going, but he soon discovered he didn't need to know. His pedes just took him where he needed to go.
It was Fireflight. He was screaming. Loudly. And running around slamming into things hard enough to be worrisome. Silverstorm ran over and grabbed him, twisting him onto the ground. Even though it shouldn't have been possible, the crazed flier got louder and sounded even more terrified. Between the garbled words coming out of his mouth, the Prime got "Shockwave," "stop," "blood," and "dying." Using his greater strength and being careful of the distressed flier's wings, Silverstorm pinned him in his lap with his audio receptor near the Prime's mouth.
"Hey, hey, calm down. It's me, Silverstorm. You know me, it's okay. I'm right here. Shockwave's not going to get you. I won't let him."
Those last words produced a change in the screaming, struggling flier's demeanor. He stopped moving and asked something in a wounded tone.
"Promise?"
"To the best of my ability, I promise."
There was silence for a few minutes, both of them just breathing in and out softly.
"Silverstorm? Would you sing me a lullaby?"
"Certainly."
The Prime sang several lullabies, some from Cybertron and some from Earth. When he was finished, they sat there in silence until Fireflight sighed heavily and shifted to sit on the metal of Cybertron. He was nervously playing with his hands, so Silverstorm placed his on the nervous ones.
"Where are your wing brothers?" he asked softly.
"They went out for a flight," he said softly. "I didn't know I was going to have flashbacks."
The Prime wanted to so badly, but he didn't ask what the mech was flashing back to. It turns out, he didn't have to.
"Can I trust you? Can we trust you?" Fireflight asked seriously.
"Yes. Whatever it is, I won't tell anybody, not even Bee. I wouldn't even tell Optimus Prime if I had the option."
Fireflight smiled, but it was sad. "We, like your younglings, were some of the last sparklings to be created before the war. But Shockwave got his servos on us. He took us away from the others and kept us in isolation. He kept telling us when we were sparklings that when we became younglings we were going to be part of a great experiment. He was like a Protector to us, though he did have a temper.
"The first thing he did to us the second we became younglings was what Primus did to you, which was changing our protoforms to a flier's lighter build. He wasn't as good as Primus. We were berth ridden for weeks. He forced us to scan an alt mode as soon as we could walk again, but he did let us pick which ones we wanted. He then started to do these…sick, demented, Primus forsaken experiments with us. He twisted our bodies and sparks into what he wanted. It was pure agony, mental, physical, and emotional. The worst was when he finally made us combine."
"Combine?"
"We're what Shockwave calls a gestalt. We have this thing called a bond that links our minds and sparks, so we feel pain when the others feel pain and we can hear each other's thoughts. But the most amazing part is that we can physically transform and combine to form a giant transformer. His name is Superion. He's a separate entity from us."
The Prime sat motionless, taking in the information. He could sense Fireflight getting nervous so he smiled.
"I'm sorry that happened to you, but look at yourselves now. You're stronger, and you're so close to each other. I'm a little jealous. I'd love to be connected to Bumblebee like that."
Fireflight smiled then frowned. "As for what's wrong with me, it's how I cope with all the pain I've suffered. I just retreat into myself. I know, I'm a burden."
"There is nothing wrong with you and you're not a burden," Silverstorm said fiercely. "You're you, and that's all I can ask you to be."
Fireflight whined happily and embraced the Prime. There was the sound of frantic running and the Aerialbots shot around the corner of a building. They froze when they saw them for a brief second then hurried over.
"Fireflight! Are you alright?" Silverbolt asked breathlessly.
"I am now," Fireflight said softly, pulling away from his Prime.
"What happened?" Slingshot demanded. "I bet he was asking you questions! Let me tell you something, Silverstorm—!"
"He didn't ask me any questions, Slingshot, so just shut up. But…I did kinda…tell him…"
"Tell him what?!" they chorused together, looking angry.
"Well, I trust him," Fireflight said crossly. "And it's too late to stop me anyway."
Silverbolt looked absolutely livid for a moment then his shoulders slumped. "Fine. Just…fine."
"He promised he wouldn't tell anybody, not even Bee or Optimus Prime," Fireflight said, standing up and placing an arm around the mech.
"Well…I guess we can trust him. C'mon let's take him to his next lesson," Slingshot said with that one particular smile.
"Next lesson?"
"Yes, you've got turning, flying up and down, and surfing wind currents. Let's take you up to see if you're afraid of heights," Silverbolt said.
"Okay. Where to?" Silverstorm said happily.
They took him to the tallest building around and it was well preserved so they walked up the stairs on the inside. At the top, one look down made Silverstorm swallow convulsively. He noticed that Silverbolt was standing in the center and didn't come to look down with him.
"Are you afraid of heights?" Silverstorm asked.
"Energon curdling terrified," Skydive said with a smile. "And he can't change into a ground vehicle because of what we are."
"I do have some advice for you though," Silverbolt said, smiling like Slingshot had earlier.
"What?" Silverstorm asked.
"I suggest not hitting the ground too hard."
"Wait, what?!"
Silverstorm felt hands on his back and the next thing he knew, he was plummeting toward the unforgiving ground. Panic went through him, and his mind raced. He deployed his wings on instinct and launched his thrusters. Spark zapping violently in his chest, he waited for the impact, but none came. He found himself about a thousand feet off the ground, hovering nicely. There was laughter from above and the Aerialbots came to hover around him.
"That. Wasn't. Funny," Silverstorm managed to spit out.
"Best way to teach you how to really fly, though," Fireflight said happily.
"Still. Not. Funny."
"Oh really now," Silverbolt chided. "You're fine. If we thought you'd die we wouldn't have pushed you."
"Who got to push you off a building?" Silverstorm spat childishly, crossing his arms.
"We didn't get pushed, except for Silverbolt. We jumped," Air Raid said, casually floating in front of the Prime just to show that they were in midair.
"Why? Why would you willingly jump off a building?"
"We had to escape Shockwave somehow," Skydive said.
"Oh."
"At that point in our lives, we thought it was better to die than to stay locked up," Silverbolt said with a nod.
"But it turns out that Shockwave hadn't stopped our learning to fly in time. We survived. After surviving on our own for a while, we decided to go after Shockwave, and that's where we met you," Fireflight said.
"And the dreams with Primus?" Silverstorm asked, experimentally moving around; it was easier than he thought.
Slingshot shrugged. "Ever since Shockwave captured us, Primus has appeared in our dreams. He helped us as much as he could. Without the Allspark, he can't really move around like he used to. He's stuck in and a short ways around the temple."
"Now, ready to learn some tricks?" Fireflight asked.
"Teach me all you know," Silverstorm said. "And, one more thing. Next time you're going to push me off a building? Don't."
They laughed and shoved him playfully.
"Now catch me if you can!" Fireflight shrieked, taking off.
"Hey! No fair! I don't know how to go fast yet!"