They all looked a bit disheveled, tired, roughed-up, but no one was visibly hurt. Sam and Tony in their armors stood out like sore thumbs, and Sam was itching to get rid of the protective gear. Tony, who had a lot more experience in the Iron Man armor, looked almost comfortable. Give him a glass of champagne and he might just be at some boring charity reception.
"Welcome home," he told the men and one woman, nodding at Walker that they had permission to get refreshed and fed first. "I know you just came home, but things on Earth have sped up. Not in a good way either. You have an hour, then Optimus Prime has ordered a video conference with everyone."
Tony only cocked one eyebrow, then turned and headed to his quarters. Sam sighed a little and followed. Both men were shadowed by their respective guardians, which left Jazz with Banachek.
"I already got the basic lay-out of our situation," the silver mech said softly. "Did you sweep the base?"
"Yes. We found no trace of Decepticon presence in the base or the vicinity. Barricade spent the better half of a day making sure of that, too." Banachek grimaced at the memory.
The former Decepticon had been thorough, but he wasn't the most social of mechs. His interaction with base personnel had been minimal and even then he had scared them. But he was good at his job.
Jazz smiled a little. "Good. See you in an hour, Tom."
Banachek watched him leave again and he had a good guess where he was going. Barricade was still around, even if he was mostly outside and patrolling the territory. He finally went back to his office to prepare for the meeting.
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Jazz found Barricade on the other side of the base entrance, the black and white mech waiting patiently. No words were lost, but a lot was said anyway. Jazz smiled at the expression in the terrifying face, the blood red optics flaring briefly.
They stayed like this, together, scanning the horizon, their sparks brushing against each other, until the worsening weather had them enter the Arctic base once more.
It was time for the meeting.
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Pepper Potts had cancelled all meetings and taken a Stark Industries jet to the Arctic station. She would have fought Heaven and Hell to be there when Tony finally made it home, and when the jet received clearance and was allowed to land, Stark had already been brought back from the crash site in Greenland.
Pepper waited impatiently for the medical check to be completed. On the outside she appeared cool and collected, completely professional. Inside was another matter.
When she was finally allowed inside the examination room, she walked with a crisp, business-like stride. Green eyes sought out the man sitting easily on the examination table. Tony looked like this was nothing more than a dentist's appointment. There were no external wounds and while he appeared tired, it wasn't a look she hadn't seen before.
"Ms. Potts," he greeted her with a cheerful smile. "You light up this room."
Pepper was momentarily drawn between hitting him and hugging him, then simply smiled.
"Welcome home, Mr. Stark."
"Aw, you missed me."
"I had to reschedule several of your appointments," she informed him formally.
"They'll live."
"Probably."
"And the company's still standing. So I take it my absence wasn't noted."
She had noted. As had Jarvis. It was a little weird how she had drifted down into the workshop to talk to the AI after the second day Tony had been up in space. It had been natural to wrap up each day with Jarvis. While part of Jarvis had been downloaded into the armor, it wasn't linked to the AI. Jarvis hadn't been able to talk to Tony in real time.
"You'll make up for it," she informed him.
"You bet I will. So, what's my favorite red head doing in a place like this?" He flashed her his best charming smile.
Pepper really wanted to whack him over the head with something heavy now. "Making sure you get home in one piece."
"Ah. My second baby-sitter."
"Personal assistant," she immediately corrected.
Tony's eyes took on a more serious note all of a sudden. His smile turned from charming to soft and knowing.
"Thank you, Pepper," he whispered as he walked past her.
Pepper allowed an equally soft smile to answer the words. "You're welcome, Tony."
Then she followed him out the medical unit of the base, computer pad in hand, business as usual.
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The tension was thick enough to cut it with a knife. Sitting in the conference room, Will tried not to look at his hands all the time. He had chosen a long-sleeved t-shirt to cover his arms and almost added gloves since the runes were hyper-active and very numerous. His face looked like an explosion of tribal tattoos on top of that.
Optimus Prime was looking at the assembled allied forces with a somber, grave expression. Nellis and the Arctic base were there via video conference on ultra-secure channels. Lennox saw the crew of the Ghost-2, Jazz, Hot Rod, Bumblebee, Sam and Tony on one screen. Bowman, Arcee, Ratchet and Major General Henry Dunn on the second one.
The briefing had been clear and to the point. There was no doubt about how perfectly Soundwave had staged all events.
To get to Will.
Lennox felt sick to the core.
"What would he want with Will?" Sam asked, sounding perplexed. "He's not the Allspark."
"Soundwave doesn't know that," Ratchet replied. "He went through all the data he could hack, but most information about Will is not on any servers. For a reason. The accident was filed away, but not what happened afterwards. Soundwave doesn't know about Will's abilities, the changes, or the fact that he can't use any powers the Allspark had."
"He does now. At least some," Lennox muttered, but they heard him.
"Yes, he does. Whether he believes your shape-changing is the only ability remains to be seen. He wanted to revive Megatron," Prime said. "Megatron's body shell was raised from the Laurentian abyss and we found remnants of it in the wreckage of the building Soundwave used as a hideout. The sabotage of the Ghost-2 and the attack on Captain Bowman were to distract us from Ravage's presence. It nearly worked."
Will shivered a little. He had become a pawn. Soundwave believed he had something he had never had, nor would gain. He wasn't the Allspark.
"Do you think he'll try again?" Tony wanted to know. "If he believes Lennox is your Allspark…"
"He lost Megatron's shell and several of his symbiotes," Ratchet answered. "Then there's the question as to how he would have gone about reviving a destroyed spark. The Allspark might have worked, but it was never tried before. None of the dead have ever been revived. All Soundwave could hope for was... a puppet."
"Which would be enough to gain control of the scattered Decepticon forces," Prime added. "Soundwave is very powerful and he has his followers, but then there are those solely loyal to Megatron. He would have them all."
"The question is," Will spoke up, "is he gone or do I have to look over my shoulder now?"
"We don't know where he went, Will," Optimus told him with an apologetic note.
Great.
"But we'll be looking for him," Ironhide added with a low rumble. It was a promise.
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At the Arctic base, tension was just as bad as in Nevada. The Ghost-2
was currently under minute scrutiny. Engineers were looking for
possible secondary sabotage, altered circuits and hidden additions. So
far, nothing had come up. The aim had been to delay the ship's return.
With the video conference over, people went back to their work or
finally to bed. The crew of the Ghost-2
were doing the latter. Tony Stark found that while he was tired, he
wasn't tired enough to sleep. He got himself a coffee and walked out
into the underground hangar, gazing thoughtfully at the ship he had
helped redesign. The sabotage had felt like a violation to him and even
now the Extremis was going over the strained circuits and downloading
data the engineers were going over as well. Tony trusted them, but he
wanted to have his own look at matters.
"Hey," a familiar voice greeted him.
He didn't need to turn around. He knew who was next to him – the silver legs gave it away. He leaned sideways a little, shoulder bumping against Hot Rod's lower leg.
"Hey," he answered.
Silence descended between them. It was a comfortable silence as both watched the hustle and bustle around the ship until Tony had emptied his super-size coffee.
"Banachek has a flight ready for us," Hot Rod finally said.
"Noticed. It's his not so subtle hint that he wants us out of here."
"It's his very open offer to fly you home for you to get some rest," Hot Rod contradicted.
"Or that."
The Autobot smiled. "You want to stay here and poke around the Ghost-2 again?"
"She's a wreck."
"So you build a new one."
Tony snorted. He was tempted to try his hand at designing a new ship from zero, but he also had a business to run and his mind was still working on how to adjust the Ark to their needs. To get to the Ark they needed a ship, though.
"I'll leave that to Banachek. Man's probably bored."
"Probably," Hot Rod chuckled. "As for your business, I think Pepper's been calling you a dozen times already."
"Uh-huh."
While she was at the base, he had used the cavernous complex to get lost. He really hadn't been ready to re-enter the business world just yet. His cell phone was still switched off, but the Extremis extension had alerted him to the many calls. He hadn't answered them.
"She's called me twice so far."
"My very own answering machine. Cool."
"Don't get used to it," Hot Rod replied. "Not part of the job description."
Tony just smiled, still leaning against him, still more relaxed than he usually was. He finally pushed away and headed back into the base, face shifting into business mode. He used Extremis to call Pepper's BlackBerry.
"Hey, Pep. What's up?" he asked, voice oozing charm.
It got him an earful. Literally.
Hot Rod followed; a huge, hard to miss shadow of his human charge. In twenty-four hours they would be back in L.A., back in real life.
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It had never felt that good to be home. Sam tiredly got out of the yellow Camaro and Bumblebee transformed, strategically placing a leg behind the exhausted technopath to keep him from keeling over. Sam stubbornly tried to stay on his own two feet as he made his way into his house and headed straight for bed. He had tried to sleep on the plane back from the Arctic base, but it had been a losing battle. His mind was too wired with the information as to what had happened while they had been in space, and he really needed to shut down. Completely.
Bumblebee had offered to let Sam anchor himself in his mind and spark, but the human had declined. It was tempting. So very, very tempting. But the briefing had been more important. Their transport back to Nevada had been ready by the time the emergency conference had been over and six hours later they were back from ice to desert sand.
Sam sighed and buried in his pillows, still turning events over and over in his head. He needed to sleep, but the thoughts wouldn't let him.
::Sleep:: Bumblebee's gentle mind-voice told him.
::Trying::
::Stop trying. Stop forcing. Just… relax::
Sam groaned and curled up in his bed. He couldn't stop thinking. Too much still needed to be processed.
::We'll talk about it tomorrow:: Bumblebee promised, nudging him just a little.
The technopath mumbled something, then let go.
Bumblebee waited for a moment longer, just in case, then smiled to himself. Sam was fast asleep. He left his charge and went back into the Autobot base. He had some catching up to do himself.
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Sideswipe watched the daily bustle at the Autobot base on Earth, feeling strangely removed from it all. He had been welcomed by Autobots and humans alike, but this wasn't home. This wasn't where he belonged.
He had nowhere else to go, though.
That thought alone had his spark ache.
The presence of Barricade was a bit disturbing, but for some reason Sideswipe couldn't care less. He had lost too much to care about a Con in their midst. He had lost his team. Tyger Pax had eradicated a lot of good soldiers, but he had never believed it could hit so close to home. He didn't know if he was the only survivor of Prowl's team or not. He didn't know if his brother was out there, looking for him as Sideswipe was looking for Sunstreaker, or if he was one of the many shattered shells, unrecognizable even to their closest friends, left behind on the battle fields.
He just didn't know.
Sunstreaker had been the closest spark to him ever since he had been created. Once in a while the Allspark seemed to find a sense of humor and create what humans translated as 'twins'. Since mechs weren't born out of two cells combining, twins as such was not exactly the correct term. 'Spark brothers' didn't honor their bond either. And they weren't spark bonded like Jazz and Barricade.
Sideswipe felt his thoughts sidetrack at that comparison. The revelation that Jazz had bonded to a Decepticon, and been bonded throughout the war, had left the new-arrival speechless. It was surreal and it was beautiful, and Sideswipe was one of the few who could truly understand what this closeness meant.
Sunstreaker had meant the same, without the bonded aspect. They had just been… good together. For all their differences in personality and talents, they had been able to relate to the other best.
Now…
He suppressed a moan. He had no proof his brother was dead. He had nothing to go on but the continued absence. Maybe Prowl and the others had fled, thinking Sideswipe had perished. Maybe they had been taken prisoner. Maybe…
Sideswipe clenched his hands into fists.
He wouldn't believe in death until he had solid proof.
tbc...