A/N: This Extra corresponds with Chapter 31. Spoilers.

Extra 21- Love

Torsion had loved Nova since the moment Ramrod had laid optics on him.

Ramrod's feelings had been decidedly less romantic; he'd challenged Nova to a duel at once, driven by anger, by his hatred of the Autobots, but Torsion—to his own surprise—had exerted control over him, enough to sway the fight Nova's way. He sometimes wondered, along with a sheepish Ramrod, whether Nova had ever wondered why Ramrod had lost that fight. Why, when Nova had been untrained and untested, set against Ramrod, who had killed a mech in his first duel and had strength and experience on his side?

I could never hurt him.

The first vorns had been agony—to betray Nova, Nova, who was his everything. Yet ultimately Torsion had chosen Nova over Highbrow, and he became an acknowledged passenger-parasite to Ramrod, whose feelings toward Nova had never quite ventured beyond friendship.

Yet it was as Nova had said—they shared a Spark; what one felt, the other did too. It was only when Ramrod became aware of Torsion that he started to develop other, stronger emotions toward his friend and commander.

And it was only after Helex that the two of them had shared their grief, resolved their differences. For Torsion it meant trying to grasp the strength of his other half, his courage, his willpower, all the things that he'd always wanted but had never thought to have. For Ramrod, it meant accepting that his feelings for Nova were far more complicated than he might like.

Decepticons did not "love." It was too dangerous to form more than casual attachment to anything or anyone who could be stolen away by war any orn. That, perhaps, had been why Ramrod had been so slow to accept Torsion's feelings as his own—to be attached to anything was to invite its loss.

And Helex had come, and Ramrod had lost the only thing, the only person, to whom he had ever formed an attachment.

Their reunion, Ramrod's and Torsion's, had been slow and cautious, the one suspicious, the other shy. But they had grown, had accepted each other's strengths and weaknesses alike, and unity only made them stronger.

Few people knew about the two of them—only the command team, and that mostly on his word and Nova's, since Torsion preferred to let Ramrod do the talking. Torsion, to his delight, had found a way to be of use: he knew a great deal about Autobot intelligence, and he had the patience that Ramrod lacked to go over things in meticulous detail.

They improved on and off the battlefield, learning each other, skirting around the aching hole that Nova's loss had rent through their Spark.

And then Nova came back, and the painful period of repairs, of healing in one way or another, had begun. Nova's obvious mistrust tore the hole a little bit wider each orn. Nova's absence, and his coldness when he returned, had taught Ramrod—had taught both of them—the depth of their feelings towards the startlingly fragile Seeker. It hurt, watching him rip himself apart, teetering on the very brink of insanity, and knowing that there was nothing that either of them could do to help him.

They had warrior's hands, not gentle, and a touch could easily have pushed Nova over the edge, broken him past repair. No matter how badly they wanted to help him, to hold him, to comfort and soothe and heal, they could not, for Nova's sake.

Apis had the power to help Nova. She was calm and gentle and soothing, everything that they were not, and he needed her. Not a fighter. He needed her. He deserved someone so kind and caring and affectionate and…

So they had stepped back and let her be what they never could to Nova, and it took all their love for him to do it. They could not complain—how could they, when seeing her, being with her… bonding with her… clearly did him such good? It wasn't as though Nova could ever have bonded with them. He deserved better. He deserved Apis, not someone split in two, damaged, confused.

They stamped down ruthlessly on envy, on annoyance that it had taken Apis's intervention to make Nova even speak to them again. Nova's smile was back, and that was worth the anguish, the burning cold and freezing heat of their Spark.

And then the unthinkable: Apis's kidnapping.

It should have been their chance—many other mechs would have been secretly overjoyed that the way had been cleared. But they loved Nova too much to think of that; only of his terrible sorrow and rage and fear, despair coming back into the face that had only just remembered joy.

Ramrod and Torsion could not allow it to happen. Even though Apis's continued presence meant that they could never, never tell Nova, show him how they felt, they could not live if he returned to what he had been after Kalis. If Nova needed Apis in order to be Nova—the Nova they loved for his energy and his voice and his passion and his laugh and his Spark—then they would give him Apis.

"I'll go after her."

Nova looked up suddenly, and the terrible hope in his face made despair claw at their throat, sickness rise up in their internals, but they forced it down. They would do anything to keep Nova happy.

"Why? You… hardly know her."

Nova. Nova was so beautiful… in every way, every single way, and they felt their Spark breaking.

He's not for us. Never.

"I'm not doing this for her."

It was the last kiss. They should not have done it—Nova was bonded—surely it would give them away, ruin Nova's perfect happiness. The sooner they brought Apis back, the sooner Nova could forget, could return to blissful ignorance. They loved Nova too much to endanger his happiness selfishly.

We're doing it for you.