This is where I could give a bunch of excuses for taking basically a year off from this story, and almost as much from fanfic writing. But I won't, because I'm too lazy to think up excuses and nobody reads these things anyway. I could also go on about this being shorter than my usual fare for this fic, but again, I'm lazy and have been writing this chapter since June. Given how far out of the TF fandom I've gotten, be glad I got it done at all.

In other news, thank you so very much to everyone who has bothered me to write this story or inquired about it, and everyone who has favorited/alerted/reviewed while I've been off gallivanting the internet without you. You're all the reasons I kicked my ass back in gear. Also, finally what I consider to be the 20th chapter of this story. I feel accomplished. Watch me pat myself on the back. *pats back*

Katla: Thank you so very much for leaving such a lovely review! That really made me smile.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of its characters; I do own the gestalt and anyone/thing you don't know. The lyrics to "When You're Young" belong to 3 Doors Down.

"You give what you give cause they make you
Trapped inside a place that won't take you
And they want you to be what they make you
It's already over and done
When you're young"

~ "When You're Young" – 3 Doors Down

"For the love of ketchup," Slysight muttered crossly as he turned down a new hallway. He was fairly sure he had already run down this one, but he didn't care as long as he was able to stay away from those infernal twins.

Ever since they had been asked to leave (read: screamed out of) the medbay by Ratchet, the twin terrors had been following him around desperately trying to apologize for lashing out against the gestalt without noticing who they were. They hadn't even hurt Slysight, but considering he was the only one they had access to at the moment they decided they could apologize to him and through some form of transitive property and chain rule apologize to the gestalt without all of that pesky getting-down-on-their-knees-and-properly-begging-forgiveness.

Sly loved groveling as much as the next mech, he really did, but he wasn't feeling in a very chatty mood today, and he would really rather be left alone. But given the fifty different revelations made in the last few hours it seemed nobody would leave him alone, whether for the thought that he "shouldn't be alone after all of this" or that they were all insufferable gossips who couldn't quite seem to comprehend that, no, he really didn't want to explain to them all what the gestalt had been doing since they came to Earth, and he really didn't want to have any conversations with anybody, for that matter. Let alone people who wanted to apologize to him, like the twins.

And that was why he ducked into a Cybertronian-sized closet – really, the humans put those in? – and proceeded to hide under some shelves, next to what looked like, in his humble opinion, industrial-strength window cleaner in a mech-sized container. He wasn't going to even bother asking what they planned to use that for.

"Sly? Sllyyyyyyy? Little buddy?"

Slysight crouched lower beneath the shelves and tried to use everything in him that made him a mech to keep from releasing a petrified and rather embarrassing whimper.

"C'mere Slysight! C'mere boy!"

"He's not a little Earth-puppy slaghead, he's not gonna come to that."

"Well how am I supposed to know? He looks all cute and cuddly!"

Ew. No. He was not cute and cuddly, because then they would feel inclined to touch him, and that would be gross. Primus knew where their servos had been.

"Well obviously he's around here somewhere!"

He crouched lower under his shelf as the twins came nearer and nearer to his closet, stopping right outside of it. The voices ceased and Sly curled in on himself more, unsheathing his blade when the door suddenly whooshed open.

"Little buddy?" a voice called carefully. He knew the moment the roving blue optics spotted him in the dark; it made his plating crawl. "Hey there, you, we've been looking all over!"

Slysight brought his blade in front of himself as the twin identified as Sideswipe crept closer while Sunstreaker's imposing figure filled the doorway behind him, preventing escape. Sly was officially not happy.

The red twin knelt in front of him, peering at him excitedly. "We wanted to tell you how sorry we are, for everything that happened with Blitz and all – really, really sorry about that. So, how are you? You okay? Sly? Buddy? Sly? Sly? Sly?"

Sunstreaker smacked his brother's helm with a scowl faintly visible in the dark closet. "Repeating yourself isn't going to make things better, you freak!"

"Well how am I supposed to know, maybe he's sick or hurt or something and his blade is out to defend himself!"

"Or maybe you're just being an overbearing trash heap and you're freaking him out."

Finally, it had gotten through to them!

"Nah, I don't think that's it. I think he needs a hug."

Or not.

He stuttered, "N-no. No hugs! I'm good. You can, ah, you can go now. Like, right now. You can leave. I really don't mind. Right now. There's a door behind you. You have my full permission to use it. You know, doors? You go out them. And then I'm alone. And then I don't feel so crowded and unnerved and wanting-to-stab-you. Because you're gone. Out the door."

The twins just stared at him with odd looks on their faces while he rambled, Sunstreaker looking calculating and mildly amused while Sideswipe had this big slag-eating smirk and cheery optics.

"Aw, you're so adorable! No wonder he likes you!" the red twin crowed when his rant finished. Sly didn't consider this outburst a good one, nor an understandable one. "You just look so cuddly!"

He moved forward to cuddle the Special Ops mech when Sunstreaker grabbed him by his scruff bar. "And pointy," he said, gesturing to Slysight's blade that Sideswipe had been about to willingly impale himself on.

Sides turned to his twin with a smile. "Aw, Sunny, you do love me!" he cried while lunging at his brother in a full-body tackle-hug. Sunstreaker let out what he would forever deny was a yelp and fell to the ground, where he then proceeded to pummel his brother for daring to do something so embarrassing in such an extremely public place as a dark closet.

Slysight took this opportunity to sneak out the door. You know, the one used for leaving places.

He chose to ignore the perk of curiosity that had arisen when Sideswipe mentioned a "he" liking him.

Nightshade came to with a throbbing, aching processor that felt like it had been weighted down with a couple tons of lead. He tried to shake out that feeling, and then realized what a mistake he had made when his CPU whirled and his tanks tried to rebel.

He was distracted from these feelings by a warm weight settled on his abdomen.

Struggling to get his elbows under him to sit up partially, he was met by the sight of hunter green plating resting against the glossy black of his own. He canted his helm in confusion before deciding this was a horrible idea because his head was spinning now and he was stuck dealing with it alone, as Phantom had decided to remain checked-out for the time being.

Great. His helm was killing him, he had to deal with it alone and he still had no idea what or who was laying on him!

Suddenly the weight lifted and a set of groggy blue optics were shuttering at him confusedly.

They stared at him blankly for a moment.

He stared blankly back.

Then he was being tackled in a hug that threw him onto his back.

And then somebody was kissing his faceplates over and over while apologies flowed off their glossa.

And then he purged.

And then he fell offline again.

It wasn't his best moment.

Crash sat on the edge of a medical berth in the room where Jazz had lain in stasis-lock for so long, swinging his pedes back and forth with what he refused to call anxiety. Nervousness? No. And it definitely wasn't fear. Eagerness? Angst?

Apprehension. Apprehension was a good, solid word for it. Not too afraid, not too excited. Just…waiting disquietly for something to happen. Apprehensively.

Unicron-on-a-stick he was sitting here thinking up appropriate synonyms to classify his emotions and yet had never realized he was Prowl's son? Obviously he hadn't inherited the Datsun's powers of deduction.

"Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" A slim black digit came out and poked the side of his head.

Crash couldn't help but smile. "Nothin' much. Just tryin' to put everythin' together. A lot to take in and all."

Jazz pushed himself up to sit next to his creation on the berth. He nonchalantly slung an arm around the younger's shoulders. "Not that I wanna overwhelm you more or anythin'," he began while looking Crash seriously in the optics. "You tell me if anything's upsettin' you, got it?"

The field medic nodded slightly and looked back down at his pedes. For the first time in a long time he was actually feeling shy about talking to someone. Him, shy! And with somebody that, he had to keep reminding himself, he had already known for thousands of vorns.

But never like this, his processor whispered. That was before.

Before the entire game had been changed and it seemed that everyone but him had the new set of rules.

"Hey," the TIC said, squeezing Crash's shoulders to get his attention. "What're ya thinkin' 'bout? Really?"

Crash remained silent for a moment, trying to put his thoughts into an articulate, coherent order.

"It's just…you've always known who I was? Since you first saw me?"

Jazz's helm canted to the side and he nodded.

Crash ducked his helm again and rubbed the back of it nervously. He was starting to dislike his lack of visor; his face felt bare and vulnerable, and while usually he didn't care who saw his emotions he hated that his unease was now so visible.

"So, ah, that means that Prowl knew who I was all along. That I was your sparklin'."

"Yeah, o' course? Why?" Jazz leaned in closer, trying to catch his youngling's optic to see what was bothering him so much.

The medic felt his faceplates heat and he focused more on the arduous task of staring at his servos.

"Ah, ahem. It's just that…I mean, I'm probably bein' silly, but…" He hurried through the next bit, for fear that if he didn't get it all out now he could never bring himself to say it later. "Well, I get that I'm a disappointment to Prowl and I'm okay with that, really, I mean I know I'm a glitch and I'm just generally a freak and nothin' at all like him or the way he'd want his sparklin' to be, so I totally get that he'd rather not associate with me or nothin' 'cause it'd be a bit embarrassin', I mean really it'd just be weird so yeah he's probably got the right idea goin' and if'n he or you or anybody's thinkin' all 'Slag now we gotta deal with this one!' well it's alright 'cause y'all can just, like, ignore me or somethin', whatever yer comfortable with, just go with it an' I'll be just fine with it, so yeah. It's okay. Um….yeah."

Jazz stared at him for a long, pregnant moment, optics unreadable through his visor – and really, how was that fair? – before yanking him in for a crushing hug, holding Crash's head firmly under his chin and rocking them slowly, crooning some long-forgotten Polyhexian lullaby.

"I'm so sorry that we made you think that, darlin'," he murmured in Crash's audio. Crash, for his part, tried to focus on the spark pulsing under his cheek, one that his own responded to so happily, and tried to ignore how awkward and embarrassed he felt.

"It's, ah, I mean, I'm fine. Completely fine, I'm used to stuff like that, ain't nothin' to worry 'bout 'cause s'all good. Yeah….I'm….I mean, I ain't mad at y'all for it or nothin'."

The TIC leaned back, servos still on the youngling's shoulder struts, and angled him so he could see into the other's optics.

"That don't change anythin', I should've – we should've known how that'd make ya feel. We love ya, sweetspark, and I promise you that both me and Prowler want ya as our creation. Nothin'll ever change that, no matter how fragged in the head you may be.

"Besides." He smirked, visor glinting mischievously. "Then we'd be a perfect match, eh?"

Crash laughed despite himself. It felt so good to know that he was wanted by more than just his brothers who had to want him – he was in their heads, after all. It was such an amazing relief though, to have that worry and stress of being unwanted by creators he'd thought had been lost for good – if they had existed to begin with.

But they did exist, and one had just told him to his face that he was indeed wanted and loved, and for that moment, all was right in the world.

And then, a rather odd question.

"Say, where'd ya get that accent anyways? Not that I mind it or anythin', jus' that it's a bit…distinctive is all."

Crash huffed in relief; he'd thought for a moment that things were going to come tumbling down on him. But no, it seemed that at least for now his good luck was sticking around a bit.

"Oh, that. Funny story. 'Kay, there's this femme, right? An' she was teachin' me to speak, way back when, and I guess she kinda had an accent, and I kinda picked up on that accent, and things progressed from there. Her name was Chromia…"

Loud, boisterous laughter met him, and Crash laughed too. It felt good to laugh at something that could actually be considered funny. It made everything seem just a little bit safer, a little bit more okay.

And Jazz was just easily amused. That didn't hurt either.

Blitz was silent after finishing his story, more than his usual audible silence. His mind felt back on his glitch programming and broadcasted radio silence, the numbing not-caring a soothing sensation after what had been a rather uncomfortable bout of story time.

Besides, his creators were all squawking loudly enough that he didn't need to talk anyway.

What the slag –

- those pit-spawned fraggers –

- rip their optics out –

I'll fragging –

- every last one of them, they won't –

- kill them, those slagheads –

Who does that, who hurts sparklings that way, hurts anyone –

- hunt them down and feed them their own sparks –

- don't deserve to live –

Where are they, sweetspark? We need to make them pay.

- cut off their –

- break their servos first, then –

In the midst of that stimulating conversation, Blitz had begun to fall into recharge in his tranquil state of doesn't-give-a-flying-slag. Due to this, he almost missed one coherent statement in the bunch, directed at him personally by, surprisingly enough, Skywarp. Then again, nobody could ever accuse the mech of not being able to think clearly when he had revenge on the processor.

Huh? he inquired ever-so-intelligently.

Skywarp placed an encouraging servo on his forearm, stroking the plating lightly.

Where can we find them?

Blitz shook his head, barely resisting the glitch-fed urge to roll his optics.

Defunct. The Constructicons destroyed their main compound when they got us out, and the rest of them got killed by the war or left to get to safety or join a side. They're all gone now.

Starscream snarled, red optics fierce. "Dead" was not acceptable. "Dead" was not an option. "Dead" wasn't even anywhere near the list of choices.

"Dead" meant that someone had messed with their sparkling, broken him so badly, and there wasn't a slagging thing they could do about it.

That was not acceptable. Someone would pay, and they would pay dearly. Starscream just had to find who to lay the blame on first.

And while Skywarp crooned over Blitz some more and Thundercracker shot him inquisitive, searching narrowed-optic looks and thoughts, Starscream came up with a plan.

And he found who he could blame.

Blitz had, after all, been in the care of others before MICS got to him, people who so callously and uncaringly let him fall into the wrong hands. They would do nicely as his sacrificial lamb, as the humans put it.

If he couldn't destroy MICS, he could always destroy the Autobots.

It was his duty as the new Decepticon leader, after all.

Don't expect more very soon; I still have to get back into the swing of things for all my other fics, which is difficult as I've been (and still am) away from TF. Hopefully I won't take another year though. ;P

Reviews are wonderful!