Right, sorry about the lateness of this. I had it done last week, but I needed to sit on it to make sure it would...work. That and my sister's dog (ugh) tripped me while I was racing said sister and I ended up scraping up my right elbow and palm pretty bad. And of course it was right at that place that made typing really really awkward and painful.
But anyway, it's up now and we're finally moving into that part of the story where everything goes horribly wrong! :D Uh...wee? So yeah, that's why I wanted to make sure I did this part right.
A HUGE thank you goes to my reviewers Mercedes Wolfcry, Huh, DeathByLackOfMusic, Guest, Link's Rose, Just Watch Me, Autobot-Bre, and especially Trapezoidal. Yours in particular just made me feel so...proud of myself! :) Anyway, I love you all and thank you so much!
Also, Tuesdays are getting too hectic. I'm going to have to switch posting days. I'm just not sure what the new day should be yet, so I'll tell you when I decide. haha i hacked the computer! It is me, Mini Grimmy! eep! noooooooo dont take it away NOooooooooooOOOOOoooooo!
...Er...right, well...that was interesting...so, um...oh yeah! I don't know if any of you voted for me in the StumbleUpon contest, but one of my pieces made the top twenty! So if any of you did, THANK YOU! XD
I hope you like this chapter! (and that it makes sense... o.O) Have a happy Halloween too!
...
The Long Road Home
25 – Twisted All Around Inside – 25
"It just doesn't make any sense," Nathanial thought as he rhythmically brushed down Peg's bony back, "it never makes any sense."
One of Peg's ears flicked back, a sign that her curiosity was really starting to eat at her. "It would make more sense if you would just tell me about it." She told him snappishly. Her human was moping and not only was that annoying, she thought both ears sinking down towards her skull now, it was stupid. Mainly because he wouldn't tell her why he was doing it in the first place. The only thing she had been able to figure out was that this all had something to do with Aria. But it hadn't exactly taken a brain surgeon to figure that out.
Nathanial stopped his unfocused brushing and stared at Peg's back with a frown. Peg's ears perked up automatically. For a minute she thought he might actually be getting ready to tell her everything…
But then he shook his head. "No Peg," he told her, "I'm sorry. I can't."
Peg stamped her foot and snorted. "But whyyyy?" She whined childishly over their tether bond.
Nathanial went back to his brushing. "Because I overheard something that was really none of my business." He mumbled, frowning again.
Peg hung her head and sighed in disappointment. Why did her human have to be so dang stubborn at times? Why couldn't he be a gossip like that infernal aunt of his?
"This wouldn't have anything to do with Aria calling those mechlings her brothers would it?" Peg hazarded a sulky guess, not really expecting her human to drop anything. No, he was too noble for that. Just her luck she had actually gotten one of the few humans with principles.
"Sweet Nexus why me? Why'd I have to get one of the good ones?" Peg was just beginning to really get into her self pity when her human's head snapped up.
"Why would you think that Peg?" Nathanial demanded out loud.
One of Peg's ears swiveled around towards him like a heat-seeking missile. She had hit something close to the matter. She had heard it in his voice.
"Oh," she said nonchalantly, "nobody really. No one had to. You've been stuck on that almost ever since her brothers got here in the first place." She reminded him, her mind only now reminding her that that was true.
Nathanial's mouth thinned and Peg inwardly celebrated. So that's what this was about. She'd hit the heart of the matter!
"Bullseye!" She thought, squishing the word into the back of her mind where Nathanial wouldn't be able to hear it.
Her human shot her a look and for a startled heartbeat, Peg thought he'd heard her anyway. But then he stubbornly ran the brush down her back again and Peg released a relieved breath. He hadn't. She was in the clear.
She waited silently a moment, carefully watching her human out of the corner of her large, brown eye.
Soon enough, he groaned out an irritable sigh and flung the curry brush at the saddle bags lying nearby. The brush missed and slid to a stop a few feet away from the bags, but Nathanial didn't bother to go pick it up.
"I just don't understand!" He said loudly, throwing his hands up in the air out of frustration, and then lacing them behind his head when he found he didn't know what else to do with them now.
Peg didn't say anything as Nathanial began to pace next to her. Herds had always been a sensitive subject with him she knew, so she didn't say anything until she was sure he wouldn't bite her head off for answering. "Well of course it doesn't make any sense to you. You don't really have a herd waiting for you like she does, much less two. And besides, you're thinking too much. What does it matter if she calls them brothers and sisters or not? They're only words. She loves them either way." She pointed out to him in a gentle way she would never dare show to anyone but Nathanial.
"But that's just the point Peg!" Nathanial barked, frustration growing. "What are they to her? Why are they so special that she calls them her family instead of her friends? I just," he sighed, deflating, "I just don't understand."
Peg rumbled understandingly in her chest and reached over to nose Nathanial's hand. "That's because you're thinking about it too much." She murmured. "If you'd stop thinking so hard, it would make perfect sense." It was simple really – the reason why Aria loved her brood so much – but Peg knew from long experience that her human had a horrible tendency to over think matters, especially when the truth was staring him right in the face. And now was no exception.
Eyebrows furrowed as he stared into the distance, Nathanial patted Peg's nose before starting his pacing again.
Peg just sighed, whuffling wearily. Taking care of humans was so exhausting sometimes.
"It's just," Nathanial said after a moment, "I thought I'd understand it in time." He admitted to Peg. "But the longer I'm here, the more confounding it gets!" He flung his hands into the air again, strides becoming longer and more agitated. "You don't get to pick your family Peg, we both know that. But Aria's just gone and done the opposite. Like everything else she does." He mumbled.
Peg shifted her weight to her other leg. "I thought you found that endearing about her." She pointed out calmly.
There was a stutter in Nathanial's pacing as he blinked, but he didn't say anything as he quickly evened out his stride. Peg just rumbled merrily in her chest. For her that was even better answer anyway. After being stuck with him for so long, she knew that was Nathanial for 'Quit inserting logic into my perfectly unreasonable argument.'
Alright, so she had paraphrased, but that's what it should mean.
Peg sighed as Nathanial continued his pacing a few feet away from her now. This was getting them nowhere.
Slowly, she walked over to the rough center of her human's pacing line. Then she waited for him to pass her again before she reached out and snagged the back of his shirt with her teeth.
Nathanial stopped abruptly. "Peg!" He snapped, more startled then anything. "What are you doing?"
Peg pointedly nudged him forward towards the ladder. "Go somewhere else." She told him, not unkindly. "Go find something fun to do to take your mind off of this. It's obviously driving you crazy." She nudged him again in the back, harder then before.
Nathanial skidded forward another few feet, despite his heels digging into the countertop. "And do what?" He asked her somewhat incredulously. He'd been worrying about this all morning. What could possibly distract him from it now?
"I dunno," Peg told him, "paint something obscene on the docbot's wall and blame the twin nuisances. Help the explosive bot with that thing he's trying to make that's not actually supposed to explode. Or better yet help him with that pretty filly that kept coming around to trip over things the other night. That would be very entertaining." Peg put in her two cents. "Just go find something." She told him.
She nudged him again with her head, this time nearly sending him flying off the counter.
Nathanial glared at her over his shoulder for that one, but Peg was stubbornly unapologetic. She stared him down with wide, insistent eyes.
"Fine." Nathanial finally caved. "Just stay out of trouble while I'm gone, alright?" He grumbled.
Peg tossed her head in a nod. "Oh yes, don't worry. The Boss Mare has asked me to tell her all the old stories with Nexus and about the herd back home. Do you mind if I tell her about the time you lost your underthings to a flag pole and were nearly trampled as a result?" Peg asked him innocently enough.
Nathanial's head reappeared over the side of the counter suddenly. With anyone else he would have assumed they were only trying to make fun of him, but with Peg…well with Peg it was always better to make sure, just in case. "What?! No! Don't tell her that Peg!" He protested loudly.
Peg sighed sadly and hung her head. And it was such a good story too... "Oh, alright." She agreed reluctantly. Then she realized Nathanial was still watching her over the side of the counter.
She lowered her ears in a glare and stomped a hoof at him. "Well what are you waiting around here for? Go find something distracting or I'll tell her anyway. Go on now, shoo!" She stamped again.
Nathanial leveled a flat gaze at her to show his appreciation at being kicked out of his room by his very own roommate, but continued climbing down the ladder nevertheless.
"Maybe Peg's right," he thought after he'd left the storage room and began meandering his way through the different halls, "maybe I do need some kind of distraction…"
He was only halfway down the hall but he turned around anyway and angled his feet towards Wheeljack's lab instead. If there was any kind of distraction in this building – the whole city even – then it was probably down there. Maybe there was something there the inventor needed help with, something that would distract his mind for at least a little while. Or at least long enough for this tension in his shoulders to leave him alone.
He didn't get very far.
"So I saw something interesting this morning." A voice said smoothly as the human rounded the corner.
Nathanial nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard it. His distracted brain caught a glimpse of something large and dark standing in the shadows next to him, making his heart leap into his throat, but then his rational mind caught up with him and he realized it was only Ironhide.
"Slaggit Ironhide!" Nathanial hissed in a rare show of temper. "What the frack are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?"
Ironhide snorted as he pushed himself away from the wall. "If I wanted to attack you human I wouldn't do it by hiding around corners." He rumbled darkly, cannons whirring idly.
Nathanial glanced up at him with a frown. His heart was still racing. "No," he conceded slowly, "no I suppose you wouldn't. Now what did you want?" He tried to hold back his snappishness, but some of still leaked through anyway.
Ironhide hmphed under his breath as he crossed his arms over his broad chest and stared the small mech down. "Watch the attitude human. S'not my fault you scare easy."
Nathanial shot him a glare, but quickly tried to rein it in. Ironhide wasn't really one of those mechs he wanted to tick off, especially since the weapons specialist already went around calling him target practice…
"Right," Nathanial muttered, shoulders so stiff that his neck ached, "well it was nice seeing you." He grumbled before stiffly walking again.
Ironhide raised an optic ridge at the human's black sarcasm. Obviously the organic mech was having a bad day.
Not that that put Ironhide off any. He followed Nathanial anyway, just a few steps behind.
"So I saw something interesting today," he started again, completely ignoring the hunched over form of the human walking in front of him. "As Hound an' I were walkin' up to the shooting range to get in some practice, I saw a familiar small frame waitin' for the elevator up there. The place was mostly empty, but it looked liked they'd been up there for awhile. And you'll never guess who it was."
Nathanial rolled his eyes where the mech couldn't see. He was in no mood for games. All he wanted right now was to be left alone, but it looked like that wasn't about to happen anytime soon.
"I dunno," Nat grumbled when it became clear that Ironhide was going to follow him until he guessed, "Cliffjumper?"
"Nope," Ironhide rumbled, "it was Aria, with that little hook n'grapple thing of hers strapped to her side."
Nathanial's step faltered. Aria? Out practicing with her bizarre whip? For once Nat agreed with Ironhide; that was a little strange.
In two large steps, Ironhide moved in front of the quickly moving human and firmly planted himself in Nathanial's way. He waited until he had the man's complete and undivided attention before he asked him in a low, gravelly voice, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ya human?"
Nathanial resisted the urge to take a step back. He would not be intimidated. He was having too rotten a day to put up with being threatened, strung up, or shoved around again.
"Not really, no," He told the large mech offhandedly. "What makes you think I would?"
Ironhide narrowed his optics at the human. "'Cuz before now the only thing that could'a gotten Aria out of the city would be one of her youngun's screamin' for her. And between now and then, you," he jabbed a digit at Nathanial, "are the only thing that's changed around here. So I'm gonna ask you again," Ironhide said, voice becoming dangerously low, "did you have anything to do with her finding that thing again?"
Nathanial thought about their failed dinner conversation the other night, about Aria's lost brothers and her guilt over the whole horrible matter. And while she had never directly mentioned any kind of change in heart about leaving the city or anything like it, Nathanial could see how she could have been giving the matter a lot of thought since then.
He glanced up to see Ironhide still staring down at him.
"…possibly," Nat finally conceded, and then, still feeling rather belligerent added, "Although I would have thought that you of all mechs would have more faith in her then that Ironhide. Aria's stronger then she lets on. You shouldn't doubt her so much."
Above him, Ironhide narrowed his optics even more so that now they looked more like burning blue slits then optics. He rumbled deep in his chest, but Nathanial felt too stubborn to back down. Peg must be finally wearing off on him, he thought.
Slowly, the big, black mech leaned down so that he was staring Nathanial full in the face. "I don't know what you did human," he rumbled, "that got Aria to find that thing again, but I haven't figured out if I should kill ya or thank ya for it just yet, so you might want to be careful with what you say."
Some confusion slipped through Nathanial's resentment, despite Ironhide's threat. He could guess why Ironhide would want to kill him for convincing Aria to go back into battle – however indirectly – so he didn't bother asking that question. Instead he went for the more useful, "Why would you thank me?"
Ironhide scrutinized the man before answering. "Do you know how long she's cooped herself up here? Afraid of leaving because she doesn't want to come back to more bad news like the twins bein' gone? Vorns, that's how long. Sure, she's kept busy, and she's done what jobs she could here in the city – stuff that did need doin' – but she's still afraid. I tried to tell her this self-imposed exile was a stupid idea at first, but she wouldn't hear it. Said it was her fault the twins were gone because she wasn't here when the S.O.S. came in."
"But that's not true." Nathanial stressed.
"Of course it ain't true!" Ironhide shouted. "We can see that, but just try tellin' that to her! She won't have it. So after awhile I just stopped bringing it up. Hound and Ratchet kept tellin' me it was too soon or something like that, so I figured I'd leave her alone and let her come to her senses on her own.
"Except she didn't." He added with a frown. "Until now at any rate. After you got here."
Nathanial shifted his weight as the blame once again landed squarely on him. "And you're fragged that I got her out of this slump? Well guess what Ironhide," Nathanial snapped, pointing at himself as he scowled at the mech in front of him, "this is the first I've heard about it either. Aria's a grown woman who can make her own choices. All I did was listen to her, so if you want to beat me just for that-"
Ironhide suddenly threw back his head and laughed at the man. "Beat you? What're you talking about Nat? I'm not going to hurt ya man," he prodded Nat with a finger instead of slapping him on the back. Nat still ended up stumbling sideways anyway. "After what Aria did to Val and Bumblebee just for giving you a new paintjob? Ha! Even I'm not that reckless." Ironhide laughed again loudly.
With a low growl, Nathanial straightened himself up. Next to him Ironhide watched him mutter to himself as he rubbed his side where the mech had shoved him.
"Yeesh Nat," Ironhide muttered, noticing the human's increased agitation, "what's got you of all people pickin' fights today? Did Aria kick ya out of her bed or what?"
It was a good thing Nathanial hadn't been drinking anything because it would have ended up all over the floor at that point. As it was he still ended up choking on his own words.
"W-what?! No! She didn't-I'm not-we've never-" he fumbled.
Ironhide watched him, one optic ridge raised.
Nathanial finally pulled himself together. "We're not doing that!" He hissed, mortified.
Ironhide's other optic ridge joined the first one in a look that was equal parts disbelief and surprise. "Well no wonder you're in a bad mood." He finally muttered.
Nathanial buried his face in his hands and tried to pretend that this wasn't happening.
Ironhide let him wallow in his embarrassment for a minute. He thought it was pretty funny actually. These humans and their awkwardness about bonding. It was highly entertaining he thought, especially when they started changing colors.
"Look kid," Ironhide spoke up when he'd thought Nathanial had had enough, "I'm not trying to blame ya for anything." He told him with a causal shrug.
Nathanial managed to look up at the mech again, although Ironhide noticed that Nat's face was redder then Inferno's paint. Despite that though, Nathanial determinedly ignored the reason why. "So you're…glad that Aria is going back to war?" He asked dubiously instead.
Ironhide snorted. "Hardly," he muttered, "I just haven't made up my mind which I didn't like more; her thinking she's good for nuthin' but deskwork or her being out there." He gestured vaguely at the wall in front of them since there were no windows around to point through.
Nathanial nodded. His meaning was clear enough.
A shadow crossed his face as an image appeared, unbidden and unwanted, into his head of Aria, standing alone with nothing but her hook and grapple, facing down a line of darkened Decepticons.
"Can she really do all that?" He asked softly, for the moment forgetting that Ironhide had no way of knowing what he'd just thought. "Can she really…survive your kind of battlefield?"
Ironhide wasn't sure if the man was talking to himself or to him, but he gave a short, hard laugh anyway. "I dunno Nat," he said even though he perfectly well did know, "you've seen her in action. You tell me."
Nathanial tried to remind himself of Aria leaping out of the ceiling to take on the twins with no kind of fear whatsoever, but it still wasn't enough to erase the image of Aria fighting the violet-eyed 'cons alone. The fear that picture inspired made his heart skip unevenly, and he roughly shoved it away, thinking it was better to be angry then afraid.
As soon as the fear was back in its box, his earlier annoyance snapped back into place. "Well if you haven't made up your mind about slagging me yet-" Nathanial started to say stiffly.
"I haven't." Ironhide put in, just as a friendly reminder to the smaller mech.
"-then I will take my leave and be on my way."
Ironhide rolled his optics at the choice of words. "Take your leave?" He repeated, more exasperated then offended. "Seriously? No wonder you get along with Mirage so well. You sound just like him."
Nathanial ignored him as he continued making his way down to Wheeljack's secluded lab, only giving Chromia a stiff nod as she passed, heading the opposite direction of the human.
"Yeesh," the blue and silver femme muttered as she and Ironhide watched the irritable human turn the corner, "looks like someone was having a little too much fun putting the boyfriend in his place." She said, leveling a look at her sparkmate.
Ironhide just shrugged at her. "Maybe," he admitted, "but he was already in a bad mood when I found him. Guess it's just one of those kinds of orbits."
...
"Alright," Nathanial thought some time later as he inspected the ground bridge's blueprints yet again, "so we've got the portal's stability finally worked out, although without some kind of test subject to send through then it only works in theory so…"
Nathanial straightened up and looked around the lab. Given it belonged to Wheeljack, there were more then enough testing dummies (or pieces of them…) just lying around. With a stubborn groan, the man shoved himself away from his makeshift workspace and briskly made his way down the length of the counter. He half hummed out a tired old tune as he slouched down the stairs, crossed the room, and climbed up a different set of stairs attached to a different counter. He stopped about halfway up where a drawer was held open by all the bits and pieces of old targets jammed into it.
"Now let's see…" he muttered to himself as he leaned over the drawer that physically couldn't close anymore. "Not that one," he shoved aside a ragged circular piece to get at the ones underneath, "not that one," he repeated as he shoved another piece into the corner, "ah ha! You down there! You're perfect."
Nat stopped talking to himself long enough to pull out a crumpled up piece of plastic about as big as a basketball that had gone a little flat. He gave it an experimental toss in the air before catching it again. It landed with a solid thunk in his hands and he grinned tightly. "Yep, you should do nicely."
He made his way back towards where the prototype ground bridge, along with its blueprints, still sat waiting. He must have made this trip four or five times already – down, across, up, back down, back across, back up – because he kept forgetting little, necessary things across the room. On any other day Nathanial would have been annoyed with himself for leaving important things like screwdrivers and experiment fodder scattered about, but today he found the walking relaxing. There was a cadence, a comforting sort of rhythm in the movement that helped to smooth over the sharp edges that had been nettling at his mind ever since last night.
"Right," he muttered to himself as he stopped in front of the blueprints one last time to look them over, "well, this should work."
He sighed anyway and ran a hand through his hair. It wasn't the first time he'd said that today.
He left the crumpled up plastic with the blueprints before going over the prototype ground bridge's control board. It wasn't much to look at – barely more then an old arcade game console really – but it was still more then a NASA technician could have figured out in a year. Still, Nathanial knew the prototype's unique complexities almost as well as Wheeljack did, so his hands didn't fumble as he went about inputting data with switch toggling and button pressing.
"Right, so we don't need to go gallivanting across the galaxy quite yet," Nat muttered to himself as he repeatedly tapped a button, making a number increase on the screen above the arcade-like console, "so how about just sending the thing to the other side of the room this time? Nothing too drastic."
Squinting at the screen, Nathanial finished putting in the numbers for the other end of the ground bridge. He looked them over once, twice, three times before he was satisfied that they were correct.
"Well," he mumbled as he finished triple checking the calculations, "here goes nothing."
Holding his breath, Nathanial pressed the bright red button that Wheeljack had so considerately labeled 'go' for him.
There was a disappointing fizzle from the prototype bridge, and then with a high pitched whine that Nathanial only caught on the edge of his hearing, the machine kicked into gear and a bright green-white light suddenly appeared on the other side of the room.
A grin slid up one side of Nathanial's face. "So far so good," he told himself, holding back his excitement, "but now for the tricky bit."
He picked up the balled up piece of plastic and eyed the ground bridge thoughtfully as he tossed it up and down. The first time he had done this, the bridge had just spit the practice piece straight back out, and Nathanial had the bruises to prove it. The second time he'd been smart enough to duck and the third time the experiment had just been plain incinerated in true Wheeljack fashion. Now Nathanial had no idea what to expect.
"As long as I'm still in one piece by the end of this," he told himself. He'd started saying that after his seventh attempt. That had been a particularly strange one, even for something Wheeljack had made.
Tossing the ball into the air a few more times as he gathered up his courage, Nathanial watched the bridge. He'd have to double check later, but its light remained steady and even, reflecting the portal's own stability. It was fairly encouraging knowing it wasn't about to spontaneously implode or anything like that.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Nathanial quickly threw the ball into the waiting portal, and then just as quickly dropped to the floor, just in case.
The crumpled plastic sailed through the air and, with a swoosh, cleanly disappeared through the neon yellow and green vortex.
Only to reappear a few feet away seemingly out of thin air.
From his spot on the ground, Nathanial watched the crumpled up plastic from under his arms, which were at the moment protecting his head from anything else the prototype might decide to throw at him. His eyes followed it as it bounced once, twice, and then rolled across the counter before coming to a stop a foot or so away from Nathanial himself.
He blinked at the ball a moment, not sure if this was real or not. In the end he decided that it was.
"It worked," he mumbled into his shirt sleeve, shell-shocked. Then a disbelieving laugh escaped him. "It really worked!"
For the first time all day a grin appeared on the human's face. He scrambled to his feet and leapt in the air, whooping, "It works! By Primus it really works!" as he jumped around, not unlike a certain inventor had earlier that orn.
He didn't get long to celebrate however.
"Whoa!" A familiar voice chirped from the door in amazement. "You actually got Wheeljack's invention to function without barbequing you. That's got to be some kind of record."
Nathanial stopped his frog-like dancing and spun around at Bumblebee's words. The yellow mech was standing in the door across the room, a safe distance away. He was somewhat withdrawn, which even Nathanial knew was strange for the outgoing young mech, and there was a fair amount of self-reproach on his face, but Nathanial noticed that unlike before, he also looked determined about something. As if he wasn't leaving until he had done or said whatever it was he'd come down here for.
Remembering the last time he'd been left alone with the young bot, Nathanial stayed where he was, not wanting to get any closer just in case.
Bumblebee noticed Nathanial's hesitation and vented a sigh, as if he knew there was no one to blame but himself for that.
"Look," the yellow mech said in resignation, "I know I'm the last bot you want to see, given the whole," he looked away, embarrassed, "paint thing," he mumbled, but then shook himself and looked back up at Nathanial, "but I just came to apologize. For how I acted. I, uh, I shouldn't have done that." He told him guiltily, but earnestly.
Nathanial raised an eyebrow at the young bot, still a little suspicious. He hadn't expected this, especially from Bumblebee. He'd never seen the younger mech be so…mature before. Every time he'd run into him before, the yellow bot had been following Val's lead, hanging back in the youngest Wrecker's shadow as if he was afraid to take responsibility for what he was doing. Nathanial had pegged the yellow bot for a follower, something of a sheep really.
Now the human wondered if maybe he should start rethinking that first impression.
In the open door, Bumblebee was still fidgeting, ashamed of himself. "It was just," he said haltingly as he frowned at his hands, "I was mad at you, and I let it get the better of me. And, well, I'm sorry." He finally managed to wrangle the words out his mouth.
Nathanial scrutinized the young mech, trying to discern if this was some sort of trick. But if it was, he couldn't find any tells.
Stiffly, Nat nodded, accepting the apology. Bumblebee relaxed a little.
"Second to last." Nathanial mumbled as he turned back towards the ground bridge's control board and powered down the prototype machine.
Bumblebee cocked his head a little in confusion. "Huh?"
The green-white vortex evaporated with the whine of an engine slowing. Nathanial waited until it had disappeared before adding, "Technically you're the second to last bot I want to see right now."
For some reason Bumblebee looked away sheepishly. "Oh," he mumbled, "well, er, you may not like this next part then."
A snort from out in the hallway kept Nathanial from asking what that meant. "Well if he's really not that keen on seeing me then I'll just be on my way and…"
Nathanial stared as Bumblebee suddenly lunged around the open doorway, grabbing the unseen Val before the other mech could slink away. "Oh no you don't!" Bumblebee muttered. "You said you'd do this, and then you made me promise to make sure you did this. And, I quote, "Don't let me slither out of this 'Bee". So you're not gonna. Now get back here!"
Nathanial blinked as the sounds of a small scuffle came from beyond the door. Well this was…unexpected. If anything he had thought they would start arguing with him, not each other.
Obviously he still didn't know them very well.
The scuffling suddenly stopped as Val was bodily shoved through the open door. He stood there a moment, like a statue no one wanted because he had his arms thrown awkwardly to the side and his knees were bent towards each other like a colt just learning to walk.
Despite himself, Nathanial coughed up a laugh. Val looked ridiculous.
The young mech just stared at him, also very colt-ish in Nat's mind. "I can't do this." He said and began to turn around.
"Now that," Nat thought, "was completely expected."
Bumblebee must have thought so too because he was already there keeping Val in place. "Don't be such a robo-chicken." He muttered at him. "Just, tell him what you told me." He added in a friendlier tone.
Val blinked. "I don't remember what I told you."
Bumblebee just vented a sigh. Nathanial just leaned back against the control board and crossed his arms over his chest. After all the trauma Val had put him through (and the spectacularly bad day he'd been having) he would have been lying if he'd said he wasn't enjoying this at least a little.
"Come on Val." Bumblebee groaned. "Just say it already."
Val nervously pressed his index fingers together. "Mm-rry." He mumbled.
Bumblebee sighed again and smacked his face into his palm. Nat just raised an eyebrow at the mech. "Excuse me?" He asked.
Val looked over at his backup, optics clearly asking if he really had to do this.
Bumblebee just crossed his arms over his chest and nodded stubbornly. Nathanial almost laughed. For a minute there he reminded him of Optimus.
Val, used to this kind of Bumblebee more then Nathanial, vented an explosive sigh. "Alright!" He grumbled. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I'm-" He stopped before giving another smaller sigh and looking up at Nathanial across the room.
"I'm sorry." Val apologized again. He didn't realize it, but Nathanial thought that that time he sounded more like he had yesterday when he'd been talking with Aria. "I kinda…lost my head." He admitted reluctantly.
Bumblebee huffed a wry laugh at the understatement, but didn't say anything. He'd been just as bad in his way and he knew it.
For a few minutes, Nathanial didn't say anything, letting the two bots stew a bit in their own self-reproach. Finally though he straightened up from the control board and dropped his arms.
"Ouch," he said, "that sounded like it hurt."
Much to Bumblebee's surprise, instead of sending back some snarky comeback, Val groaned and covered his face with his hands. "You have no idea!" He moaned at the human. "Wreckers weren't built for apologizing!"
Nathanial laughed dryly. "No, they were built for terrorizing prospective boyfriends for their sisters with polka dots." He threw back, some bite finding its way into his words.
Val visibly flinched. "Yeah…" he drawled, "sorry about that…"
Nathanial slid him a look, but then nodded. "Jut as long as it never happens again." He mumbled.
Val drew an x over his spark. "On my honor." He intoned, holding up his right hand. But then he screwed up his face in distaste and leaned away from Nathanial. "Unless you like dangling upside down and being spray painted…" he said slowly
Nathanial scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Don't be stupid." He told Val, but there wasn't any heat to his words, so Val didn't retaliate.
"So…" Bumblebee said slowly a moment later when no one else said anything. He was at a loss for words now that he had done his part to clear the air between him and his sister's new mech-friend, "whatcha doin' in here Nat? And where's Wheeljack?"
Val chuckled. "Yeah, isn't this his job?" He picked up a welder and peered at it carefully, as if he thought it could explode at any moment just because it was Wheeljack's.
"Supposedly he's recharging on Ratchet's order," Nathanial told them, a small smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, "but I heard a bot that sounded suspiciously like him talking with Moonracer on my way down here."
The younglings grinned. "Somehow," Bumblebee said cheerfully, "that sounds more believable."
"So what are ya doing in here then?" Val asked casually as he put the welder down and moved on to the next shiny thing that caught his optic.
Nathanial glanced up at him briefly as he finished making the appropriate suggestions on the blueprints for Wheeljack to read over later. "Just…thinking," he fumbled, flapping a hand uncertainly.
Val cocked his head at the human, but then shrugged. He had meant 'what are you working on for Wheeljack in here' but he supposed that it didn't really matter since he had only been trying to make conversation.
"About what?" Bumblebee asked instead.
Nat blew a sharp sigh out of his nose, keeping his eyes focused stubbornly on the blueprints in front of him. "Just, just family." He finally muttered. Why did Bumblebee have to keep asking questions? Why now of all times did he and Val have to go out of their way to be nice to him?
"Oh," Bumblebee said, sounding sad. Nathanial noticed that the 'antenna' on his helmet sank down some, rather like Peg's ears. "Do you miss yours? Is that it?" He asked uncertainly, as if he wasn't sure if it was his place to ask about Nathanial's family at all.
Nathanial frowned but didn't say anything. He should miss them, shouldn't he? Or at least, he should miss them more then he had. He hadn't thought about it until he'd overheard Aria talking with Val, Bumblebee, Arcee, and Bluestreak yesterday, but he'd hardly thought of his family at all these past few weeks. He'd tried to figure out why that was last night as he lay there trying to sleep, but the answer, when he finally found it, had only kept him up.
He realized the yellow bot was still watching him, somewhat anxiously now, so Nat quickly cleared his throat and muttered, "Yeah, something like that." He told them.
"Man that tanks." Val said, drawing attention to himself again. He looked a little more relaxed now that the hard part of actually apologizing was over.
Nathanial snorted a laugh at the bot's candor, as well as the irony. "You'll get no argument from me there."
Val and Bumblebee shared an anxious look, but Nathanial, busy with the ground bridge control board again, didn't notice.
"So, erm," Bumblebee mumbled slowly, speaking for both of them now, "h-have you decided when you're going back and, uh, all that?"
Nathanial was too distracted even to notice the young bot's uncharacteristic stuttering. "No," he sighed, "not really." Then he gave an ironic kind of snort before going on. "To be honest, I'm not even sure I want to go back."
Val and Bumblebee blinked t him, confused. "But didn't you just say-" Val started to say just as Bumblebee added, "But I thought you missed your family?"
Nathanial sighed in aggravation and swept a hand through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. He could feel his frustration returning like a python coiling up his spine. "I do – sort of – but it's just," he scowled into thin air, trying to drag the right words out of their hiding places in the back part of his mind, "it's just that…I'm beginning to realize…or at least I'm starting to think that…that maybe I don't actually know any of them. At least not anymore…if I ever did at all." He muttered the last part sourly.
He instantly regretted saying that. You were supposed to be loyal to your family, no matter how much they frustrated you and pushed you away. It was the one rule he had never broken. The one that had been drilled into him every day of his childhood; you stuck with your blood no matter what, even if they were wrong. Even if it meant siding against the people you actually loved.
"Family comes first," his father's voice boomed in his head, "no matter what."
Only Aria refused to live by that rule. Or if she did it was in such a convoluted way that Nat couldn't follow it. She had abandoned her blood family in favor of these aliens. The ones that had no rightful claim on her were the ones that got to keep her. It went against everything Nathanial had been taught about family and it was tearing his brain apart because, in the end, he wasn't completely sure she was wrong. How could it be wrong when she was obviously so happy here? With them?
The dark cloud that that had been shadowing him earlier suddenly reappeared in full force. Why couldn't he understand? He just had to be missing something.
"Hey Val," Nathanial suddenly called out.
Val paused in his shiny-rummaging and looked up, question imprinted on his face. "What?" He asked anyway.
Nathanial tried keeping his eyes on the blueprints, but in the end he glanced up. He had to see Val's reaction.
"Do you miss him?" He asked suddenly. "Your dad I mean?"
Val blinked at him, obviously startled. "Of course." He told him, sounding as if this was a stupid question.
Nathanial nodded, silently agreeing with the young mech. It was a stupid question, but he thought he had to ask anyway.
"And, um," he said, stopping a moment before plunging on, "if – for some reason – he was here, right now, and you had to chose between him and everybody else that you care about – Bee and Aria and the others – could you do it?" Nathanial asked slowly.
Val frowned at him. "I don't get what you're asking." He admitted. "Why would I-"
"Just," Nathanial interrupted firmly enough that Val and Bumblebee drew back a little, "your dad – your family – versus the people you actually like, that you feel at home with. Could you do it?" He looked up at them, a strange uncertainty in his eyes that the young mechs couldn't understand. "Could you choose between them?"
Val frowned thoughtfully at the human. There was something else going on here, he could tell. The problem was that he couldn't tell what it was.
He sent a questioningly glance at Bee, but the yellow bot just gave him a small shrug. He didn't know what was going on either.
"Well," Val said, thinking the best thing he could do right now was answer the question, "no, I don't think I could."
Nathanial sighed, a powerful sense of relief washing over him. So he wasn't crazy. It wasn't just him. There was someone out there that saw the difference between family and friends – between loyalty and love – but couldn't choose between them either. Granted he was asking Val – the one bot that had probably come closest to actually wanting to kill him – but still-
"Nah, I definitely couldn't chose," Val said again, cutting off Nathanial's thoughts with an easy grin, "but I wouldn't have to either. Cause for me, they're pretty much the same thing."
Nathanial stared at him.
"Pretty much…the same thing…" he repeated in shock.
Val nodded. "Well, yeah." He said as if this was completely normal. "I mean, isn't it the same for you?"
"No," Nathanial thought scathingly, "no they're not the same. They've never been the same. They can't possibly be the same."
But a lifetime of repression kept the thoughts from turning into words and Nathanial only stared at the young mechs.
"Not…really…" he stiffly said when he realized that Val and Bumblebee were still watching him, waiting for some kind of answer.
"Oh," Val said awkwardly, not expecting that, "well then…"
"I think," Bumblebee said slowly as he looked the frayed organic mech up and down, "that we're going to leave you alone now. You're looking a bit gray around the edges Nat."
Nathanial nodded. He felt a little gray around the edges.
"Anyway, we'll see you around then." Bumblebee said as he pulled Val towards the door. The Wrecker just waved at him as he followed his bright yellow friend.
"Later Nat." Val called back over his shoulder.
Nathanial just nodded, not really listening. His inner thoughts were too loud, too chaotic, for him to make sense of any outside interference.
For a moment after they'd left, Nathanial stood there, hands propped against the control board for support, arms stiff so that he didn't fall forward and smack his face against the hard surface. With his luck, he'd probably hit the 'go' button, short something out, and end up halfway across the galaxy – again.
Then quite suddenly, Nathanial straightened up and left the room, long strides eating up the distance between him and the door.
He needed some air.
...
He was still airing himself out on the balcony later that evening when Aria found him.
"Hey there Nat," she greeted him in a softer voice then usual when she saw him standing at the edge of the balcony, hands wrapped tightly around the metal railing, "Ironhide said you looked like you were having a bad day earlier. You doing okay?"
Nathanial didn't look up from the city in front of him, but nodded to let Aria knew he had heard her. Before him spread out the remaining edge of Iacon, ragged and patched from countless battles. Below him sunk a dark abyss, one so deep he couldn't see the bottom of it. He rather liked the abyss. It matched his mindset, and somehow the external presence of it helped him feel calmer then if the abyss was only in his head.
"No," Nat finally answered Aria, "not really."
Aria made a sympathetic sound in the back of her throat as she stepped forward and rubbed his back with one hand. The other covered his hand on the railing.
Nathanial closed his eyes and gripped the railing a little tighter. He wanted to turn away from the abyss and wrap his arms around her and just stand there in the evening wind, but it felt disloyal somehow. As if he was choosing Aria over the people that had raised him. And that didn't feel right. No matter what their dysfunction was.
"Aria," Nathanial asked slowly, keeping his eyes focused on the darkness spreading out below him, "about the bots…" he trailed off uncertainly.
Aria drew back far enough to look at him. "Yeah?" She asked encouragingly.
Still, Nathanial hesitated. "Is it…difficult being away from them?" He asked her quietly. "Like the femmes being gone for so long?"
Aria gave a small stunted laugh. "Yes," she answered sadly, "as hard as it is being away from your own family." She murmured softly as she leaned her forearms on the railing next to him and gazed out at the city with him.
Nathanial shook his head somewhat disbelievingly with a snort. There it was again. That word.
Aria looked up at him and frowned, not liking that. "What?" She asked, slightly snappish.
"Nothing," Nathanial told her automatically, "just, nothing."
Aria's frown turned into a mild scowl. "Doesn't sound like nothing." She observed.
For a moment Nathanial struggled with himself. Would it be better to speak his wayward thought aloud, or would it be best not to say anything at all? Experience had taught him that it was generally safest to keep your thoughts to yourself, only this thought had been nagging at him all day and night and he was no closer to solving the mystery then before. And besides, he trusted Aria, didn't he?
Nathanial looked over at Aria frowning next to him and said somewhat cautiously, "Well, it's just that I've never heard you mention your real family with that kind of emotion before." He told her, keeping his voice firmly neutral. "That's all."
Aria frowned thoughtfully at him. Inwardly she flinched away from the subject, but she didn't want to appear like she was avoiding it on purpose so she mumbled, "Well it's difficult for me is all. I don't really like bringing them up if I don't have to." She answered him simply. She hung her head without any further explanation, preferring the horrifying view of the straight drop below her to any more talk about her original family; the ones she couldn't reach now no matter how hard she tried.
Nathanial nodded slowly as he stared down into the abyss of city below them as well. "Right," he said numbly, "of course."
A moment of silence passed, the only sound the wind whistling longingly in the couple's ears.
Finally, Nathanial straightened up, turning to Aria with a frustrated frown of his own. "It's just," he started haltingly, "how can you just not think about them? Your real family I mean?"
Aria glared a little at Nathanial. "Stop saying that." She told him, stubbornly ignoring the actual question.
"What?" Nathanial asked just a little too harshly.
Aria's eyebrows drew closer together as her irritation grew. "My real family." She bit back with a little too much sarcasm. "The bots are just as much my real family as my biological one is. So stop implying that I'm only imagining things here."
Nathanial immediately blew out a pent up breath as he turned and frowned down at the abyss below them. "That's not what I meant." He tried to tell her.
"Well it sure sounded like it." Aria snapped. "You make it sound like I'm either nuts for thinking the bots are just as much my family as my original one or I just don't care about my parents and sister at all!"
"Don't you?" Nathanial shot back before he could fully process what he was saying. "In all the time I've been here you've mentioned them, what? A couple of times? When I asked about your sister the first time you thought I was talking about Arcee." He flung the fact at her like it was damning evidence in a courtroom.
Aria frowned at him, forcibly reminding herself to keep her head. "I don't understand," she said, taking a literal step back, "where is this all coming from?"
Nathanial pulled in a sharp breath through his nose as more angry words gathered in his throat. "This isn't her fault," he told himself as he gripped the hand railing tighter then strictly necessary, "don't take your irritation out on her just because you can't understand."
"Look," he said slowly a moment later, his voice strained in an effort to keep the useless accusations back, "from what you've said it sounds like you had a nice family back home. Parents that loved you, a younger sibling you were close with."
Aria nodded once, his casual past tense stabbing at her deeper then she had thought it would. "Well yeah…" she answered carefully, hugging herself, although Nathanial was too preoccupied with his own troubles to take notice.
Nathanial pulled in another breath of air through his nose and resituated his hands on the railing so the cold metal sent a shock through him, keeping him grounded firmly in the present.
"Well I don't have that." Nathanial snapped, unable to keep all of his frustration at bay. "My father's dead and my mother's as close to heartless as someone that's still living can be. I hardly talk to my brothers because they're so much older then me. They have their own lives and families to deal with. Miriam's the only one I can really count on and Mother goes out of her way to make sure we can't even speak to each other. But even then I've never just abandoned my little sister. And honestly," he snapped, scowl in full force as a day's worth of worrying and thinking himself in frustrating circles came crashing down on his head, "the fact that you won't even talk about yours is," he stumbled, but there was too much momentum in his rant for him to just stop now, "it's downright inhuman of you Aria!"
Aria's eyes instantly grew wide. Her mouth dropped open. What was it about the mechs she cared about – metallic or not – insisting on verbally slapping her this week?
Nathanial leaned on the railing again, growled, and then spun around to pace along the edge of the balcony. He prowled like a tiger in a cage, hands pressed up against the sides of his head as if that would force things to make sense again.
"Slaggit you're one of the lucky ones!" He suddenly shouted, sounding more torn then before as the day's pent up frustration suddenly exploded out of him. "Your family actually cares that you're missing." He finally stopped his anxious movement to look Aria full in the face. Aria didn't think she was imagining the childhood hurts resurfacing in his eyes. "And you've already gone and replaced them." He mumbled, sounding blown away.
For a single moment, Aria felt sad for Nathanial. She couldn't comprehend what his home life had been for him to feel the need to lash out at her about her calling Bee and the others her brothers, just like he couldn't comprehend what tied them so closely together.
But the moment was brief. After that she just felt angry.
It was almost an instinctive response, like Elizabeth Bennett's response to Mr. Darcy's first marriage proposal. Not only had Nathanial shouted at her, he had actually insulted her. And over something he knew nothing about.
"Shut. Up." She told him firmly, resisting the urge to scream the words at him. "Just shut up. You don't know anything about my family, about either of them, so you," she jabbed a finger at him with a furious glare,"don't get to tell me how I should feel about them! You don't have any idea of what I've lost!"
"You've lost a part of yourself!" Nathanial shot back.
"You're dang right I have!" Aria screamed, eyes suddenly very wet.
That stopped Nathanial in his tracks. He hadn't expected her to agree with him.
For a moment Aria stood there, stiff as a board, hands clenched at her sides so that her fingernails were digging into her palms. She had avoided this subject so carefully…but there was no going back now.
"I spent years here," she hissed, voice strained and eyes burning, "just looking for her. And when I finally did, when I finally found the-" she grit her teeth, baring them in a snarl as she tried to find a foul enough word for what she thought Shockwave was only to fail. She quickly backtracked, "-when I finally found her," she said instead, "she was so hurt," she grasped at words as her throat tightened, "and so broken inside…"
Aria squeezed her eyes shut, hot tears flooding the corners of her eyes before falling away as Sera's thin face appeared in her head, like one of her nightmares. She was too thin, and there were bruises on her cheeks that had no right being there…
But Aria drew in a ragged breath and quickly locked away the pain, trapping it somewhere safe in the back of her heart where no one could use it against her. She waited until she felt her eyes turn to stone before she met Nathanial's gaze again.
"It broke my heart." She told him icily. "And there wasn't a thing I wouldn't have given to stay with her. But I couldn't. Not if I wanted her and 'Bee to live. So I made my choice." She flexed her fingers, clutching at nothing, before balling them into fists and slamming one down over what remained of her heart.
"I made my choice." She said in words as hard as stone. "And because of that there's a good chance that I will never see her again. So don't you dare-" she whispered, and then gave in to the urge to shout, "Don't. You. Dare talk to me about abandoning my little sister as if I just-just threw her away." She hissed at him. "She was the only reason I stayed here to begin with and now what do I have of her? A bunch of broken memories where she was crying because Shockwave turned her into a science experiment."
Aria stopped talking then. Nathanial watched her, mouth open slightly, as she bit her lip to keep from wailing. She wasn't going to let him see that deeply into her, not now.
Nathanial was floored. This was the most he'd heard her say about Sera. Ever. He had never expected the truth to be so horrifying…
Aria bit her lip and jabbed a finger at herself rapidly. "And you blame me for trying to rebuild what I lost?" She choked the words out of her tight throat.
He should say something, he thought, but he quickly found there wasn't anything he could say. Across from him, Aria glared, but Nathanial couldn't tell if she was asking him to speak or daring him to try.
"I'm going to bed." She muttered a moment later. Then she quickly stalked back inside without another look in his direction.
Nathanial waited until the door had closed safely behind her before he swore.
"Brilliant!" He hissed at himself as he brought a fist down on the metal railing hard enough to send a tremor through it. "Absolutely brilliant you idiot! Just look what you've done now! Why can't you think before you say anything?!"
He didn't bother to answer himself, just hit the railing again hard enough to hurt before giving up and leaning his elbows on it, hanging his head in his hands.
"Nathanial." A stately voice suddenly appeared behind him before he could properly sink into a sulk.
"What?!" Nathanial shouted, all pretenses at patience disappearing.
He spun around, hands unconsciously balling into fists at his sides, but he stopped when he saw the old mech standing behind him.
For his part, Alpha Trion didn't look too put out by the human shouting at him.
"We need to talk Nathanial Hawthorne." The old mech told him simply, although Nathanial noticed that there was no room for argument in his steady voice.
Nathanial instantly deflated, his frustration evaporating like mist only to leave a hopeless sense of resignation in its place.
"Of course we do." He mumbled before trailing after the old mech, shoulders bowed hopelessly.