AN: Pulled the reigns back a bit and back to a more normal-length chapter. Enjoy!
After some initial struggle, Sunstreaker finally complied with Wheeljack's demands and put himself into self-induced stasis to keep fidgeting to a minimum. The Autobot engineer was talented, but Allison knew he was no medic on Ratchet's level. Even the slightest slip could end up being disastrous for Sunstreaker. Besides, Wheeljack was used to inventing things, which involved mistake after mistake until something worked. There was a process. That methodology would only get Sunstreaker killed. Possibly everyone around him, too.
To further minimize the risk of distraction or catastrophic physical harm, Wheeljack ordered Sideswipe on first-patrol, who had kicked up a fantastic fuss to marvel any three year old Allison had ever come into contact with. He could be heard all the way out to the perimeter of the abandoned town, and it was a small miracle the Decepticons didn't hear him all the way from their base.
The process was agonizingly slow, and Wheeljack was working with what little tools he had on his own person. Allison had taken a queue from Wheeljack's frustrated but intensely focused eyes and decided it was best to remove herself and Sari out of the way. Putting on an encouraging face, she'd pulled the younger girl aside to try and distract her with a little bit of exploring. Allison needed to get her own mind off of things anyway, and she knew that given her current stance with Wheeljack at the moment her presence was only going to be a hindrance.
Bumblebee had joined them, likely needing something else to do, or just wanting to play chaperone to make sure they stayed out of trouble. The hollowed out, rotting shells of what had once been a settlement posed their own dangers, in further decay and disrepair from years of the elements and the ever encroaching growth of the forest around them. It was almost peaceful in a way, and it was likely that Bumblebee had needed the quiet just as much as the two humans did.
Always the human babysitter, Allison thought fondly, and while she didn't mind the Autobot's company, she had to wonder if he did it purely out of enjoyment, or if that was the task he'd been at one time relegated to only for it to become routine. He seemed to involve himself with sincere interest in what they were doing, so Allison wasn't about to stop him. After all, he had pulled her from the edge of what would have likely been a grisly death at the hands of Knock Out. Right now Allison was feeling something of a post-traumatic attachment to Bumblebee that she was having a hard time making sense of, so she kept it to herself and tried her best at keeping up with Sari and Bumblebee's small-talk as they wandered.
With her already troubled thoughts after her interrupted conversation with Wheeljack, she was finding it hard to spark up much conversation at all, much less even face Sideswipe after everything that had happened. Sideswipe had his own things to worry about, and something about the fact that his own brother had done everything out of resentment regarding their friendly encounters kept her at bay. It could have been misplaced shame, or embarrassment, but Allison wasn't really sure which one it was. It wasn't even her fault, but she couldn't help but feel that in some small way she was deserving of part of the blame, regardless of how irrational that was.
Was I really about to tell him? Allison thought distractedly as she ghosted around with Sari and Bumblebee, trying hard to appear completely attentive to what was around her. They meandered around some of the further buildings, taking interest in some of the forgotten belongings and tools that had been left behind in whatever exodus had occurred. To be fair, they looked about as distracted and worried as Allison felt, sharing in her attempts to find something else to think about other than what was really going on.
Allison thought back to the conversation she'd had with Wheeljack, her frustrations resurfacing as she remembered what Wheeljack had brought up just before they were interrupted. So he wasn't as completely oblivious as she had thought, apparently more aware of what was on her mind then she had been giving him credit for. She found this to be discomforting, because it meant that there was more relevance to her worries than she was telling herself, which meant she wasn't completely making things out of nothing. The fact that they hadn't completely addressed the issue was making Allison feel incomplete, like there was a monumental task that was still waiting for resolution but she had no idea how to get there.
It now also meant that Wheeljack was aware that something was going on, and she knew he wasn't going to let it go. He would be watching her, looking for a moment to bring it up again and finish the discussion because he was that obsessive and stubborn to need to completely hash it out. Despite this, Allison knew that he probably wasn't anticipating the real crux of her worry, and that was the possible decision to leave him; to disappear and never come back. For his sake as much as it was for hers, it was probably safer that way, and that was what she had been about to blurt out when it became clear that he wasn't quite getting the whole picture. She'd been about to tell him this, to break his heart, and they'd been interrupted with it left hanging in the air between them and she was going to have to decide if she was really going to finish her thought to him or not. That was what was making her feel so unsettled.
The interruption had been important; Allison wasn't vain enough to think that what was on her mind was more important than Sunstreaker's life, and she knew that Wheeljack was needed. This was much bigger than her, and that was part of the problem. Wheeljack would never care about that. He would insist on finding some way to make this, whatever it was, work regardless of the inevitable outcome and what she had to say about it. It was why Allison knew she had to make the decision for him and let him go.
There were doubts in her heart about that too, making her ache with the more selfish reality that she didn't want to. Wheeljack was going to be unfocused in his own way until he found a way to speak with her in private again, and it was a fact that he'd corner her somewhere, somehow, to finish their conversation. It was only a matter of time, and Allison had no idea what she was supposed to do. She had no idea if she even wanted to tell him now, as if the interruption by Bumblebee had been some sort of divine blessing. She didn't even believe in that sort of thing, but the timing couldn't have been more apt in stopping her from possibly making a huge mistake.
Or was she? She didn't want to hurt him. She really didn't want to, but it was probably hurting him more if she stayed. Allison was teetering on a precipice of complete uncertainty. She was faced with two outcomes: being used, tortured and killed by the Decepticons in an inevitable move to strike at the Autobots where they were weak, or to kill Wheeljack all on her own. She was having a hard time weighing which one was worse at the moment.
With these thoughts in her head, Allison let Bumblebee go ahead of her and Sari as they picked their way through some of the more intact buildings. She resigned to shelve her thoughts for the moment. She had to at least get Sari out of this alive, and to do that, she had to stay as clear-minded and sane as possible. Allison at least had the luxury of being through this once before, so she knew she was somewhat equipped to help the girl through this from a human level and that was what she was going to do.
They came to one building on the far edge of town whose front was completely collapsed and exposed to the outside. The entire front portion of the building had come away from the structure proper, leaving a widely strewn about pile of debris laid out in front that they had to pick over. The humans had to stay mindful of stray nails and glass, but Bumblebee was obviously not deterred by such dangers as he found his way inside. The Autobot was one of the few small enough to actually fit. The building was still intact enough to hold Bumblebee's weight—after some tentative testing on his part—without shattering, so they determined it was probably safe for them to join him.
With a large amount of curiosity, Sari and Allison looked around what remained of the building's interior. It was hard to tell what it had been, mostly stripped of belongings and much of the rest buried beneath debris, but the odd bit of furniture and small random personal effect still remained. Eventually Allison and Sari found what looked to be an old cabinet, half-buried in bricks and wooden beams. Allison carefully shoved aside some of the beams, enough to peek inside. Seeing a dusty, wooden box resting on a shelf, she reached in carefully and pulled the old relic out.
"This looks like it opens," Allison remarked, pointing at a seam that ran around the circumference of the box. She gave it a small shake, and something inside rattled.
"There's something inside," Sari noted. "A chess set, maybe?"
"Maybe," Allison nodded, setting the box down on the ground between them for further examination. They crouched around it. "This has to be over a hundred years old..." She wiped some of the dust away from the ornate lid, cringing and leaning back as a small spider made its way along the top, an unwitting passenger when they'd unearthed it. Sari poked at the box with interest.
"I used to play chess with my dad a lot..." she remarked, a pang of regret in her voice, as she stared at if for a long while. Allison felt some sympathy for her, only hearing in passing that Sari's dad was a very busy man. It was probably obvious why Sari had formed such an attachment to Bumblebee, because he was probably the only real adult figure she had in her life that she could count on, or at least thought she could. It wasn't Allison's place to judge, because she really didn't know the other side of the story, but it certainly helped make more sense out of why Sari was always around. "Do you want to play?!" Sari's eyes suddenly lit up, and Allison felt a pit in her stomach at this.
"I don't know how to play," Allison said with a frown, but she may as well have said nothing at all. Sari picked up the entire box, spider completely forgotten, and ran towards Bumblebee who had retreated back to the open entrance to wait for them. If it brought some life back to the young girl in their current predicament and helped her get her mind off things, it was hard for Allison to decline. The chance to focus on something challenging would probably do her some good too.
Very uncertain as to how well this was going to go, Allison followed Sari and Bumblebee back to where Wheeljack was still with Sunstreaker and Starscream. They apparently felt it was okay enough to be back around them and not be a distraction, although Allison felt some hesitation making herself an open target to Wheeljack's worry again. It probably wouldn't do good to make things any worse by completely avoiding him, so she followed.
Somehow Allison had ended up playing by herself against Bumblebee and Sari (even though Bumblebee didn't know how to play chess), and after being corrected a few dozen times by the younger girl about her move choices, Allison started to vaguely understand what piece could go where. It was a long, agonizing experience, and Allison had nearly lost all of her pieces until a large dark hand snaked around her stealthily, moving one of her last remaining men into place near one of Sari's.
"Checkmate," Wheeljack said distractedly, then immediately went back to what he was doing. Allison felt her face burn as she realized what had just happened, watching Sari's face go from confusion, to something outright indignant.
"That's not fair! You're... you're like a genius, that's cheating!"
"Not like a genius, I am a genius," Wheeljack corrected, somewhat dismissively, but Allison thought she detected a smile in his voice. Woe befall the poor person who attempted to best a walking sentient computer at a game of logic, she knew that much was true but this apparently escaped Sari as she proceeded to have a mild fit in front of her.
Bumblebee was trying his hardest not to laugh at Sari's expense, while she worked through the stages of denial on her own. Allison couldn't help but feel somewhat complicit in Wheeljack's impromptu Hail Mary, but it also helped ease her guilty conscience under the circumstances. Allison found that she was able to bring herself to turn and look at him appreciatively, even though all she got in return was a furtive sapphire glance in the middle of his divided attentions. Some part of her still soothed that it was nice to know that Wheeljack had been watching her. It reinforced a feeling of safety, even if it was only the calm before the next unavoidable storm.
She wasn't going to think about it now. Maybe she needed to sleep on it; tackle it with a clear head the next day when she wasn't so scatterbrained and likely knocked askew from hitting her head and skirting death on multiple occasions that day.
Sari was about to open her mouth, presumably finally coming up with something scathing to say to Wheeljack until Bumblebee plucked her from the ground and deposited her on his shoulder.
"It's okay, Sari. To be honest with you, this game requires a little too much sitting still for my liking." The girl's loss was completely forgotten, the attentiveness of the Autobot suddenly more appealing than winning a board game. Allison didn't think she could stomach much for than that, so Bumblebee's timing was appreciated. The whole thing had smelled of mold and stale water, so she'd been starting to get a headache anyway.
Eventually the two humans finally had to succumb to their growing fatigue, both by the events they had each endured and the arrival of the early hours of morning. They eventually settled on sleeping in a horse shed, which was filled with discarded equipment and clinking remnants of an era long gone. It was the only building that still looked to be in passable shape, and it was fairly devoid of dangerously rusted over pointy objects. It wasn't exactly the Four Seasons, and Allison was hesitant to really look around herself too closely to see what they were actually sharing the place with but they didn't have many options. Sleeping outside in the open air, with Decepticons lurking around was honestly not the appealing alternative. They didn't have much in the way of comforts, but Allison made due with rolling up her once-new jacket into a makeshift pillow for them both to sleep on.
Allison briefly thought back to the last time she'd been in a barn, in slightly less disrepair than this one, but the feeling was the same. Old, aged wood and the lingering smells of memories long-since lived, not to mention plenty of six and eight-legged occupants to keep her more than alert for a good long while. She doubted though, that this particular barn had a makeshift workshop hiding underneath. That was one of the first places where she actually spoke to Wheeljack. It had given that particular barn a special aura that this one was missing. It gave Allison the chills thinking about what had felt like so long ago.
Sari was out almost immediately, but Allison took a little while longer with these thoughts in her mind, mingling with the events of the day repeating over and over again. She kept feeling the lingering vertigo of the impact of the car accident, and the sensation of it careening out of control, the phantom memories of noise and violent movement allowing her to replay it clearly in her mind: the wisp of red that flashed in front of her vision as Knock Out brutally forced them off the road before they could even react, throwing the mangled heap of metal and human engineering to the ground below like it was nothing more than tissue. The ensuing moments had still been a foggy mess to her for the entirety of the day, but she now had the frame of mind to clearly remember what she'd seen and felt. She'd watched Fowler's agent die, killed by a Decepticon who'd been trying to get to her, and he'd chased her through the forest like an animal. Her only saving grace had been Sunstreaker, who was now fighting for his life.
And Starscream, somewhere outside and no longer behind bars, another source of her worry practically within arm's reach. She admitted that she hadn't thought too hard about Starscream's presence other than passing grievances, but now she wondered exactly what the Decepticon was doing. He could have been stalking around as they slept (or attempted to in her case) waiting for their guard to be down, for all their guards to be down before striking. He was an opportunistic sadist, and if the possibility of doing harm to her, or to Sari presented itself she knew he wouldn't pass it up. Surely he wasn't that afraid of Wheeljack, but her only other option was trusting that the Autobot knew what he was doing.
So now she had Starscream, and Knock Out to worry about, and she couldn't stop her restless imagination from working through how differently either of them would kill her.
Physical weariness must have finally taken its toll on her body and mind, because at some point Allison only knew that Sari was shaking her awake.
"Allison! Allison! I need to pee!"
"W-what?" Allison mumbled, grogginess at the sudden disturbance of her restless sleep making her somewhat delirious and confused. "What's in the tree?"
"No!" Sari hissed, trying to keep her voice low as if this had to stay some kind of secret between them. "I have to go to the bathroom and I don't want to go alone…"
"Where's Bumblebee?" Allison muttered, pulling herself up from the ground. Her shoulders and neck hurt from lying on the hard surface and she knew she was going to regret their choice of accommodations later. She was at least regaining her full mental capacity as she blinked the rest of the sleep out of her eyes.
"Are you kidding me?! I'm not going with him," Sari huffed, as if this should have been obvious. "Please, please, pl—"
"Okay, okay, let's go," Allison said, brushing herself off as she reluctantly stood. "We'll make sure none of them see us, okay?" She couldn't exactly blame Sari for wanting a little privacy because she doubted she'd take Wheeljack with her on any such side-missions. She doubted it really registered with them what they were doing anyway.
Surprisingly Sari gripped Allison's hand, hugging close to her as if they were embarking on some sort of dangerous mission and they needed to remain discreet. There wasn't really any point, as it was just starting to get light out and Sideswipe and Wheeljack saw them as soon as they walked outside. It looked like they had been arguing, but whatever had been so important was completely forgotten as soon as the two girls walked close.
Sideswipe's face actually appeared to relax when he saw them, a soft, interested smile on his face which at least meant to Allison that Sunstreaker was fine. They had probably been arguing by sheer virtue that they could, and Sideswipe had wanted to pick a fight with the only person who seemed logical to him; that being Wheeljack. Allison tried to avert her eyes when they made contact with Wheeljack's whose expression did the opposite of the Autobot's next to him. He looked afraid, softly glowing eyes questioning, and it immediately reminded Allison that he definitely was still thinking about their interrupted conversation from earlier. Allison was in no mood to discuss it, it not being the right time anyway, and her avoidance of acknowledging Wheeljack was for naught. He was too damn obvious, so it was hard to look away from his intense eyes searching her for information.
"We're going to use the bathroom," Allison offered, as if an explanation was needed to reassure them both that the two of them weren't about to wander off. Sari hissed at her, jerking her arm towards her.
"Don't tell them that!"
"Sari, I really don't think they care…"
"That sounds fun," Sideswipe said. "Can I tag along?"
"Uh, this is kind of a girls-only thing," Allison said. "Y'know, just us two. It's sort of a human thing." Allison shrugged, hoping Sideswipe would get the hint and she wouldn't have to explain anything in detail. Haven't they been around humans long enough?
"Oh, I get you," Sideswipe said, clearly not understanding at all. "Well, you two have fun!"
"Don't go too far," Wheeljack said, nothing being lost on him, and the concern in his voice obvious but unnecessary. They didn't plan on trekking much farther than the tree line just to get out of view.
They walked passed a few of the remaining buildings out to the other side where the remains met the edge of the forest, belted by a clearing of tall grass. Sari let go of Allison's hand and left her there making a run to the tree line for maximum concealment.
"Don't go out there too far," Allison called after her, echoing Wheeljack's previous concern which gave Allison pause—surely she wasn't going to start sounding like him. Her voice lacked the volume of his own, and sounded too soft in the relative silence, which was shattered when Sari practically screamed back at her.
"Don't let them come over here!"
Allison didn't respond, only able to shake her head at the absurdity of it all. She took a breath and turned, a pointless gesture but it felt appropriate to face the opposite direction. Looking down at the grass around her, she busied herself with toeing at the few weeds that had found a niche within the thick, carpeted grasses, expelling the breath of air she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
After a few moments, a snap behind Allison alerted her to Sari's return, so she turned to greet her—
Only to turn and come face-to-face with not Sari, but Starscream.
The sudden, bubbling shock that rose up from the depths of her awareness caused Allison to jump with a start, gasping as she fumbled a wobbling step backwards. It was an instinctive action, her immediate fight-or-flight response encompassing her vision with a red fog as she became acutely aware of the fact that Starscream was near eye-level with her. Oddly enough, her fight response won out and she remained rooted to where she stood.
Staring a Decepticon down was not an easy thing to endure. Especially one such as the imposing figure that stood before her knelt in a near crouch, with wings poised at an angle that suggested nothing short of a heightened alertness. Starscream only looked mildly interested, possibly wondering how far he could take things as he retained his just-slightly-higher stance above her that gave him an intimidating edge. His sharply angular face hovered a mere foot from her own, but his eyes still burned her. They were searing red globes that she could swear were able to see past her forced front of defiance, a lop-sided smile edging across his face as he seemed to come to a conclusion in his head.
"Out for a midnight stroll, milady?" Allison internally winced, his improper use of an endearment nothing short of mocking, and it made her skin itch. She said nothing in response, trying to keep her face from breaking into the fear she was truly feeling on the inside. It was possible that Starscream could even hear her heart beating, knelt so close to her.
"What does it matter to you? Looking to join me?" Allison didn't want to involve Sari, and hoped that the girl would see Starscream before making herself known and stay clear away. A few minutes had already passed and Sari was probably going to show up any second now. She didn't really know how brave the Decepticon was feeling and wasn't in the mood to test him. "Shouldn't you be in a cage right now?"
"Oh clever, clever, but no. No cage can hold me as you should be aware," Starscream sneered, his tone lofty. It never stopped surprising Allison just how stubborn the Decepticon was; it didn't matter how humiliated he was or how many times he was beaten, he would always come back with the same indignant sense of self-righteousness. He always thought he was one step ahead of everyone.
"Except for that cage the Autobots had you in, right? As I recall Wheeljack had to break you out of that one." Allison tried to sound unimpressed, shifting on her feet to try to draw some distance between herself and Starscream which surprisingly went unnoticed. "So obviously you're not that good."
Starscream drew back a bit as if his nose had just been stung, expression suddenly affronted as his eyes rolled back in her direction.
"Hardly. I would have escaped...eventually. I was merely gathering information." The Decepticon's voice rumbled, but Allison heard an edge in it that told her she had gotten to his ego. She knew she probably shouldn't test him too much, not knowing how angry she could possibly make him before his tiny mind snapped. "It was only a matter of time. Did you really think the Autobots would have been able to keep a constant eye on you and your little juvenile friend?"
"Are you threatening me? Looks to me like you've got a pretty tight leash on you." Allison wasn't sure where her nerve was coming from, but the words were pouring out of her mouth in an adrenaline-fueled high. Perhaps it was everything she had witnessed, and everything she had experienced that day culminating into a giant mass of carelessness, or the illusion of not caring. Her state of mind felt molded into a desensitized state of indifference that was downright irresponsible, and wherever it was coming from, Allison knew it scared her. Thinking of aloof, naivety drew her mind back to Sari, and she found herself quickly glancing behind Starscream to see if the girl was visible. It looked like Sari was wisely staying out of sight. There was no way she could have missed Starscream's gloating presence.
Starscream turned his head to look in the direction Allison had glanced. "Expecting company?" He sounded guarded. His voice dipped to the low octave that Allison recognized as the sign that the Decepticon was quickly approaching an offensive stance, or a state of readiness that might mean a messy end was approaching. A human did not want to put a Decepticon on the offensive. Especially with Sari around Allison knew she had to pull the reigns back a little bit and stop her tongue.
"No," Allison said. She thought quickly, trying to get his attention without blurting something that would set Starscream off. The thought of him playing mental games with Sari was terrible enough, and physical harm was unspeakable. She had to keep his attention on her. "Did Knock Out really put something inside of Sunstreaker?"
"Eeugh. That monster is always putting something inside of someone," Starscream grimaced with a distasteful growl, rolling his eyes. "Personally I find it a grotesque personality trait." His grimace turned into a sneer. Allison couldn't help but wince, wondering if Starscream had intentionally been vague in such a profane description but she didn't really want to entertain the imagery any further. "Though you can't argue with results he gets from his...methods. Who knows..." He bent down, his face zooming in close to Allison's like some kind of surreal lens. "Perhaps during your time together, he took the time to get acquainted with your insides, too?"
"You're disgusting." Allison found her composure finally break, this possibility not occurring to her before. I feel fine she thought to herself in a panic, mentally running a diagnostic check on each part of her body for any possible signs of incision or tampering but she didn't feel anything. Surely I would have felt something different.
It didn't matter. The seed had been planted, and Starscream latched onto it like a leech, it having it's apparently desired effect on her and he could see right through her attempts to keep her face passive. His smile grew wider, and she thought for a moment he had drawn closer.
"Tell me, Allison," Starscream said, unhelpfully. "Were you ever unconscious at any point of your... incarceration?"
"No," she ground out, but she knew she was lying. She didn't know to whose benefit she was lying for, but she knew for a fact that she'd been knocked unconscious before she'd been taken. She just didn't know for how long. All she remembered was being incapacitated by some kind of drug, then overloaded with some form of light stimulation before waking up in a cell with Sunstreaker. Time had definitely been lost in between that last event and the one immediately before it but she didn't know how much. She wasn't going to give Starscream the satisfaction of knowing this however, and she wasn't going to play his mind games.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Starscream asked. "Maybe you should have yourself examined. If only there was an experienced physician around capable of using a scalpel. Of course, I'm a bit of an expert in cutting things open myself. I would be more than happy to—"
"To what, Starscream?" An angry voice behind him caused Starscream to reel back in fright, his face startled, and the sudden upward motion of his mass blasting air in Allison's face as she instinctively jumped to avoid collision. She turned, finally letting her reinforced composure break a little as she hastily stepped further away from the Decepticon, out of his reach should he get desperate and in need of a human shield. Sideswipe was stalking towards them with murder in his eyes, with Sari in tow trotting along beside him. So Sari had seen the Decepticon and had gotten the others. Smart on her, but she doubted it had taken much persuasion as Sideswipe was probably looking for any excuse at all to punch his fist through the Decepticon's face.
"What!? Nothing! I-I was just...out for a stroll. By myself. And she and I-" Starscream's sudden shift into panic was frightening on its own, because he was now reeling back on his own two feet, pointing down at her as if to shift the focus off of himself and towards Allison's veiled calm. Truthfully Allison wasn't really sure how to react.
"Just happened to bump into each other?" Sideswipe growled, reaching out and grabbing the Decepticon by the chest as he attempted to make a mad dash for freedom. Starscream made a restrained whimpering noise as he practically buckled at the knees. Sideswipe kept him from going completely limp, swinging him around like a dog playing with a rag.
"Oh! You were here too?" Starscream managed in weak bits as the force of Sideswipe's aggressive handling made it hard for him to get a handle on his words. Finally the Autobot shoved him hard, and Starscream skipped away, knowing it wise to not underestimate Sideswipe's reach again. "Thank Primus. This could have been really awkward to explain. But I guess that's not a problem, so why don't we let this little indiscretion go then?" His last words were high-pitched, The extraction of a blade on Sideswipe's arm catching his attention mid-sentence.
"You're already treading on very thin circuits, Starscream. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't end your miserable life right now." Sideswipe was stalking him like a cat, Sari oddly enough still trailing behind him as if she was completely not comprehending the severity of what was happening at all. Allison tried to circle around the impending danger to snatch her, but stopped as she heard the conversation shift back towards her.
"But...but...she approached me!" Starscream shrieked, voice a rattling snarl as he pointed at Allison. "She's smarter than you think! She wants me dead, clearly. Obviously this is some kind of sinister scheme to frame me. She wanted you to catch me."
"You must be out of your damn mind," Allison groused, finally getting within arm's reach of Sari to hold her back, and she conceded control without a fight. Her plan was to lead Sari away and let Sideswipe and Starscream talk things out on their own. She knew that Sideswipe needed any sort of outlet to unleash his pent up aggression at the moment, and Starscream was a worthy target. The Decepticon seemed to be keenly aware of this too, but Allison wasn't really in the mood to show him any mercy at the moment.
They proceeded to back away, Sari huffing irritably as if wanting to linger behind and watch the two mechs duke it out, but they were stopped as they both bumped into a solid mass that had materialized behind them.
"What's all this, then?" Wheeljack cast a worried gaze down at the two humans that had bumped into his ankle, glancing up at a ready-to-pounce Sideswipe just as he was about to lunge at Starscream. "Ah, Pit," he grumbled with a shrug as he reluctantly advanced towards them to intervene, but didn't seem as concerned as Allison thought he should be. After all, Starscream had intentionally sought her out.
"Weren't you supposed to be watching him?" Allison huffed, pulling Sari simultaneously underneath Wheeljack's gait as he stopped mid-stride to look back at her. She wasn't even going to bring up the seeds that Starscream had planted in her head, prominently the idea that Knock Out had done things to her while she'd been unconscious. She knew that being angry at Wheeljack was probably a bit harsh, but after everything they'd discussed and everything that had been going through her mind, topped off with the possibility that she now had a ticking time-bomb in her body somewhere, it just felt like the last straw.
Wheeljack stopped and turned as if to come after her, a sudden change in his eyes that made it clear that he knew her patience had finally vaporized. Sari had gone oddly still, probably understanding what was going on and finding it appropriate not to chime in, but she pulled away from Allison to make a hasty retreat from the situation. Allison knew she had to follow her, walking away intentionally out of reach as Wheeljack made a sudden bid to reach for her. He had always been faster than he looked, but not fast enough as he emitted a startled chirp when she raised her hands at him in a silent attempt to tell him she was currently off-limits. At that moment she needed giant robots to stop manhandling her. After being roughed up and thrown around by the Decepticons, even the reassuring, gentle touches of Wheeljack felt like too much to deal with.
She gave Wheeljack a concentrated glare, and he seemed to understand, giving her a return nod of his head. It was clear he understood that she needed to get away from the events happening around them. Allison smiled a little, tried to, her silent way of saying thank you, and hurried after Sari. What was happening now could work itself out without her.
