Disclimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
Enjoy. :)
Chapter 36
Believing
When the door of Optimus Prime's office—almost terminal injury or not there was unfortunately paperwork to do and his desk chair could hold him up just as well as his berth could—slammed open there was already an assortment of very unhappy bots stewing about the large room. Optimus might be have been seated at his desk with more welded nanites patching together his chest then he'd had been in almost twenty vorns, but that did not stop his huge older brother from stalking around frothing at the mouth ranting on and on about the stupidity of this or that idiot he'd decided was at fault for all this. Including himself.
If it wasn't giving the towering Prime so much of a damn helm ache it might have been slightly entertaining to listen to the nonsense that was spewing from his brother's vocal processor. However, considering he was not alone in the room with his growling it was all becoming quite repetitive. The twins and Jazz had got kicked out of the medical bay and that on top of them blaming him for letting the little femme jump out the window in the first place was really not helping the pounding behind his optics. Add in Wheeljack trying to ramble off this that and the other in long scientific terms that Optimus couldn't begin to follow about what the far-smarter-then-he-was mechs in the labs had come up with in the spy's dead—splattered—corpse and Rodimus arguing with Prowl over the legality of what the Enforcers were and were not responsible for with the blind panic that came from the evacuation it wasn't all that much of a gamble to say that the still slightly groggy Prime on pain killers wasn't so much in the mood for all of this at this very moment.
Ratchet slamming into the office with a wrath like something none of them had seen since Bumblebee's vocal processor got ripped out spilling out of his field that stalled even Megatron's ranting sure didn't the trick of shutting all of them up though. Every set of optics in the large office turned to find the growling bulk of the Chief Medical Officer stalking forward. The crowd of mechs gathered around the Prime's desk parted before his path with tentative but hurried steps allowing the growling mech to come to a standstill on the other side of the large grey rectangle thing. Optimus suddenly felt very glad the datapad and stylus covered desk was there as he stared up into the burning blue optics of the seething mech.
For a moment nothing was said.
Ratchet just growled, vents working with the strength of his quickened breaths, fist curled up at his sides and the weapons protocols tucked away behind his medical ones flooding to the surface in a low warning whirl. Optimus sat there in his slightly wobbly swivel chair staring up into that firm faceplate waiting for the explosion that was bound to come. Only it wasn't happening.
And that was sort of even more terrifying.
So when it kept stretching on Optimus swallowed, and figured now was better than letting the medic stew. It would only get worse the longer he was allowed to stew. So finding out what was wrong now would most likely be better for all of them. That's if whatever was wrong didn't have the medic killing them all.
"Ratchet?" He questioned carefully.
The medic's mouth opened as if he was going to say something but all that came out was a gutted growl of nonsense sounds as he practically vibrated with the fury swirling around inside him.
That wasn't a very promising response.
It didn't make Optimus feel any better either. Nor did he know what to do with him. So he figured he'd try again.
"Ratchet?"
That turned out to be a very bad move though.
Because the big mech just about exploded.
"THEY CHEMICALLY BLEACHED THEM OUT!" His voice just about vibrated the panels of glass that made up the window behind the desk. The normally deep pitch of Ratchet's voice sending plating clamping down in the octave that it reached in his anger. The response was so jarring in fact that it kept the shocked silence in the room in place as every mech stood there blinking stupidly at the raging medic.
The words that stumbled out of Wheeljack's mouth over to the side of the room after the moment of silence might have been the stupidest thing anybot could have possibly come up with as a response too.
"Umm . . . what?"
Ratchet spun and no matter how quick Jacky went to scrambling backward the CMO still had him by his throat shaking him back the forth in a snarling rage that had the tri colored inventor struggling and grasping though he wasn't anywhere close to being let go as the two tone doctor screamed at him.
"HER DAMN OPTICS YOU GLITCHY FOOL! HER PRIMUS DAMN, FRAGGED UP, SLAGGIN' OPTICS!" Ratchet hollered, shaking him back and forth as the inventor squeaked. "SHE'S BLIND AND I CAN'T FIX IT! DON'T YOU GET IT!? BECAUSE SOME SICK, TWISTED EXCUSE FOR A PRIMUS DAMN FAMILY OF HERS BURNED THE OPTICS OUT OF A FOUR VORN OLD SPARKLING BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T LIKE HER DAMN OPTIC COLOR!"
At the end of that Ratchet shoved Wheeljack so hard he slammed back into the wall behind him but the wide opticed inventor didn't more an inch after that as he stared numbly back into the seething rage that was his friend. Ratchet's vents were rattling hard with the force of his anger as he cut his optics around the many very still mechs all staring at him in various forms of confusion fading to horror then flaring to an anger to rival his own. Most of all in the twins standing behind him.
For a stretch of klicks Ratchet was too angry to wonder the true number of those mirror, dark, vibrant blue optics stared back at him along with the slightly slacked jaws of two huge warriors. Then in a shared motion he knew was more flare of feelings over their twin bond than anything else those jaws snapped shut and the anger that twisted into place via tense jaws, peeled back snarls, and flaring narrow optics was a scary enough picture that had it been directed at him even the fortress that was Megatron would have taken a few paces back.
There was no explosion though.
No spilling tirade of syllables that could rattle glass like Ratchet's very poor handling of Jynx's latest little secret. It was a whole different kind of fury. The kind that normally only Sunstreaker was capable of between the two of them of possessing.
Silent fury.
Quiet anger.
A soundless explosion.
The point of emotion when there was just too much hate for sounds to come out.
It was the absolute most dangerous the massive frontliner was capable of being. The way he got when he was capable of tearing bots apart tiny piece by internal piece without so much as a warning growl. It was the cold killer, the exact polar of the berserker coding. Yet far more deadly.
And Ratchet had never seen it in Sideswipe's optics before.
They didn't even say anything.
They just turned and stalked out of the room.
Sitting blind on a medical berth in spark consuming darkness turned out to be worst then even Jynx figured it would be. She couldn't really claim it was silent. For it wasn't. Sure her spark and processor were all the more maddeningly quiet when there was nothing for her to see to focus on. However, it would seem that in the wake of Ratchet's stalk out in mumbling growls she was left in a moderately quiet medical bay with a femme medic that was softly announcing everything she was doing as she worked around the bay while Jynx sat in a ball in the middle of the berth hugging a pillow to her middle staring blankly into darkness. Her sensors were standing tall from their groves, twitching and flicking as she tracked the movements and voice of the absurdly nice femme doctor that she still wasn't quite sure how to figure out.
She wasn't sure Arcee knew just how much of a comfort it was to have somebot tell her just what they were doing, where they were, why they were doing what they were doing, how they were doing it, and their proximity to her. It was though. It was one of the nicest things that anybot could do when she was like this.
Only two bots had ever done it.
The first when she was still a quivering, crying ball of protoform hiding in a closet behind a box and the larger dull grey form of a mech that at the time had been the safest thing she ever knew. However, that side of Arsine had died quickly in Rashact's labs. She had come to terms with realizing that sad fact now. It was no longer something she could twist her processor and spark into overlooking. She never saw it again from even long before the time they left those cages behind. Arsine—her Sin—there hadn't been much left of the mechling he had been once by the time they burned down half a moon. But when Gambit left them behind without so much as a glance backward through the night the last shred of Sin inside Arsine shattered into nothingness.
She'd never stood any chance of every bringing it back to life either. No matter how hard she had tried or how long she had fought the truth was staring back at her. It was never going to matter.
Arsine died the night Gambit turned his back on them.
It just took his frame and processor a little longer to catch up with his spark on that fact.
Jynx would never have been able to save him. For he hadn't wanted to be saved.
And if there was nothing else that Nook taught her it was that. Took a long while for it to sink in, but it did.
Nook was also the other one.
The only other one that had bothered to try.
At the thought of Nook a shot of pain went though her completely different from the one that always came with Arsine. That jab of hot ice through the middle of her spark whenever the thoughts of the huge grey mech came around had long since became a pain she'd grown use to. She hardly even recognized it anymore.
The one that came with Nook however . . . that one was different.
For so long she'd not even allowed herself the privilege of recalling his name yet now he, his damn glittering mismatched optics, his warm smile, his handsome voice, and the . . . love that he had gifted her with returned in full force to her spark. It had swarmed back into her conscience like the ever present warmth he had come to be to her.
Only it hurt now.
To think of all he had done that he didn't have to do. All he had cared about.
Then to think that he was gone. That he was gone and it was once again her fault.
Because she'd ran away.
Mark another one up to the stupidly long list of things she managed to royally screw up over the course of her pathetic existence. The hard of it was though, she missed him.
She missed him so much.
On a level different then how she missed Arsine, Gambit, or even Greaseslick. As horrible of a bot as that made her feel like it was the simple truth.
She missed him.
Especially when she was sitting trapped in darkness with nothing but Arcee's soft voice to keep her processor and spark from rolling off into trains of idiocy that made her want to curl into a ball and cry.
Twirling her thumbs and listening to the slight clicking they made as they touched against her lap was at least something to do in an otherwise rather boring waste of existence. She went on like that for a while after Ratchet had gone. Listening to Arcee check on the few still resting bots on the other side of the bay until finally she found words bubbling up.
"Hey Arcee?"
There was a moment of clatter of some kind of tools, she had said she was working on another dose of something to give her, before the femme sounded as if she walked closer as she answered her.
"What do you need, femmeling? Are you hurting?"
The first response of care, of worry, of wanting to help still threw Jynx for a moment leaving her wondering before she managed to pull up her question to the processor again.
"Where did Ratchet go?" She asked quietly. "He sounded like he was mad."
And he really had. She hadn't been able to see the pure rage that had been glittering in the CMO's optics but she had been able to hear the bit back snarls, the slam of the door, and the momentarily flare in his energy field before he had rushed away from her to go and do whatever he thought he needed too. It was a reaction she hadn't seen coming.
The very last thing she thought would come of her spilling the secret of her optics was that the chief medic was going to leave and his mate was going to go to work and babbling as if nothing was wrong.
It was weird.
She didn't know what she was suppose to be waiting on to happen. It was a worrying thing to chew her bottom lip about. Which at least, she figured, was something to do.
"Ratchet?" Arcee sounded surprised as she reached the table to stand what sounded like a little to Jynx's left. In truth, the femme medic was hovering with worried glances up and down the smaller, younger femme's frame. Taking in the slowly mixing nanites in fresh weld scars and plating still resettling naturally after the process of depressurizing and being removed. To the horrible burn scars that ringed those dull silver optics. Those distorted, bleached optics that pulled at Arcee's spark strings and made the creator coding inside her want to wrap the little femme up into her arms, cradle her, and never let her go. It made her want to tuck her into a pile of blankets and pillows, lock her up in a room and never let her out into this damn world that had done nothing but break a sparkling from the orn she was born.
It hurt Arcee.
It really, really did.
It made every aspect of her nature scream.
From her medical protocols brought out by her nature and her training, to her carrier coding that had never had a chance to truly come online because of an illness that hit her as a sparkling. Coding she as lucky enough with a pair of wild brothers and an accident prone yellow mechling to finally have a chance to flare to life. Coding that went right along with the hard wired instincts that were supposed to be in every Cybertronian—the creator coding.
The coding that was suppose to dictate the very inner core of everybot. The very instincts that were supposed to be hard wired into them all. Supposed to never allow the exact things that this battered femmeling described. The things she survived.
Bots were not suppose to be able to harm sparklings.
It went against every fiber of what was suppose to make them up.
It was instinctual.
Sparklings were precious, fragile creatures. Breakable it every way. Solely depended on the care and protection of their creators, guardians, and family. Nothing but a bundle of squishy protoform, weak struts, developing internal systems as well as processor, and a tiny spark just strong enough to support the life of their growing frame. They could only process diluted energon, had to be medically introduced to anti-virus to cope with the world around them, were vulnerable to all forms of weather, couldn't regulate their own temperature, needed medical attention for the simple process of growing and throughout their upgrades, and simply needed the companionship of a caring environment if they were ever hoped to function properly.
If they were ever hoped to live.
It was against all laws of reason and chance that Jynx was still breathing. How in all of pit a sparkling had made it through the things she did was a Primus damn miracle. That she was sitting here now, even more so.
The real question wasn't how it was she survived all the things that she did though, not for Arcee. No, for Arcee it was more of a question of why did she need to. She was not naive enough to think that weren't exceptions to the rules. She along with everybot that watched the Youth Sectors fall knew all too well that there were bots capable of killing sparklings and younglings. Killing them on a scale that almost lead to their races' all out extinction.
There was a reason Shockwave did not stand among the returned peace of this planet.
Somebots held no hope of redemption.
Truthfully, there were those that were simply just not meant to have creations. That was no crime among their race. Just because a bot could carry did not mean they had do, nor did it mean they were pressured to. This was not the society Cybertron had once been. It was true that they were a race fighting their way back from the brink of extinction, but that did not mean they were going to start up the very laws that brought down their world in the first place.
Instead, what Optimus—what all of them that returned—were trying to achieve was a freedom to chose the life one wanted and the chance to attain it no matter breed, rank, frame type, or family. It was radical in the case of all the laws Cybertron had ever known. It wasn't very pleasing to the Underground.
It was, however, the way things were going to be.
Though it had little to do with the cause and effect sitting here on the medical berth before Arcee. The very testament to the truth that there is never a sure thing. Even when broken down to instinct.
There are still some that will be cut different.
Some with not only a lack of any kind of creator coding at all, but to have the ability to inflict this kind of agony onto what should have been the one thing above all others in the universe they would give their very lives to protect.
And all of it was even worse when it was reminded that it was her so called carrier that had done this. Allowed it.
A carrier.
Sure, all bots were suppose to have creator instincts, but carriers' coding were triple fold that of other bots—especially in a femme—it came from the time in which both the carrier's spark and that of the sparkling share space in the first stages of development. When the newly kindled spark cannot support itself and is reliant on the energy of the carrier's spark to keep it burning while the first stages of protoform grow in the gestation chamber. Both the Sire's and the Carrier's spark are responsible for the miracle that is a kindled spark. Their shared energy having created it in the surge of a spark merge, but it is the carrier that is tied to the sparkling frame and spark from the moment of conception until death of one or the other.
The thought of a carrier that not only hated the life that had grown beside her spark, but had tortured it—allowed it to be tortured—it burned into a part of Arcee that left her with a wrath inside to rival that of her thunderous mate. However, Cee was not given the luxury of storming out of the medical bay and venting to the cosmos.
She was well aware of just what her mate was doing.
She could feel Ratchet's tantrum through their bond. Could feel the rage, the pain, the fear, the utter uselessness that had swelled up in the aching bottom of the mech's spark forming a thick lump in the middle of his throat making him choke for the furious vents he was heaving. That had always been Ratchet's nature though. He cared so much, about everybot. So deeply that it could turn him into a whimpering mess that wouldn't be able to even help himself if he let it. That was why the mech had grown the temper and reactions he was infamous for.
When so much of a bots very soul was wanting to help, fix, and care for others it became madding to watch those that were cared for get hurt—die—over and over again. It turned to anger so that he could still function. Could still be some kind of help.
The war had not been good for his nature either.
Ratchet's coping mechanism grew into more of a default reaction than anything else simply so that he would not go data-bat slag mad. Then again, Cee did wonder sometimes how many of them really were all that much sane after everything they had saw, done, and survived. It made her wonder how any of them had any right to have judged Jynx in the first place.
"Yeah," The sound of the young femme's voice harshly yanked Arcee out of her processor and her bond link to her mate back to the conversation at hand. Blinking as she shook her helm trying to clear it the soft, pale optics focused on the distorted dull ones staring blankly a little to her left. Jynx couldn't quite tell where she was, she wasn't really giving it all that much effort either, but that had more to do with the nauseating ball of defeat in the bottom of her gut than anything else.
She was desperate for a distraction.
Any kind of distraction.
So questioning the whereabouts of the mech she had very obviously pissed off this time seemed like as good of an idea as any.
"Is he mad at me? Is that why he left?"
"Mad at you?" Arcee had to bite back the shout that sprang up her throat at the words. The last word did spike an octave or two above normal but she still managed to retain some degree of composer as she stared down at the sightless optics staring questionably up at her.
Jynx shrank a little at the slight raise in voice, unable to tell just what reactions was happening before her and reacting on instinct because of it.
Fear.
It had always been a constant state for her. Bubbling just under the surface.
She curled into herself there on the berth trying to convince herself that the hit her processor wanted to assure her was coming wouldn't. Somehow, attempting to rewrite every learned action she had and tell herself that Arcee was not like bots and doctors she's known before. That the pale pink femme wither soft pale blue optics wouldn't harm her.
It wasn't anywhere near as an easy process as it probably should have been considering how much she'd already learned about this femme and the amount of time she'd spent in her presence. The lessons Jynx had learned in her life though. They were hard things to forget.
"Why on Cybertron would he be mad at you?" Arcee evened out her voice with a huge amount of effort while she stared down into those distorted optics.
"Well . . . he was mad at me earlier." Jynx muttered. "Because I didn't tell all of you. About my optics. He was mad. I figured he would still be mad. The twins will be mad. Right? They were mad when Skywarp caught me. Prowl will be mad too. And Jazz."
"No bot will be mad at you, Jynx. You didn't do anything wrong. Maybe it would have been helpful had you told us, but Jynx none of this is your fault."
"I jumped out the window."
"You saved Optimus' life."
"I got desperate." Shaking her helm Jynx pulled at her toes crossed before her.
"And no bot can be angry with you for that." Arcee told her. "No bot is mad at you. I promise, Jynx. You didn't do anything wrong."
Damn.
That was still weird to hear.
"Then why did Ratchet leave?" She asked quietly. She thought the mech was fragged off at her enough for what she said that that was why he left. After all, taking about it had always made mechs mad. Even if the only ones she had to go on with experience with that were Arsine, Gambit, and Nook.
Then again, these two had gotten mad. She could tell that Arcee was very angry. She was just smothering it under the reassurance her field was pushing outward to brush carefully against Jynx's. Hers was plastered to her plating though and she had no plans on allowing it to spread out any time soon. None of them needed to know how Primus damn scared she was right now. She figured it was obvious enough in all the rest of her that her field really wasn't needed to prove it.
"He needed to talk to Optimus." Arcee's explanation drew a confused flicker of semi-erect sensors.
"He did?"
"Yes." The sounds she was picking up told Jynx that the femme medic was nodding slightly as it sounded like she messing with one of machines that was still hooked to her via lots of wires and tubes. Jynx was trying to ignore them, Arcee had only gotten on to her lightly once for messing with them. "Optimus wanted to know what had been found out. Since we kicked the others out as well they weren't all that happy about not knowing what was happening with you. So he went to tell them all."
With the words Jynx went painfully straight, glancing wildly in the sort of direction Arcee was standing leaving the medic to quickly close the distance between them and lay hands on the smaller femme's shoulders as she started shaking.
"What?" Jynx hissed, vents suddenly cycling quickly. Harsh breaths rattling her whole battered frame making already aching parts remind her how much turmoil she had put them through not long ago. Her processor wasn't all that worried about the hot flares of pain that burned up through her gut, legs, and chest. The dull ache of her sightless optics wasn't helping any either while she blinked rabidly as if the action would somehow rid her of the spark crushing darkness.
It would, but sometimes Jynx wasn't the most rational bot out there. Neither was her processor and Primus knew her spark was the furthest thing from rational. That thing was damn stupid.
"Jynx," Arcee shook her slightly trying to slow down her breathing. "Femmeling, calm down. You're alright, come on."
"Why would he tell them? I didn't want you tell them!" Even as she said it she knew it was stupid. How utterly pointless it was to say it let alone think it would happen. She's known as soon as the words came out of her mouth a breem ago there would be no way to take them back. No way for the effect of them not to be as great as she knew it would be.
There was a reason she'd kept that secret. More so then just the shame of being something not even a carrier would want. She hadn't wanted anybot else to ever know.
Not Nook.
Not . . . the twins.
Not any of them.
She didn't want to know the way they would behave afterward. She didn't want their pity.
"Jynx he had to tell them." Arcee told her softly. "I'm sorry, but we have to tell them. We have to. Now I need you calm down. Calm down and breath." She was aware of those hands on her shoulders sliding up to cup her cheeks as her shaking breaths had her trembling there on the berth.
The shaking and trembling continued for a few breaths as Arcee stood there before her. Telling her quietly to breath as she shook until finally she managed to get her stupid frame back under control enough to pull away. Shoving lightly at the medic, just enough to get her to let her go Jynx wrapped her arms tightly around herself, staring down through the darkness at the direction of her toes.
"Jynx?" Arcee questioned slowly. Unsure of where the femme's processor was.
Bowing her helm lower Jynx whispered. "I'm sorry."
The heavy sigh that rushed over her from the medic drew a slow slight peak up in the direction of the other femme with a wary tilt of her sensors.
"You didn't do anything wrong, femmeling." Arcee said. "You don't have to apologize."
Another thing that Jynx didn't get.
Bots kept telling her that now that she was hear. They kept saying that stuff wasn't her fault. That she didn't do anything wrong. That she didn't have to apologize.
It was so weird.
She didn't get it.
It was always her fault. She was always the one to blame.
She was the mistake. The unwanted. The glitch. The abomination. The sparkling that not even a femme carrier wanted.
She didn't understand all this nonsense about things not being her fault.
Nook had said it. He'd said it a lot, but Nook was Nook. He was different from everything she had ever known and she's always classed him differently. He was on his own up there in the ways she saw and understood mechs. No bot had ever treated her like he had. Had cared about her, had loved her, for real and not wanted anything out of her in return. No matter the trouble she was. For she had cost Nook more than she ever gained him and yet he still stayed.
He had cared.
He had been there every time she'd needed him.
Now she was here in this stupid pretty city with all these bots that she had no idea what to make of that kept saying these things that were so much like the way Nook had told her things. Told her that it wasn't her fault. That she didn't need to be sorry because she didn't do anything wrong.
She didn't . . . understand.
She didn't know how.
"I—" Plating tightening down she pulled absently at her claws. "I don't know what else to be."
Arcee smiled slightly, even if there was no way for the little femme to see it. "Then I guess we're gonna have to work on that."
The affection that bubbled in the tone confused Jynx just as much as all the rest of it, but she found herself letting her plating relax a little bit. Uncurling ever so slightly she raised those dull optics in the medic's direction offering a slow nod. She wasn't sure what other way would be appropriate to respond to that. For she didn't see how it was going to work.
She had learned though that telling Ratchet and his mate no wasn't a very advisable course of action. So agreeing seemed good for everybot right about then. Oddly enough, it made her feel better too.
But that good feeling shattered rather spectacularly when the locked doors to the medical bay quite literately slammed open with the force of two very powerful frontliners' shoulders.
The sudden crashing sounds she had no way to decipher from the other side of the medical bay, sightless and half drugged, had Jynx squeaking before balling tight. Plating pinning, sensors plastering back into their groves, and sightless optics squeezing shut.
Arcee spun in shock at the sound, but the yelled snarl that had been building in her throat died when her pale optics settled on the silently fuming, dark fury in those all too cold mirror sets of vibrant blue optics. Narrowed and dark while the pair of brothers stalked across the medical bay. Had Arcee been somebot other then who she was the inking of shock induced fear might have grown into the real thing at the sight of the pure, honest to Primus, murder that burned into those angry deaths.
However, Arcee was not somebot other then who she was and with a tightening of her main backstrut the bot that was half the size of the pair of mechs planted herself before the quivering femmeling behind her, flared her plating, narrowed her optics, and let a snarl build in her voice that would rival that of her mate.
"Stop!" She hissed across the quiet of the medical bay freezing the quietly raging brothers in their stalk halfway across the room. Their optics burned with that cold rage that was the anger that normally only gripped Sunstreaker. To see it in both sets of the vibrant optics made a sick ball twist in Cee's spark. She forced away the side of her—the carrier coding she had developed for these two fools—that wanted to rush across the space and try and sooth them. Try and calm them down with quiet words. To bring them back down to the mechs they really were and not the energon lusting monsters they were quiet capable of being.
She couldn't do that though.
Her medical protocols would not let her. They were a threat—even if they didn't mean to be, even if they weren't really—to the quivering ball of plating behind her. And she would not allow anything bot to hurt a bot that was in her care. Not even her adopted sons.
Jynx pulled at ever spark string she had, and she was not going to let them terrify a blind and helpless femme. No matter how justified they felt their anger might be. The rage they were both worked into would do nothing but destroying everything they had worked so hard to build.
She wasn't going to let it happen.
"Both of you." She growled, picking up the screwdriver that lay on the table beside Jynx's berth. "You will stop. It. This. Instant!" Waving the pointed tool around before her she crossed the space between them.
The brothers went all too still, gazes focusing down on medic glaring up at them when she jabbed the screwdriver into Sideswipe's chest making him backtrack a step and blink hard.
"Do you understand me?" She snarled at the pair. Optics shifting rapidly between the chilly focus, watching as the cold anger slowly started to thaw when the red brother started blinking down at her. Then Sideswipe's gaze lifted over her to the quivering ball of white plating on the berth behind her. The ball that held those scared, dull, silver optics peaking out over her arms from her curled ball.
He knew she couldn't see him, but that didn't stop the fear in those dull optics from slicing him straight to the spark and leaving him backing up a few more steps from Arcee. Hand closing over Sunstreaker's arm and pulling him back with a more forceful then probably needed yank. It had the desired effect though. Sunstreaker stumbled back with a cut off snarl, stopping mid yank of his arm away to end up stumbling there shaking his own helm for a moment until they both locked gazes.
An uneasy feeling vibrated though their twin bond leaving a sick feeling on the back of their tongues. It left them shaking out their whole frames, plating rattling hard in it's flared state before they settled it back down with a few long vents that seemed to start at the bottom of their split spark and wash out through every part that made them up. Neither was all that calmer per say, but they suddenly had a better grip on the whirling ball of rage that swelled in their tanks.
The look that passed between them was more than just the slow check of making sure the other was in a level state. It was a question of what the frag happened. A acceptance that neither had a clue. As well as a low, strong internal growl that they couldn't do that again.
Not here.
Not like this.
Sunstreaker slipped down into rage far more often than either one of them had ever liked, but he couldn't help his half of their nature anymore then Sideswipe could help his mischief seeking side. They were as much a product of the lives they had lived as every other being in this universe and while that was no excuse it was the truth.
The scary part of this that had just happened though was Sideswipe almost never went down with him. Sideswipe was supposed to be the half that could keep level enough that between the two of them they could keep some level of sanity. That could not be said for the berserker coding.
That they had no real control over that. They played at it, had learned to use it the only way they could, but there was no real control. It was not something to take lightly. Though neither was the other side of it.
The cold anger.
Ratchet had always told them that was the real part of them that they needed to be careful with. Because it wasn't messed up coding that made them fight like demons. Their cold anger, that was just them. It was just a natural reaction.
And that was what made it so dangerous.
Giving himself another shake Sideswipe let go of Sunny's arm and instead looked down at Arcee before them lowering his optics and whispering out.
"Sorry Cee,"
At those words the screwdriver still beginning held threatening at his chest lowered with her hand dropping down to rest against the side of the hip. Those pale blue optics danced between them for a moment before the medic sighed, crossing her arms and motioned with a flick of her helm over her shoulder.
"Tell her you're sorry."
Those mirror dark blue optics lifted to the pale silver faceplate of the slowly uncurling little femme perched behind Arcee on the berth. The sound of Sides' voice had calmed Jynx a little in her fear of the unknown. Knowing the mechs that had entered at least meant she knew what she was up against. Not that that made much of a difference in the fact that she couldn't put up much of a fight against a scraplet at this point.
Still, for some reason completely unknown to her, when she realized it was the twins a part of her spark called down. She relaxed the slightest bit. As if from some damn reason her stupid spark thought they wouldn't hurt her or something.
It was like what it was trying to do with the medics.
Now of course her processor knew this was utter idiocy and promptly told the stupid ball of life to shut the pit up, but it still happened. It still left her sitting there on that berth uncurling a little as she glance blindly in the direction her raising sensors were telling her the two mechs were.
She couldn't tell, but the little big of space away from her the pair of brothers stood with Sideswipe swallowed nervously, fighting back the swirling return of anger when his optics locked on the burn scars that surrounded those dull silver orbs. It surged even harder when Sunstreaker's optics locked on as well. The golden twin's armor flaring before tightening down, his hands curling into fist, and optics narrowing. The sickening mix of anger, pain, and something else, something neither of them really knew how to name in that moment rose through his spark and flared out to Sideswipe.
Sunstreaker was desperately looking for an anchor, not even knowing it until he was already grasping over the bond for the steadier emotional state that was Sideswipe right now. Not that Sides honestly was doing all that much better than he was. His own spark was rolling, emotions going high wire on him—then again that was to be expected considering technically the two of them had the same emotions at the root of everything, they could feel differently sure, but in the end they were the same spark and would share the same feelings because of it—tugging him back down the path to the boil of rage in the bottom of his tanks that wanted him to break something.
Anything.
Preferably whoever the they was that Ratchet spoke of that burned out Jynx's optics when she was a fraggin' sparkling because they didn't like the damn color!
Sideswipe shook his helm hard again, taking a hold of his spark and forcing it to calm down as he reached through the bond to Sunstreaker with a pulse of as close to calm as he could get and tried to settled them both. The feeling turned into words somewhere in between leaving a sort of jumbled resemblance to.
"It's okay, Sunny."
The feeling that came back to him was cold anger boiling in some strange clashing way along with a low. "No it's not, Sides."
Truth was, he was probably right.
"Sideswipe?" Arcee's voice drew them both back. Their optics leaving the ring of jagged scaring around Jynx's optics to find the pale orbs of the femme that took them in. "Either you two calm down or you get out until you can. Is that understood?"
Slowly the pair of them shared a nod.
"Good." Optics softening the femme stepped closer to them glancing over her shoulder. "Now go and see if you can calm her down. She thinks you're going to be mad at her, and you're not proving her wrong at this point."
The slight question of why on Cybertron Jynx would care if she made them mad briefly flowed between them, but it was outweighed by their need to know that she was okay. Well okay as she could be hooked up to those wires and tubes sitting blind in the back of the bay.
Another slow nod was all the response either of them could give Arcee before they slipped around her and carefully, with as much calm sound their peds could make against the bay floor, they walked to Jynx's berth. At least, within a step or two of Jynx's berth.
She didn't cower with the sound of their approach by her sensors did lower as her plating shifted restlessly against her frame. Her instincts not sure what they should do with it. In the end she opted for leaving it half tucked down as her faceplate tilted the direction she was pretty sure the two of them were.
"Hey ya, Kitten." Sideswipe spoke up carefully, his warm, smooth voice dancing over the syllables in a way that had her smiling before she realized she was doing it. It was a very small smile. Hardly a tilt of the corners of her lips really, but it was there all the same.
"Hi mechs." She whispered back, uncurling from her ball and letting her sensors stand up from their grooves. They certainly didn't sound mad, at least not now. For some reason that made her feel a great deal better.
It took another four orns and a half for Ratchet and Arcee to allow Jynx even anywhere close to being cleared from the medical bay. Over those orns the expansive room was filled to the brim with quite a lot of bickering too. It seemed Ratchet and the twins were not very agreeable of the concept of Jynx being so drugged up on meds for a good three-fours of that time so they could speed up as much as possible her frames integrating to the repairs they'd done. That and also have a whole pit of a lot more anti-viruses pumped into her systems as well as the last of the venom pumped out. As well as all the various scans and such that Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Soundwave were doing of her optics.
The twins didn't seem to like that she was more or less out of it for the whole time she was down there in the bay, but Jynx couldn't say that she was all that much against it. The sedatives and such Ratchet had her on this time were keeping her so bogged down that her processor and spark couldn't even make her dream. It was a damn cool thing if one of them had bothered to ask her.
Not that she was really coherent enough to answer most of the time.
And the little bit of time she was somewhat awake was the times that Soundwave and Wheeljack were there asking her questions about the visors she'd had. About what it was like for her to see with them. About what she could and couldn't do with them.
She'd answered too. Usually without much fuss while she sipped from a cup of warm energon that Sunstreaker was always seemingly to be putting in her hands every time she came back around to the land of the functioning. From what she could remember and understand of those orns the twins hadn't left. Even when she was dead to the world on whatever slag Ratchet gave her this time while he worked to convince her frame to heal the way it needed too.
They seemed to have stuck around, like she had done not all that long ago. It filled her with the strange urge to smile for some reason or another. It was comforting, in a way she couldn't remember having but with one other before. She wasn't sure she really got why it was either.
All she knew was that when she woke up for however short times she did the twins were there. Sideswipe's calm, warm voice telling her what was going on around her—she didn't know it but Arcee had told the mechs during one of the long breems she was recharging that telling Jynx what she couldn't see had seemed to calm her down earlier—as he sat perched in what he had told her was a chair by the side of her berth with his peds kicked up and rested not so far down from her own. Sunstreaker was always on Sideswipe other side, like he was standing guard between the two of them and the rest of the world for some reason. The feeling she'd gotten off of him when she was coherent enough to know his ever quiet presence was there was this brewing kind of guardedness.
A part of her processor—at the time—had chalked it all up to them still feeling responsible for her. After all, in the optics of their Prime she was still their responsibility. They were supposed to be taking care of her.
She wasn't questioning it too much though in between all the blessed empty recharge and the questionings of things she really didn't want to talk about. There was a moment however through all of it that stuck out a great deal. On about the third orn of all this Soundwave had been down there asking her questions about how she saw the world through that visor. He had taken her chin in his long claws—after asking her permission—and had been tilting her this way and that as those deep, red, calculating optics of his took in the changes in the way the damaged orbs could still slightly catch light and filter it enough to register it as painful as she had told him it did. He had starting to wonder if it was the optics and the inner connections, relays, and sensors in her processor that were suppose to make them work being able to interpret light as painful was the way the visor had worked to begin with.
If the permanently damaged aspects of her processor that made optics function could still feel the pain then it was reasonable to say they were still receipting the light enough to use it. Which in the end was the only way optics worked in the first place. The quiet mech had needed to test this theory though and in the still dimmed lights of the medical bay that Ratchet was keeping that way because of the femme's sensitivity to it that would have been impossible.
He had also known asking the medics to turn the lights on would not work either. The two medics were becoming increasingly protective over the little femme as the orns went on.
The same could be say for Jazz and Prowl as well. There was a reason Ratchet had kicked the saboteur out two orns ago after he threw a fit about the medic drugging her so much on meds. Normally, Ratchet wouldn't have been bothered by Jazz hotter temper—at least not in something that Jazz was growing to care about as he was with the femmeling—but considering this fit of the saboteur's had including chunking things back at Ratchet once the argument reached tossing things level it was a wonder the silver mech hadn't found himself in First Aid's bay by the end of it.
Soundwave had still been a little surprised that Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were still around down here. Normally them and their stunts could rile the mech that adopted them like no other being could. However, remarkable as it was, they were doing nothing to put themselves on the wrong side of the fretting medics' nerves at the moment. They were simply hanging around, watching the femme and keeping her calm when she did wake up. Also making sure Soundwave and Wheeljack left quite promptly when their questioning started to upset Jynx.
It had been with all this knowledge that the long, lean, silver mech had stood there silently for a good number of klicks staring down into the sightless optics before him. He needed to see the reaction her optics would have to light, but the test was going to hurt. Himself as well as the femme by the end of it. For he knew very well how the twins—who sat watching him with growing annoyance the longer he stood there holding her faceplate—would react. Not to mention how Ratchet would.
However, the information was needed if he and Wheeljack had any hope of figuring out how to make the visor function so that she could have her sight back. In the end he figured the femme would forgive him and if not, well he would make her the visor anyway and Wheeljack could do the rest of the testing with her without him. The few dents he was going to get out of it would be worth it. If none of the other medics in this place wanted to risk their old mentor's anger by fixing him afterward there was always Preceptor or Wheeljack.
So with odds weighed he'd made his choice, and he'd flared on his headlights.
The results had been pretty much the exact ones he'd figured.
Jynx yelped like he struck her—in a way he had so he couldn't blame her—and failed back out of his relaxed grip locking her optics shut and pining her sensors that had stood relaxed and calm back into their grooves. Her clawed ped slamming into his chest and shoving him in a twist backward he hadn't accounted for, but he still had seen enough. He'd saw the way the dull orbs reacted before she slammed them shut.
He'd been right.
Being right did little to help him though when the weight of two snarling frontliners crashed into him. Almost before Soundwave could realize what was happening he found himself pinned on his back with the point of one of Sideswipe's dueling blades jamming hard into the main energon line in his throat. Jammed hard enough that it pierced and he could feel the slow trickle of his life's fuel starting to bubble up around the razor edge of that sword. Looking up into the warming barrel of Sunstreaker's plasma blaster hadn't been all that more comforting either.
In the end, a few very loud very tense nanos later, the only thing that probably saved the helm of the strategic department and Megatron's best friend was the painful whimpers of the little femme behind them on the berth. Logically speaking those sounds probably should have been what had the two very fragged off mechs killing him. There was nothing logical about the twins nor their sparks though and as soon as the sounds seemed to break through the haze of their anger the two of them recoiled faster than they had pinned him and he found himself pushing himself to his elbows to look back and see Sideswipe crawling carefully up onto the medical berth the femme was rocking on and tucking her down into the strong circle of his arms as he started whispering softly to her in hushed tones that over the rest of the noise going on not even Soundwave could make out. Sunstreaker had learned there against the side of the berth, arms spread around his brother's curled form that had the quivering little ball of plating in his lab, his engines rumbling a note that Soundwave could never remember hearing the gladiator make before. Their whole entire focused shifted from wanting to gut him to trying to calm down the thing he'd started in the first place.
It certainly was cause enough for Soundwave to add a few new tabs to his growing lists as well as editing and altering a few things while putting in a few new categorize. The puzzle that was this little femme truly was fascinating.
Of course it had been about then that he found himself collared by a medic that was so pissed at that point he was beyond words and chief of staff around this place or not Soundwave found himself thrown out on his aft with more than a few sharp objects slammed against his helm on the way out while the garbled half words and curses that were raining down on him until one last hammer bounced off his painfully aching audio horns, he met the hard floor of the hallway—leaking or not—and the medical bay doors slammed shut and locked behind him.
The lean silver mech laid there for a moment. Blinking off the ringing in his processor from the hits to his sensitive horns until slowly and with as much grace as possible the mech push himself back to his peds, dusting himself off, only to come to a rather shock stop when he found the form of Bumblebee standing just a few paces away from him with an energon sucker hanging out of his mouth, and optic ridge raise high over his impossibly big baby blue optics, his three static-hounds milling around his peds seeming not at all bothered by the scene that had just gone down in front of them. Considering the lives those hounds had grown up in that wasn't surprising though. They were Bee's hounds after all.
Soundwave had blinked back at the somewhat curious expression on the bright young mech's faceplate before slowly Bumblebee lifted his hand and pulled the half eaten sucker from his mouth. There was no demanding questions or inquiries about whether or not the strategist had lost his fragging mind. There was only that trademark little smirk that Bumblebee had mastered somewhere through the vorns of growing up with Sideswipe and Jazz as role models as the hardly grown mechling snorted.
"You might want to get that neck looked at, Soundy."
The long, lean silver mech had cringed at that ever hated nickname the mechling had given him who knew how long ago while Bumblebee popped his sucker back in his mouth and strolled on off down the hallway to continue whatever it was the mechling had been up too with his the three forms of his massive—two dark and one light—static-hounds trailing after with wagging tails.
Soundwave had simply shook his helm and headed on down another hall in search of Wheeljack to see if the nutty mech would be willing to stop him slowly leaking to death.
It took another three orns after that little upset for Jynx to finally get cleared. Mainly because Ratchet was pissed off and partly because it took a good orn to convince Jynx to let anybot other then the twins anywhere near her again after that, but eventually her frame did manage to get a good enough hold on healing that Arcee and Ratchet were sure what they had told her before about just a few checkups could hold and that she was clear of venom. Getting out of the medical bay proved just as difficult as everything else though because she hadn't been on her peds in almost a decacycle now. Her muscles were still sore and the lack of use didn't help any.
Almost falling on her noseplate the nano she got of the berth didn't help with the overprotective medics letting her leave either. Only Sunstreaker's quick hand had saved her from a leaking faceplate and probably another orn in the bay. Ratchet had been nearly unreachable in his tirade about how if she couldn't even stand up then she damn sure wasn't leaving the bay. He was convinced she was going to do something stupid like all the rest of his patience the nano she was out of his sight and was going to break herself even worse than the first time.
Personally, Jynx didn't see how on her own she could possibly break herself as bad as Viperfang had managed to accomplish, but she had already figured out arguing with Ratchet was pretty pointless. Especially when he got to the point his voice reached the octaves it was attaining at that point in time. Turns out the twins were done being stuck in the bay though and with a few looks and gestures she couldn't see as well as a short huff from Sunstreaker about how she wasn't going to get any better if they didn't let her start using her frame again Jynx finally found herself free from the medical bay with a promise to be back by morning for another check up and to call the nano she felt like something was wrong.
She'd nodded and agreed, as she had learned was the best way to handle Ratchet and a quietly laughing Arcee, fighting off a smile of her own the whole time—because grinning when Ratchet was being serious she had also learned was a horribly bad idea—then the door to the bay had closed and she found herself standing sightlessly in the middle of the hall between the huge, warm . . . safe . . . presences of the twins flanking her on both sides.
Her sensors stood from their grooves, uncurling sensitive wiring and allowing her to listen to the sound of the compound that had once again sprang back from the ashes along with the rest of the life of New Iacon. For the first time since she got here she found she really didn't mind the sounds all that much. They were actually—surprisingly—sort of nice.
The low, warm, smooth tone of Sunstreaker's voice drifted down over the standing appendages leaving her to tilt her helm up and listen.
"Well Jynx," He rumbled quietly in that impossibly smooth voice he and Sideswipe shared. "What now?"
She snorted with a smirk before she could help herself. "I don't know." She admitted. "It's gonna be at least another few orns before they've got anything to try visor wise for me. At least that was what Wheeljack said this morning. There's not a whole lot you can do blind."
Sideswipe was suddenly chuckling as he reached down carefully and tugged at her wrist in an sightless invitation to what was his helm nodding for them to head on down the hallway. Her clawed hand lifted with the tug until she found her grip resting gently in the high curve of Sideswipe's left hip somewhere near the top of her helm. She was still a little more unsteady on her peds then she would have liked and having the added stability of the tall mech beside her calmed her a great deal. As well as this weird feeling that they had started up over the last few orns.
This feeling that being close to them, close enough to touch and be touched, suddenly wasn't such a scary concept.
"Oh I don't know, Kitten." Sideswipe's chuckle vibrated though his whole frame making her smirk up at him. "I think we can find ya some stuff to do."
She grinned softly down at the ground she couldn't see as she let the pair of brothers walk her through the compound heading somewhere. Finding she didn't mind so much for a change that they were picking the direction and she had no control over it. She didn't mind them leading her along.
Because she trusted that they meant it. They meant what they said.
They weren't going to hurt her, and they weren't going to let anybot else do it either. It was a strange concept for sure, but one she didn't find that she minded all that much.
These last orns in the medical bay, under the constant care of two fretting medics—creators—was a feeling like nothing she had ever known. The steady presence of two strong mechs that seemed to care and seemed to have no plans on leaving was something she'd never had before.
This since of family that she had hated so much when she first came here wasn't so annoying more. That thing she had said in that hanger after a game of playing like she'd never experience before felt very real all of a sudden.
Friends.
She had friends here.
And not only did she believe it she found she sort of kinda liked it.
Maybe this thing here, this idea that Optimus was trying to make her believe, this notion that she could belong here. Maybe it wasn't so crazy after all.
I freaking love this chapter. It was so much fun.
I hope you guys liked it as much as I did. I'll thank all you wonderful people again for all the support, reviews, and such. As I've said it means the world to me. Can't wait to see what you all think of this little bit. Because I certainly enjoyed it.
Classes are back into swing, so updates are back to every other week unless by some miracle I get ahead. Which I doubt. But hey you never know. You all inspire me. Jynx and Bee have been being very loud as well.
In other news, I have more fanart! Check it out via my profile or the blog because it is epic.
See you guys next chapter! Until then. Hope you are all well.
-Jaycee