Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.


Chapter 52

Painful Past and Playful Pictures

"WHAT THE EVER LOVING PIT DID YOU DO!?

Somehow that being the greeting they got the moment Jazz sat the ship down inside the hanger bay Soundwave directed them to via comms and they all came down the lowered ramp didn't surprise Jynx much. Though she tried very hard to duck behind Jazz's frame when the yellow and red medic came storming into the hanger like a rolling thundercloud.

She absolutely did not squeak as she disappeared around the silver mech that was chuckling lightly as he watched her shift around to hide from view. Even so much as circling around him when Ratchet reached them in a growling glare. Chasing her around the saboteur trying to get a hold of her.

Only Arcee clearing her voice behind the growling medic stopped him from snatching hold of the hiding little femme. She stood there with her arms crossed over her soft pink chest, an optic ridge lifted, staring hard at her mate.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were trying very hard not to laugh.

Prowl simply rolled his optics.

Jynx . . . well she was content to switch out hiding behind Jazz to hiding behind Sideswipe because one he was bigger and Ratchet glared at the mech more than he did her.

"Hey ya, Hatchet." Sides grinned brightly at him, not at all minding the claws hooked lightly into the side of his hip as Jynx peaked around his hips from behind him.

Ratchet's bright gaze flickered to her and the gel covered gash along the middle crease of her sensors as well as the bandages wrapped around her middle. His optics twitched and a low growl bubbled through his chest despite the fact that Arcee came forward to lay her hand on his arm.

"What the slag happened?!" He snapped.

"Things." Jazz's chuckle fell away the moment Jynx traded out hiding behind him for clinging to Sideswipe's hip. His optics darkening behind his visor as he watched. It was Prowl's turn to slip his hand forward and wrap his fingers tightly around Jazz's wrist. Trying to calm his mate's temper that would do nothing but make all of this worse.

Ratchet slowly turned on the saboteur with a bubbling growl. "Things? That's your answer? Things!"

"Will you please just fix her." The silver mech sighed. "We have to go debrief Optimus and Megs. We can talk about this later."

Jynx leaned a bit further around Sides, optics fixed on the silver mech and his two tone mate. The medics seemed to be a bit surprised with his reaction as well, but Jazz was already heading off toward the hanger doors in search of the Prime and the Protector. Prowl hesitated for a moment, his darker optics glancing around them all, landing on Jynx for a longer nano before he followed after his mate with just a nod farewell.

Jynx stilled.

Confusion narrowing her gaze.

Wait . . . did she do something?

And then Arcee was beckoning her and Ratchet was stalking away with his own growling mumble. Jynx followed with a little prompting from Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. She didn't know what else to do.


The CMO was still grumbling, low growling annoyance spilling from him but not matter that Jynx couldn't put her sensors down she couldn't make out what the mech was saying as he went about the medical bay collecting scanners, and tools, and other stuff she didn't want to think too much about. The twins hovered beside the berth Arcee had lead her quietly to and while the bright femme was busy with the monitors she was turning on beside her she didn't seem anywhere near as upset as Jynx figured she'd be. Or that her mate was.

Then again, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker wouldn't so much as meet the femme's optics and she didn't seem so inclined to look at them either.

So . . . maybe she was mad?

Jynx honestly couldn't tell.

She'd never seen Arcee mad before, at least not that she could recall in this moment, but if this was mad it was a very interesting kind of mad. She found that while Ratchet's temper was making her feel flighty this strange mood of Arcee's was enough to make her stay put and watch the bigger femme.

Watching as she finally straightened out what she needed, laying it all out on the table beside the berth before she motioned for Jynx to lift her arms. The little white femme did so without needing more prompting. Trying not to winch a little at the sting of pain it earned her.

Arcee set about cutting away the tight bandaging and mesh getting a real look at what they were working with besides the obvious injury to her sensors. The bright femme stared a moment at the deep gash torn between rib struts and the misshapen damage of broken pieces inside letting out a long, tired breath.

Jynx tried not to cringe too much when Ratchet appeared at her side while Arcee shook her helm at the damage. The yellow and red medic gave a low grunt at the sight before he too shook his helm too. Though the growling under his breath tapered off while he sighed.

"Is it too much to ask for you to go more than four orns without breaking yourself, little femme?" He grumbled, tone as strict and gruff as ever but if Jynx didn't know any better she'd swear there was fond worry in there as well.

Jynx shrugged in return. "Most of the time, yeah."

Ratchet snorted to this answer while it earned a smile from Arcee as the two set about work. The bright pink femme hooking a few wires from the monitors on her as Ratchet reached for a welder and some patches.

Jynx sat as still as possible as she watched. Wondering distantly how it was she had come to be able to do this. Sit on a table before two medics and watch them get ready to touch her. To work on her.

When had that become a thing she could do?

When had the fear of this that burned so bright and hot diminished?

Sitting there staring down at that welding torch Jynx realized she was not afraid. Not of these two.

No . . . .

She trusted them.

Trusted them to fix what she knew better then anybot else on this retched planet could never truly be fixed.

"Jynx?"

She jerked slightly, gaze snapping up to Arcee's to find the femme looking expectantly at her.

Oh.

Had she said something?

"Sorry." She muttered. "What?"

"Numb the nerve receptors on your sensors. We can give you a shot for the strut work, but I'm a little weary with direct input that close to those sensor relays. We're honestly not entirely sure how all of that works yet."

Those silver optics blinked stupidly back at her.

The silence as a reaction stalling even Ratchet as he was about ready to press a needle. Leaning back when no answer came and staring down at that blank expression on her face while those silver optics slid back and forth between the pair of them.

The lack of answer stirred the twins a bit. Both having been cautiously quiet knowing that explaining all this mess was going to be filled with a lot of growling from the CMO and disapproving frowns from his mate and they were quiet happy putting it off until maybe they had Jynx drugged up enough that she wouldn't hear. Because Arcee knew which meant that by now Ratchet had too. It wasn't like the femme could keep anything from him even if she had wanted to. The two brothers were actually a little surprised the first thing he hadn't done was try and ring their necks when he laid optics on them.

However, they weren't foolish enough to think that wasn't yet to come. Ratchet was nothing if not patiently vengeful.

"Numb the nerve receptors?" Jynx finally repeated after a long moment.

Arcee nodded at her. "Yes, please."

Jynx blinked again as she shifted a tiny bit. Suddenly looking rather nervous as those strange optics turned away. "I . . . umm . . . I can't."

Both medics went very still.

Jynx quickly went on, gaze fixed on the floor as she hunched in on herself. "That is . . . not really. I can, umm, dilute their input and how much I notice it, but they don't actually numb on command. I learned how a little bit. Nook showed me some code sequences a long time ago. But Rashact . . . uh . . . he kind of took those commands and stuff out. He didn't like us being able to turn off the pain."

The yelling she expected did not come. In fact to her utter bewilderment nothing came in response for a very long amount of klicks. Long enough that she eventually dared lift those silver orbs to find two sets of blue—one pale and one far darker—staring sadly down at her.

Neither seemed to know what to say to that just yet, though that might just be the way it looked to Jynx's optics. There was actually a very heated explosion of emotion being rapidly swirled between the pair of them.

Anger, sorrow, instinct, and sense warring inside a clashing short temper and a calmer handle. No matter the grip of their shared reactions the same thought was burning brightly between them.

A bots ability to numb nerve receptors was a simple, basic function. A defense mechanism.

To have such a basic function stolen away on the principle of another level of cruelty.

The pair knew that by now with all they had learned about this broken little lab rat they should be far from surprised, but it seemed no amount of learning things was going to prepare them for the curve balls she through so many times.

They should have asked before now. Honestly, that should have accrued to them, only it hadn't. Not until Jynx once again let out another one of her closely guarded secrets.

The thought of sitting down here and now and coaxing her to tell her everything she could and couldn't do and did and didn't have had great appeal in that moment, but somehow neither of them thought much good would come of it. Most of the way Jynx functioned was normal to her. She didn't find any of it needed to be pointed out until they made her or the situation came in which it was needed.

Still . . . it might be worth a shot.

"Jynx," Arcee said quietly, optics meeting Ratchet for a moment before they settled fully on the small white ball of plating perched the before them. "Would you be willing to let us do a complete system sweep? To tell us everything you think you don't have, or know you don't have, or would be interested in?"

"It's things we need to know." Ratchet added on.

Jynx regarded them for a moment, claws rolling over each other in her lap until she gave a glance backward to the twins leaning against the berth just behind her. Their dark optics met hers, optic ridges lifting slightly in question, but Sides was nodding and making a small waving motion as if to try and coax her into agreeing.

He didn't need to.

An idea had already accrued to her. The thing the twins had told her about coming to the forefront of her mind with such sudden vengeance that not saying it might actually break something inside her.

However, asking for help had never been one of Jynx's strong points. She still wasn't use to that being a thing she could do and expect it to actually come.

The fear of them saying no swirled hard into her chest making her breath catch for a moment, but Sunstreaker's promise came back to her with deep certainty. His strong, warm, voice rolling through her spark.

'If you want one you'll get one'

"They . . . ." Another glance back, a nervous ring of her claws, a hunch of shoulders, before she straightened with all she could manage and looked hard into the mated pair's optics. "They said you could give me an Inhibitor. I'll tell you whatever you want if I can have one of those."

"An Inhibitor?" Ratchet mimicked, optics widening as they shot to the twins.

At the same time a sick sense of dread bloomed through Arcee. The feeling snaking out and inking into Ratchet as well, tearing his gaze back to Jynx as Arcee's whole being seemed to sag in regret.

"That thing that stops kindling. Sides and Sunny said I could have one." Jynx's was rambling slightly. The words too fast and too strung together. Her helm lowered and her claws tightly squeezing each other. Nervous and fearful of being told no. No after she had opened herself up to the idea.

The idea of never having to feel that again.

"Oh Primus." Arcee whispered, the almost sobbed quietly of that sound enough to draw those fear filed silver optics up to peak at the femme medic. All the answer either of them could ever need in the world swam there in those terrified silver pools.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had gotten closer in a moment Jynx didn't realized. One moment they'd been two or three strides away but now they were there against the edge of the berth she sat on. Energy fields open and stretching. Inviting and trying to calm.

She was accepting the offer even before her mind was aware she was doing it. Spark latching onto the surprising comfort and letting herself swim in it. Some of the fear and tension leaking out of her frame at the reminder of their presence.

Because they had promised.

And for some reason, that seemed to her spark and her processor both something that they would do everything within their power to see made good.

Then, somehow, she had both verbally and nonverbally given permission. A flicker of something through her field that meant she could lean into the energies while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker quietly and carefully started talking.

And they told.

They told all of it to the pair of bots that had become their most trusted confidants as she sat there and listened.

Everything from the step onto that Tran to the step back off that stolen ship. They told about Ragtime and where she worked, about Nook and all he had said, done, and been. Then they told in detail because once again she found herself nodding even while she curled in on herself to hear it told out loud about Blackice and the doomed kindle. About what Nook had made her do and that he himself had had to do over the vorns. Then they told about them promising her that if she wanted a Inhibitor then an Inhibitor was what they would be sure she got. That in no uncertain terms they intended to go about doing just that.

It took a long while, granted there was a lot of information to relay and a lot of questioned Ratchet managed to get out between the anger and the shock. Through all of it Arcee was silent, just listening while whatever questioned appeared between the two of them Ratchet relayed.

Only after all that had been said did Jynx start mumbling what else she could think of.

Not all of it—no, never all of it, never that—but enough that she deemed possibly fixable. She was still a firm believer in their being parts of her that couldn't be fixed. She knew for a fact that the deepest, darkest, thing inside her there was nothing they could do about and with how they all had been responding to the things she did tell them she knew that was something better left forgotten. It didn't matter anymore anyway.

Rashact was dead and that secret's dark ability died with him. She didn't have to worry about it anymore.

So she told herself she wouldn't. There was plenty of other slag to worry about after all. Plenty of other things she could say.

She began with the anti-virus the medics already knew she didn't have a enough of and were doing what they could to improve, which lead into the rather abrupt lack of firewalls that started Ratchet on a talk about how he noticed when he was pulling her out of loop lock. The topic of that was a little bit too close to her last dark secret so she steered back from it. Considering backing up firewalls and such was less of a medic's specialty as it was a programmer like Preceptor or Soundwave it was easy to get the medic to put that down for now. So she went onto the never fully healed broken struts that littered her insides, the glitches in her sensors link to her processor, the pain she still constantly got but for the most part ignored from her brutalized gestation chamber.

Tentatively she explained what she could about what Rashact did to her spark. Quite honestly most of it she couldn't for she didn't understand. All she could do was relay how it was her and Arsine really were connected.

That it was more of a cosmic—energy—link then it had ever been physical. No matter how darkly smart that mad mech Rashact had been even he couldn't force sparks to bond and being as how Sin and her had been related in coding their sparks naturally repelled each other from too deep a connection. Considering there wasn't much more explaining she could do besides saying that one orn she'd gone to recharge alone in her spark and next time she woke up on Rashact's table she was far from that way inside.

She explained how they'd never even attempted bonding like real twins do—seeing as how they never had the slightest inking to want to and even Rashact couldn't force that—and that they never needed too. They had been there all the same in a way that was not like any other cosmic link that could be explained. More than a family or a friend link. More than she knew how to word.

It was actually easier for her explain the aftermath of it then what it had been like before. For that was the one thing she did understand. For it was something that was still all too real inside her.

Broken bonds were something only sparklings didn't understand—but then, sadly, even some of them did—so all she really had to do was figure out how to say it was worse. The slow process of what came before it was pretty easy to explain too. She found the words came no matter how much they hurt and how much she couldn't take her optics off her claws.

She told of Gambit vanishing off into the darkness one night to never come back. Taking with him both Arsine's spark and any hope they ever had. She couldn't tell why he did it, for she didn't know why . . . they . . . they had been happy. The three of them. For the first time in their lives.

But then, monsters were never meant to have happy endings and no matter how much she felt the anger around the room when she said that it didn't stop her from believing it. Because it was true. Nook had been right once again when he said it all those vorns ago; the three of them were always meant to destroy each other.

They were too volatile together and saw nothing but pain when they looked at each other. They always would have. No matter that deep down each meant more to the other then life itself, that couldn't save them from themselves or each other in the end. That was never going to change.

So with Gambit gone Jynx had never been enough to make Arsine happy. She had tried—by the pit how she had tried—but it had never been in the cards. The two of them might have been bound together in a twist of scientific cruelty but what real twins were to each other they had never been.

Arsine's spark belonged to Gambit and Jynx . . . well she didn't think she was good enough to ever really be wanted. She left that little bit out though. Instead just telling that Gambit leaving and Arsine slipping had always been her fault too. Because she was in the way.

She didn't know if they could bond. She was pretty sure that act had forever been taken away from her and Arsine by what Rashact had done—Arcee seemed pretty steadfast on finding out if that was fact or not by the looks of it, though Jynx didn't know how she'd go about doing that—so maybe it was foolish for the mechs to ever think they could be what they wanted. Because she had always been in the way, but the end of the matter was what came at the fall out. Nothing else had much use in her processor or her spark.

All that really mattered in the end was that once again she'd cost something she cared about everything.

Gambit left, and Arsine died.

Slowly, painfully, and angrily.

That was just the way it was.

It was easier to talk about that then she thought it would be. Maybe it was because in all honesty Nook already told the twins a lot about her make believe twin. About how mean and cruel he had become near the end. Even though she'd never actually told it to anybot before. She hadn't had to tell Nook. He'd seen it all with his own optics, and it was something she thought would be too hard to do.

After all, talking about her past, let alone those two, wasn't something that came easily to Jynx. Yet sitting here now it wasn't all that hard. For as she was trying to figure out how to really say it her words to Nook came rolling back through her spark.

'They're not Arsine and Gambit.'

Was that why?

Her optics danced over those handsome mirrored silver faceplate and those dark blue optics. Then slid to the forms of the medics.

Because they weren't Rashact either.

It wasn't the same.

It was so very far from the same.

And so she went on.

Through the story of ending up in Fritzron, of trying everything she could think of to make Arsine happy, of failing so very miserably as it, of getting desperate in the wake of all the costs and all the drugs he lost himself in, of going in search of a job—any job, even one she swore she would never do—and finding it in Ragtime's. She told of Nook and learning what he was willing to teach her and even though it was something the twins already knew they didn't say much as she told it again to the medics.

Telling about learning to trust him because Nook was so damn persistent. Of learning what he showed her and relying on each other to stay afloat in pit. Then she went on into the darker falling that Arsine went though and all the pain that came with it. His fits, and his anger. His fists and his claws. Blocking the link between them to the point that it left her spinning and dizzy inside for cycles until she learned how to ignore it.

As she told it she wondered if in the end it was that that had saved her. Living so long with Arsine blocking her out and forcing her away. Could that have been what in the end—when he died and that lab made connection shattered into a million little pieces—saved her?

Was that the reason she didn't die with him?

No matter that she would have been more then content with it back then, it never happened.

She wondered if that could be why.

The longer she thought about it she didn't know so much what to make of the thankful swell though her spark toward him, but she didn't argue it.

There wasn't much more to tell after that. At least not in regard to her spark.

Well, besides the thing she desperately didn't want to talk about but knew she would have to. Knew that more than the few details the twins had from Nook and such wouldn't not be enough for the medics.

So quietly she went on.

"I didn't know before then," She sighed. "That I could kindle. I figured that would have been something Rashact would find a way to stop just like all the other things he stopped that he didn't want my frame to do. I mean he cut out my damn gestation chamber so I couldn't have sparklings he didn't want to deal with. It would make sense, right? But . . . ."

"He didn't." Arcee whispered quietly back at her, those pale blue optics swimming with a degree of grief and anger that baffled Jynx.

Jynx nodded slowly back at her.

She sighed. "I'd say it's not possible and that's why he didn't, but honestly he figured out how to make two sparks do something they should have never been able to do. I don't have an answer for you there, Jynx."

She honestly didn't have many answers for Jynx and it was tearing her up inside. Her and Ratchet.

"He didn't do it because he didn't care." Ratchet grumbled, trying to keep himself from growling so it wouldn't stop her opening up. His spark was cringing inside. Protocols and instincts of so many different verity screaming inside him. Medical alongside sire, caretaker, and simple good nature. Such pain and spark ache. Everything inside him demanded he fix it while at the same time it all demanded he kill the monster that caused it.

He couldn't kill the dead, though, that did little to appease his spark and processor.

It was why he was having to stand there with his arms crossed tightly across his chest with his back stiff and his plating tight. Trying hard to make it as nonthreatening as possible but knowing if he didn't hold himself in somehow he'd explode.

It was much the same thing the twins were doing.

Standing still and quiet. Plating tight, field flexing angrily but tight in an effort to hide the emotions from Jynx. Dark optics thinned and staring. Jaws set hard.

They weren't handling it. Not at all, they were just standing there because they refused to leave, but handling it was not in the cards. Not for them.

And now Ratchet knew why.

He was still somewhat torn between strangling them for their stupidity or pulling them into a hug and never letting go. Now however, as Jazz must have seen in that hanger and on that ship, was not the time to start calling the twins out on matters of the spark. Because now his adopted sons couldn't be his concern. For they wouldn't want to be.

Jynx was talking, and that was what he was focused on.

"You couldn't have carried without your chamber." Ratchet went on stiffly, wishing that the words didn't make her sink into herself. He knew it hurt, he knew all too well the pain a carrier felt when a choice of such basic nature was stolen away from them. All Arcee felt he felt as well, and even if the femme had come to terms long ago with the affects of the sickness that had stolen her fertility from her it did not mean that the pain of it still did not linger there in her spark. Ratchet knew, he could feel it. "He didn't have to worry with the ability to kindle still in your spark."

Jynx flinched ever so slightly at the words, but knowing he was right she couldn't find it in herself to try and find a hiss at the bluntness. Because he was right, there had been no point. No spark ever kindled inside her would ever survive, not without a gestation chamber to migrate too. Rashact hadn't needed to worry about it.

The pain that would come with it?

What did that old bastard care about that? He'd probably thought it would be funny.

"Yeah." She whispered, optics fixed on her claws as they clenched at each other. "I know."

She took another deep breath, trying to remember where she was going with this part.

Oh, yeah, that.

"I'm not sure how removing a kindle works. All I know was it hurt like . . . worse . . . worse than anything else ever has. And that's saying something you know." She dared to glance up with a bitter, broken, smile. Because at that point she had to smile.

Smile or cry.

"I mean, I pulled out my own audios once. Because I got tired of hearing the voices, you know?" Why exactly was she saying this, again? "So that's saying something. I've no wish to ever get sparked up again. So yeah, Inhibitor, I'd like one of those. If you could. Or would. Or . . . I . . . ."

What was she suppose to be saying?

It was starting to weigh to heavily. She'd done alright with spilling the truth up until then, but both medics knew that she wouldn't be able to keep it up long. Everybot handled emotional stress differently and by now it was easy to guess Jynx.

She got angry and defensive or she played it all off. Pretending she didn't hurt.

And for now that had come again. She had told enough, they could work with that. So it was with a light touch and soft sound Arcee cut her off. Fingers stroking lightly down slightly shaking plating as she nodded.

"Yes, Jynx. Yes you can have one. We should have thought of it long ago. I'm sorry we didn't."

Silver optics blinked for a moment before she slowly nodded. "Okay. It's okay."

A long pause followed before she sucked in another breath and dared.

"Can I have it now?"

If they'd been able to give it to her then they would have. Just for the fact of how much it might help her mentally as well as physically, but that was not something they could do. There were test to run, and notes to take. They would have to find the frequency compatible with her spark and tune the device to that. Then there would be prepping a frame not healthy enough for that kind of surgery and then there would be the task of actually doing it.

No matter if Jynx actually wanted this one they had no doubt that surgery that involved her spark would terrify her when the moment of it came.

It was that that Arcee carefully explained to her. About the test they would have to run first, and how they would have to ready the Inhibitor, but that within a few orns she could have one. They promised. As much as they could.

And then Ratchet started dumping supplements and such into both hers and the twins arms. All of which the twins took and tucked away into subspace.

"All of it, you understand me?" Ratchet went on with a lecture that Jynx couldn't help but smile at. "Not a single missed dose. If you want this we're going to have to jumpstart your antivirus. This is going to be read as a foreign object by your frame, Jynx. It will fight it at first and you'll need the ability for it to do that, it's only natural and while we know it should except it—"

"—you're working with a spark already tampered with." Jynx finished for him. "Yeah, I get it, Ratchet. I understand. But . . . thank you. For trying."

Ratchet's dark optics dimmed slightly at that as he sighed at her. "Jynx, we want to help you. You understand that, don't you?"

She gave him a sad smile. "I'm trying to."

He nodded, for that was all the answer he could hope for right now. Arcee shifted beside him suddenly, a thought springing to the forefront of her processor spilling into Ratchet's as well.

He stiffened with it, optics darting down to the her before he swallowed hard.

Damn.

Fraggin' damn it!

How had they forgotten that?

Sides and Sunny had been mostly pretty quiet for a while now. Only listening and watching, but at the sudden stiffness in the mates again their optics narrowed.

"Ratchet?" Sunstreaker asked, and for once since he'd known them Ratchet wished they hadn't gotten so good at reading both he and Arcee. "What's wrong?"

Arcee shifted on her peds, gaze darting around the three of them before she swallowed down the dread and spoke. "I just remembered something I should have asked earlier. I'm sorry, Jynx, truly, but may I ask one more hard question of you?"

Thinking that this talk was about to be over soon and that she would be allowed to think about something else for a while Jynx started a little with the question. Silver optics blinking widely from behind a clear visor. She'd thought that by now they would have asked all the questions they needed the answer to.

She told them all of it.

At least, all but one part of it.

Her spark suddenly constricted. Fear swirling up tight and cold inside her.

They hadn't guessed, had they?

No.

She clamped down on the emotions.

No, they couldn't have. Calm down.

"Depends on the question." She knew there was more bit in her words now, but somehow she couldn't make there not be. The words had come easy before. Easier than she ever would have thought possible, but just like she had always been that could change as quickly as she could blink.

And it had.

The flip had switched again with the swirl of fear at that last secret having been called out. She wanted out of here now. Out to do something else and not think about surgery and medics for a little while.

But that greedy and fearful prickle rose again as quickly as the angry had. She wanted that Inhibitor. She needed that Inhibitor.

She never wanted to feel a sparkling die ever again.

NEVER!

This was what she had to do to make that happen.

Clamping back down on her spiraling emotions that were so swiftly coming undone once again she waited for what Arcee would say.

The soft pink femme hesitated though, and in that moment Jynx was furious with her for it, but then Ratchet spoke what his mate seemed unable to and Jynx wished they'd both stayed quiet.

"You have told us how young you were before." His tone wasn't monotone, but it was clinical. Long practiced reactions to dealing with things Jynx probably didn't want to think about making it to where that even if it angered the mech and he hated each word he said for each answer he would get he could do it anyway.

For that was what good doctors did.

"The first time Rashact overrode your interface protocols, but you never told us if he did all of them and what came after that. I'm sorry, but we need to know that, Jynx. If will affect your spark and how it would take something like an Inhibitor."

For a nano she stared back at him confused and terrified. Unsure but at the same time knowing all too well. Shoulders hunching in on themselves she whispered.

"What do you mean which ones? Interface protocols are for spikes and valves. Or at least in my cause just the valve."

Ratchet stared at her for a moment internally cursing the lack of education of stolen and sold sparklings, but before he could get a word out Jynx suddenly straightened. Plating flaring and then pinning as she cut her optics over to the twins in a glare that had the two of them taking a shared step back.

"Wild Cat?" Sideswipe asked timidly to that sudden fire in those silver pools

"You lied to me." She accused, claws digging hard into the berth padding around her. Her words made the twins' fields flare in shock as well as Arcee's and Ratchet's as the four of them tried to figure out what the pit she was talking about.

Lied to her?

The twins shared a bewildered somewhat panicked glance. Trying to track that sudden twist of thought. It could have been Jynx simply twisting her fear and her dread into anger and taking it out on the closest thing she could think of, she'd been known to do it before, but somehow to the two of them this felt different.

There was too much hot anger in that sudden shift of gaze for this to be her grasping for somebot to blame and to take out her pain on.

No, this was different.

"What do you—"

She cut Sides off with angry accusation. "You said ninety-four. The first time you told me by the Sea. You said ninety-four! I remember now!"

Though why now, all of a sudden it had come back to her she didn't have the slightest clue. No more then she had a clue why it suddenly fielded her with so much anger.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a lie, honestly it might have just been because she wanted something to be mad at she didn't really know. At that point she didn't care though. There was this sickening tightness coming to be in the bottom of her throat. Constricting to the point she struggled for breath.

They lied.

They lied about that!?

How . . . how could they . . . ?

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up a klick." Sideswipe was stepping forward. Hands raised in both a plea and a surrender as he shook his helm back and forth. "We didn't lie to you, Jynx, we didn't—"

"On the ship you just said forty something! That's a pretty big slaggin' difference!" She spit back at him. Plating bristling to match the growing snarl in her chest. Lip curled back over a glitter of fangs as her visor bled black.

Because tears were burning at the back on her optics.

They lied!

They lied.

She wanted to punch them and break down into tears at the same time.

Primus damn it! She was a fraggin' fool!

And before she could so much as hop up to flee Sunstreaker had her by the wrist. Caught up in a swing of overpowering strength yanking her from her peds and up into the air until she was dangling before the massive mech.

With a hiss she struck out with the hand he didn't have locked in a punishing grip. Her claws squealed like dying wire hares as they slashed across Sunstreaker's chest. Biting through finish and polish as well as nanites. Not deep enough to cut through armor and draw energon from protoform by the angle he had her dangling in, but the same could not be said for the longer, sharper, dangerous claws that made her toes. Kicking out hard she nailed him in the middle. Tearing plating and armor and protoform. Drawing out a pained grunt as he couldn't help but bend with the kick as energon splattered when toes yanked back and then sank in again with another hard slam.

Her voice hitched and she hated that it was in a sob, but she couldn't help it as she spit. "You lied!"

"Stop it!" Sunstreaker snarled at her, twisting even as he held onto her not willing to let her go and let her run even if he was reminded how very much Jynx could do when she was unhappy.

"You lied!" She kicked out hard again swinging with her claws as well. The sob in that voice cracked Sunstreaker's spark. "Why would you lie about that!?"

"We didn't lie!" Sideswipe snapped, finally managing to get a grip on her swinging form as well, pulling her away from reach of Sunstreaker even as he did keep his hold. It was that or Sides' would be in much the same boat he was in with the leaking middle. "Jynx, stop it! Stop it and listen! We didn't lie!"

She landed with a plop on the berth, both the mechs half circled before her in a block between her and the door, but it was only those words that stalled her long enough to glance up at them.

"We didn't lie." Sideswipe rushed out, hands lifting again with palms up and fingers spread wide trying to stop her hissing just long enough to pause and get her to listen. "Damn it we didn't lie, we said that was when we were sold, remember? Well the first time we were sold was about forty vorns, but we don't count it as he same, okay? We don't count it as rape because we were sold to the same old glitch up until ninety vorns and the glitch never touched us."

Jynx went still.

Confusion winning out over anger she stared up at them. "What?"

Sideswipe let out a harsh vent that rattled through his chest as Sunstreaker half looked away—one hand held tight to his leaking middle—as he let out a harsh breath of his own. Arcee was there in front of him suddenly. Pulling golden fingers away and quickly stopping the leaking but she said nothing.

Not now.

Not about this.

Even Ratchet was silent. He had pushed forward to Sideswipe's side. Ready to intervene should he need to but Jynx was still, staring up at the brothers with both hurt and anger but also uncertainty.

The medics were both surprised and not to hear that the twins had told her. She would have figured some of it all out on her own eventually, but for them to actually say it . . . well that took a lot. Though it seemed while they had been attempting to not tell the whole story they never wanted to they had mixed up their words leaving Jynx to think she had been fooled.

Lied to about such a thing . . . it wasn't hard to understand why she would react so strongly. The two mechs weren't going to be able to back out of this one. They had started it and no matter if they liked it or not they were going to have to tell.

In a way, she had a right to know.

"We . . . we don't count it the same." Sideswipe let out in a harsh voice. "It's . . . ."

Primus.

How did he explain this? It wasn't like it was easy. It had been hard enough to tell Ratchet and Arcee all those vorns ago. But now Jynx thought they were lying.

No!

They're weren't lying they had just . . . .

"Jynx . . . the first mech we were sold to bought us repeatedly because he liked to look at us. We were twins, and while most bots thought that made us curses he thought it made us interesting." Sideswipe took a long hard breath. "We weren't gladiators then. Just rare things to play with until we got big enough to earn real credits for our master outside of surviving bait fights. So there weren't that many out to pay for play time with a pair of starving, dirty curses. Expect this one old rich glitch. He bought us . . . repeatedly. Which as backward as it is was actually a good thing because if salves aren't making credits what use are they? He saved us from a lot of extra time in bait fights."

Sunstreaker shifted uneasily, frame tight and angry, trying not to lash out at those that didn't deserve—mainly the soft pink femme finishing up a quick patch on his middle—as memories rolled through him.

"I don't understand." Jynx whispered, frame sagging a bit as she glance between them. "How could you be sold but not raped?"

"He didn't touch us." Sunstreaker grumbled out lowly. "He made us touch him."

"So . . . it's not the same." Sideswipe shrugged, optics lowering and though he felt like a sparkling he did no step away when Ratchet's finger wrapped firmly around his lower arm and held onto him. If it had only been the four of them and Jynx wasn't there to see him hide like a sparkling he might have very well taken that offering from the medic that it was and hidden away in a rare hug.

However, he couldn't. Not right then. He had to make sure she understood.

"We weren't . . . raped until after we started getting noticed in the Rings and that was around ninety vorns. See, Steelrunner thought untouched gladiators would bring more a profit their first real sell. You know, sick bots have a thing about seals, I don't get it but he was right. It was why he didn't mind that the mech that bought us before just wanted us to toy with."

A bitter, wrathful smile curled up Sunstreaker's stiff faceplate as he added in. "There was just one thing that bastard Steelrunner forgot to take into account, or he just didn't know. Twins mature faster than other bots and by seventy vorns at the very least if they don't start merging they die."

"He was not a happy mech when he found out we'd already gotten rid of the precious promised seals." Sideswipe rolled his optics. "I was laughing the whole way through that beating. Served the bastard right."

Ratchet's grip around his arm tightened and Sides knew it like Arcee's quiet brushing of the patch at Sunstreaker's middle even if she already knew he would be fine was more to calm their own protective anger and frustration than anything else. It helped though. It really did and both the twins loved the two of them even more than they already did in that moment for it.

Jynx sat very still in response to the words. Silver optics slowly becoming viable behind a clearing visor. Blinking between the two of them she slowly lowered her helm.

"Oh." She whispered.

"So we weren't lying to you." Sideswipe pressed on, needing to know she understood that. "We just . . . classify it differently. Even if Ratchet and Arcee don't agree."

A low, protective, daring sound that only a carrier could make echoed up out of the soft pink femme as she looked between the mechs she claimed as her mechlings while she told them.

"How you need to handle it is within your own right, but I will always tell you what happened was wrong. All of it. From the very beginning."

They knew, and they loved her for it, but it was how they had to see it. It was how they handled it and that she knew very well.

"I guess . . . I mean . . . ." Jynx's claws worked worriedly at each other as she stared at the floor between the twins' peds. "I'm sorry . . . I . . . I did it too I suppose. Now that I think about it."

Those different shades of blue met her though she was too intent of the floor and her clenching together claws to notice.

"I told you different vorns." She muttered softly, wondering now why she had done it or why she hadn't even realized she had. The notion did accrue to her of that fact that technically she didn't even know how old she was let alone what time was like trapped in the endless darkness of the inside of a moon. Still, it scared her as she sat there, to realize that even that her mind could not truly hold. It was a reminder she hadn't needed after all she had told, of how very broken and useless she was. "I didn't even realize I was doing it. But I wasn't lying . . . I . . . Rashact overrode my protocols at around sixteen, but he didn't start . . . well all that came later. I think it was around thirty I'm . . . . I don't really know."

And that was the stem of so many of her problems wasn't it?

How much Jynx truly didn't know.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, staring at the energon on her toes suddenly hating the sight of it.

Because she didn't know what else to be.

There was a shared sound of heavy ex-vents that came from the same bot but at the same time different frames. When the berth dipped on each side of her and she was once again surrounded by the steady strength, presence, and warm of the mirror mechs she found not an inking of the urge to run.

Instead she just sat quietly.

Waiting, though for what she wasn't sure.

The thick, desperate, negative air that seemed to hang around the three of them now was silently shared in a kind of understanding that none of the three of them seemed to know how to fully breach. She had this deep knowing inside that said the two of them wanted to break the dark, ugly bubble hanging in the air as much as she did but somehow it was an oh so very hard of a thing to do now.

The only thing she knew to saw was the apology that was on the tip of her tongue but somehow it seemed flat. For she knew no apology would ever make up for the past. She knew that all too well.

But just like before sitting on that shore and sitting on that ship this gnawing since of both sad understanding and bitter anger consumed her. It was what she had felt all those times watching her own fate happen to Nook. And long ago to Arsine and Gambit.

She had never thought it could be directed toward two such as these.

Not because they were big and powerful; oh no, she knew all too well that size and strength meant absolutely nothing in the face of that kind of cruelty. It was more to do with the old interpretation of them. That old view that had long left in all she had learned about them yet for some reason hovered around this.

She wasn't sure why.

Maybe it was because deep inside she was still bitter about all that she had been through had been because a mad mech wanted what they were and couldn't get his oily fingers on a set. She knew that was wrong and she didn't want to still feel the anger over something that could in no way be their fault.

She wasn't even sure if she still did, it was just so hard to think about.

To think that it had all happened to them too.

It made her sick inside.


It took a while longer for any kind of real calm to settle back over them, but there was no more hissing and yelling or clawing. Arcee fixed what Jynx broke along Sunstreaker's finely polished armor and she tried not to hide too much as she watched while Ratchet fixed her sensors and finished welding up her side.

Sides and Sunstreaker stayed on the berth on both sides of her. Sides leaned back on his elbows to be as much out of Ratchet's ways as he could. Sunstreaker was forced to say upright so Arcee could tend to him but they both did more watching of her while Ratchet fixed her then much else.

Along the way through the breem or so of work it took Jynx went from quietly apologizing to trying to tell Arcee what she'd been asking in the first place though she found after a moment she didn't really understand the question.

"What does it have to do with the Inhibitor?" She finally managed to ask. Her speech was a little slurred from the sedative Ratchet had given her so she wouldn't feel the work he was doing along her side and so maybe the sensors wouldn't hurt to bad as he worked at them too. She was aware he was already running a few new diagnostic from the few cables attached to her from the machines by the berth. He was looking into her never receptors as much as he could without going digging around in her helm. The only way to fix those would be to do that, but while Ratchet could technically do it processor surgery had never been his greatest strength. He could fix just about anything that was thrown at him, but he didn't have the complete knowledge of processors like he'd like if he was going to go about trying to basically have to rewrite those kind of protocols and processes.

Because that was what would have to be done. The more information she gave them and his monitor filtered out he was seeing that clearly now. Which meant one thing, Soundwave and Preceptor were going to have to get involved in this. But that would take time.

Her and the twins both had had enough digging for one orn. That was why he and Arcee were so surprised when she seemed to want to go on with the questions. In least in regard to answering this one.

Though maybe it was just because she wanted it over with, or maybe it was so there would be something said. They all knew how much Jynx hated the silence.

"Spark damage can affect how well they actually work and it can affect whether or not your spark can even support one." Arcee told her carefully.

"But I can kindle." Jynx tired to tilt her helm but Ratchet's firm hand around her jaw as he worked on her sensors kept her place. "Doesn't that mean it can support life?"

"Life yes," Ratchet nodded. "But a filter of energy of that kind is different than life, Jynx."

"A kindle is natural." Arcee tried to explain. "An Inhibitor is not. Your spark could reject it because of what has already been done to it and in doing so it could put you in danger."

"I've never heard of an Inhibitor hurting a carrier." Sideswipe shifted up a little on his elbows. Neck bent to watch the medics work and stare at his twin and their—the—little femme.

"It's not common." Ratchet told him. "But—"

"Nothing about me is common." Jynx slurred, silver optics staring up into the medics deep blue optics.

The optics sadden slightly as they gazed back only for Sunstreaker's low voice to drift in.

"For the record," He rumbled quietly. "Nothing about us is either."

Jynx couldn't help but snort a laugh at that as well as Sideswipe's goofy smile that went along with it before she went on.

"I don't know how old I was when Rashact finally managed to link me and Arsine. Time was . . . not something we kept up with, but I do know that he breached my sparkchamber pretty soon after he got us. So that was . . . umm . . .somewhere around sixteen like I said. I think. Maybe. Is that gonna mean I can't have one?"

"We'll have to do some more testing." Ratchet told her honestly.

"But . . . maybe?" There was a flicker of fear through her energy field and before he could stop himself Sideswipe's coal black fingers brushed against her side. She didn't flinch from him.

Ratchet sighed at the taste of energy before he nodded as he had done earlier. "If it won't hurt you, then we'll get you one. I promise."

She was still scared of being told no, but she felt a little better inside.


Patched up and only slightly loopy from the sedative still cycling out of her systems Jynx walked down the hall between the two imposing forms of the twins. They were still sort of quiet even now that they left the bay but she figured they had that right just as much as she did. The past was a hard thing to trudge through no matter who a bot was. This was worse though.

Claws still picking at each other even with the pleasant buzzing numb through most of her she kept glancing up the tall sides of them toward the dark blue optics. Another apology hanging on the edge of her tongue but before she could even open her mouth Sunstreaker spoke.

"Don't apologize." He said quietly in that low, rumbling, resonating tone. Jynx tried to pretend it didn't send a shiver down her main back strut. She wasn't sure she wanted to analyze why.

"We're not mad at you." Sideswipe tagged on. "A little mad at ourselves, slightly frustrated, but not mad at you."

Her repaired sensors fluttered with only a slight twinge of pain as her silver gaze stared up at them. "You're not mad?"

"No." Sunstreaker shook his fined vents ever so slightly.

"So calm down, okay?" Sideswipe's dark optic drifted down to her. "Everything's alright."

"I didn't mean to upset you." She whispered.

"We didn't mean to upset you either." Sideswipe said. "Or make you think we lied. It's just . . . been a long time since we talk about any of that."

She nodded.

That she could understand. It was what she wished she could do.

"But," Suddenly the red mech's voice picked up and the serious look he was wearing disappeared and he grinned that lopsided smirk she had gone quite a few orns without seeing. It lifted and warmed something inside of her leaving her unable to do anything but smile back as they walked along. "We can put it down now. What ya wanna do? We're home and all of New Iacon is open for the playing."

She was about to answer when a sudden crash came from the hallway up ahead of them. The twins stilled as she did as well. Sensors perking up and listening when another crash was followed by a laughing yelp and a growling bark. Her silver optics widened slightly as in a bumbling rolling wave of black and white puppies on stubby legs came bounding around the corner. Yipping and bouncing as they stumbled along.

The little two tone spotted ball that was Sly out front with a rather large strip of something clamped in her jaws waving out behind her as the puppies ran in a tiny herd toward them.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's optic ridges rose as Jynx's helm tilted, watching the bounding wave of static hound puppies come stumbling toward them only for there to be another crash that pulled their optics up just in time to see Bumblebee come sliding around the corner in a windmill of limbs trying to catch himself.

He failed rather dramatically in the sense that he slid face first into wall of the turn he missed with a rather loud yelp followed by another fall that put him flat on his back with a grumbled.

"Slag it."

All the puppies looked back and let out an almost amused chores of yipping before they went on running on their tiny little legs. Those tiny little legs that had almost brought them all the way to the end of the hall where Jynx and twins stood.

Suddenly Bee was shoving himself up again in his tangle of limbs. "Get back here with that you little—"

He was cut off when his scrambling to get up had him tripping over his own peds and put him back on his face. Jynx couldn't help but burst out laughing. Especially when Havoc came bounding around the corner in long strides that had him leaping over Bee in a single bound.

Huge frame with his long powerful legs eating up the distance his pups were fleeing in less than two more strides before he was leaping over the whole stumbling heard of them and landing with a hard slam of paws just in front of Jynx. Twisting in a rather impressive twirl on his hind legs with his long tail snapping out like a whip behind him he spun to face his pups. Front paws slamming into the hard metal floor just in front of where the whole mess of them came to a screeching, bumbling, falling over each other stop of tiny round bodies bouncing into each other and sending them all rolling forward.

That is except Sly who somehow managed to stop herself by a hard slam of her little rump onto the ground little front paws scrambling for purchase she stopped herself just an inch or so before her sire's huge clawed peds. Little neck bending back to stare up his towering over her form with an expression that was the perfect match of her name.

Little scrap of black mesh flapping about between her jaws as her siblings came to a rolling stumbling stop against her back. Vice ended up just about bent over the top of her. His bigger muzzle smacking down atop her helm between her perked audios. His optics lifted up as well to stare up into Havoc's deep red ones as he stared down at his pups with perked audios, and a disapproving expression with a slight twitch of his long spiked tale.

By then Bumblebee had got himself back to his peds with a slight sway as he rubbed at his forehelm walking down the hall with a grumble.

"Sly,"

The white femme pup spotted in large blobs of black, those mismatched optics, and that bent over audio swung her gaze around and all put grinned up at Bee as the other pups bounced around with happy yips even if Havoc watched them with disapproving shake of his huge helm. That tiny little femme pup yipped happily as well up at Bee with the mesh scrap between her sharp tiny teeth.

"Give it here." Bee snapped at her, but he pulled the mesh from between her jaws very carefully. She didn't even bother to try and tug at him to keep it. Letting him pull it away and throw it into subspace. "I told you to leave that alone."

The pup just yipped at him along with all her siblings. Vice beside her giving his own yip. Bee just rolled his optics at them and whatever it was they must be saying as he patted Havoc on the helm.

The huge hound purred up at his alpha as his pups jumped and bounced all around both their peds. Only then did the young yellow mech actually looked up and notice who all this had happened in front of. It was just about then that that the pups noticed to and before Jynx knew what was happening she had puppies swirling all around her. Jumping and rubbing against her peds and what little bit of her legs that they could.

All happy yips and the tiny barks puppies were capable of. Sly was doing the most. Clambering up onto the top of Jynx's peds she pushed her chubby little self up onto her back paws. Her black colored front stark contrast against Jynx's own white plating.

With a smile dancing up her lips she laughed lightly, dropping down into a crouch. Clawed hands diving into the bouncing bundles of soft plating. Stroking soft audios and down chubby bellies as the whole litter bounced around pushing and shoving for attention. Bumblebee chuckled at the sight as he knelt down too. Petting at the mess of black and white rolling and bouncing.

"Hey ya, Jynx." He greeted with that ever bright smile.

"Hi." She grinned back. Silver optics shining brightly as she rubbed at Sly's audios as the little pup purred and rubbed against her.

"I see you bots are back." Bee grinned, glancing up to the twins who were watching fondly at the little femme playing with the puppies. Havoc had sat himself down calmly behind the pile of the puppies. His deep red optics watching his creations waddle around in happy yipping at Jynx.

"Yeah." Sideswipe smiled back at the young mech.

"I suppose that's why Hide and Mia had to go up for a meeting." Bee commented.

Sunstreaker snorted. "Jazz is debriefing."

"Yeah . . . ." Those baby blue optics danced around Jynx for a moment then settled back up at the twins. "He didn't seem happy."

"He's not." Sideswipe sighed.

Jynx tensed a little, but found it hard to focus much on the mechs' words while she had so many cute little puppies winding around her.

It didn't take Bee a moment to realize this wasn't a topic for now though by the sudden look in the twins' optics so he quickly diverted his gaze back to the femme beside him with a grin. Something about it spelled trouble and though Jynx wasn't sure what was up in that bright mind she looked side long at him while petting which ever puppy demanded the most.

Or in other words; Sly.

"What?" She questioned.

That grin got a little wider. "They're happy to see you. They've been bugging Echo nonstop since she left wondering where you were."

Surprise lifted Jynx's optic ridges. "Really?"

"Oh yeah." He nodded. "They missed you. Now that I know you're here I bet that's why she took my camera strap. She much have smelled you and rounded them all up for a scheme. Little rat."

The grumble and knuckle between Sly's audios was full of affection as was the nipping of tiny fangs she did at his fingers as she bounded off Jynx's peds and ran around to hide behind her leg. Only to notice the twins then and bound over on those stubby little legs, well as much as those short legs could bound. Her notice spread between his litter mates and soon Vice, Astro, Ping, and Pixel were right on her tail. The others still twirling around Jynx and Bee.

Sideswipe knelt down just beside Jynx and Bee petting and playing and yipping and nipping puppies as Sunstreaker leaned beside him.

"Camera strap?" Sunstreaker questioned, drawing Bee attention.

That trouble filled look came back to those bright baby blue optics. "Wheeljack."

The twins let out a shared groan while Jynx perked up.

"Oh slag what did he make now?" Sideswipe asked.

Bee all but giggled, dipping into subspace and pulling to what look remarkably like one of the digital cameras from back on earth. Black with a zooming lens and a strap around it that he was reattaching as it was the thing Sly had swinging from her jaws.

"A camera?" Sunstreaker questioned with a tilt of his vented helm. "He made a portable camera? Why?"

"It's not like we need them." Sideswipe shrugged. "We've all got them built in."

"Not all of us." Jynx muttered, drawing their optics to her.

Bee straightened up on his balance on his toes. "You don't have an internal camera?"

She shook her helm.

"Well," Bee flipped around the hand held camera holding it out to her. "Here, have this one."

She leaned back in surprise, staring at the hand held little thing he was holding out to her. "Huh?"

Bee grinned a little wider as he motioned it again. "Have this. I was just messing with it. You can have it if you want."

Jynx leaned back a little more. "I don't need a camera."

Bee snorted. "You ever played with taking pictures?"

She paused. "Well no."

He smiled even brighter, pushing it into her hands, before wrapping his fingers around hers and pulling her to her peds. "Come with me."


Giggling to herself Jynx twisted just a bit more to the side, zooming the control of the camera before snapping the button again like Bee had showed her just in time to catch Sly land dead center on her sire's helm from a spring off the berth. Having snapped it she rolled up right and out of the way just in time to watch with a grin as Sly waddle-ran away from her Sire's hardly trying chase around the room of Havoc snapping at her heels with a playful growl.

The little femme pup ended up hiding under her uncle's side as Scout nipped playful at Havoc while the bigger hound tried to get at his pup. A wave of black saved Sly though when half the litter came bouncing in around their sire's paws with Vice at the lead while the lighter colored pups were up on Bee's berth all over Echo's belly.

Turning her attention down to the camera she watched as the camera clicked with a whirl and a print out photo shot out the front. She pulled it free of its slot and shook it back and forth a few times like Bee had told her too watching as the black faded away leaving a picture behind.

She really, really liked that part.

Grinning at the image of the little pup landing all four paws on top of Havoc's helm between his tall audios. Havoc's expression was both amused and slightly annoyed with those long audio titled out and his helm half bent from where he was laying with the sudden weight of the spotted puppy landing. Sly's mismatched optics were sparkling with excitement, tail high and mid wag over her spotted back, that one folded audio mid flap from the jump while the other stood tall.

Saying that hounds couldn't smile wasn't something she couldn't say anymore. Now that she was watching them she could see the deeper personalities. She still wasn't sure about the whole talking to them thing. She still couldn't understand them, but then again she wasn't sure how that really worked.

And Bee was a little too busy hanging upside down off his berth playing with Pixel to explain much now and she was having way too much fun snapping photos. As the messy pile that lay in front of her of the ones she taken so far so plainly said. The small rectangles full of playing pups, hounds, a grinning mechling, and the twins. She smiled a bit wider picking up the camera again looking for the next thing to snap a photo of before glancing over at Bee's couch. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were propped up here with their arms bent over the back of it watching her and Bee play. Suddenly that grin curled even higher up her lips and she was up with a bounce.

Those dark optics focused on her watching as she came over to land between them. Pulling the camera up before them, turning it around with a twist and a leaned angle. Trying to figure out how she was going to make this work.

Bumblebee's laugh caught her attention and she glanced up to find him rolling to his peds coming on.

"Hand it here. I'll take it." He giggled, taking it from her and waving at the twins. "Closer."

Tilting her helm to look up between them she found Sides smirked as he leaned down closer to her. Helm pressed up against hers his laughter vibrated through the both of them as his hand snaked out to latch hold of Sunny and yank him down on her other side.

"Say cheese!" Bee chirped happily.

"Cheese?" Jynx's helm titled in confusion ending up with her pressed harder into Sides' cheek as the twins laughed and the cheeky little mech snapped the picture.


Hanging upside down off the end of the twins berth Jynx was grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. The stack of what had to be three hundred or more photos piled in four stacks along her abdomen. She was currently flipping through a handful of them with her arms hanging down over her faceplate as she filtered through the snap shots of Sly gnawing on Vice's audios, Havoc wrapped around Echo nuzzling her with licks, Scout laid over Bumblebee's lap getting his scarred audio rubbed, Sideswipe pestering his brother with pokes, Sunstreaker gazing distantly out of Bee's massive windows, and then she reached the one Bee had taken.

Silver optics flicking back and forth she looked at herself tucked between their bulk. Sideswipe's arm wrapped around her middle drawing her into his side. Her cheek squished into his. He was beaming that bright grin that was so hard to describe but oh so easy to look at. Dark optics glittering. He was laughing, the picture caught the middle of it where that grin was wide open with rich sound and those his optics were glittering there were slanted with the creases of his laughter. Sunstreaker was not so squished up against her other side, but his arm had slid down off the back of the couch to wrap around his brother's shoulder and pull them all closer together. He was laughing as well, and maybe that was why she was staring so very much at this image.

She'd seen Sunstreaker laugh before, but she'd never been able to stare at it like this.

He looked like Sides all the time. They had the same faceplate, but the way he looked in this image, with his optics bright and his full mouth caught in that wide smile and bark of laughter that creased his optics as well made him almost glow.

She wasn't so much interested in herself snuggled there between them. Even if it was odd to look at herself like that. So close between such big frames.

She hadn't seen anything even remotely like it since that . . . well the picture in the box she had tucked away in her subspace that Nook sent her away with. The box of her things. The photo of the last happy moment her and her own might as well be brothers had.

Only this . . . this was very different.

She wasn't looking at the camera in this shot.

She actually looked rather confused. Bumblebee's words had caught her, she still didn't really get the whole 'say cheese' even if the young mech had explained it afterward as thing from Earth.

In the photo she had her optics cast upward to Sunstreaker confusion written there but there was still a smile there as she was searching for an answer.

Hanging there staring at the image she found she couldn't get that smile off her cheeks. Hadn't been able to since Bee drug her down the halls back to his room with a herd of puppies and Havoc padding after the whole lot of them and Sides and Sunny followed. At first she'd thought the little mech was an absolutely insane when he plopped her down on his table and started explaining the camera to her. Showing her how to use it and how to get the photos to cure into real images by shaking them.

She wasn't sure how that worked but she thought it was completely awesome to watch. How an image could appear out of pure blackness. And then she'd started taking photos as he showed her which lead to joors of her laughing and playing until Bumblebee started nodding off and the twins herded her back to their room as the little mech fell into recharge under a pile of puppies and hounds.

Still smiling she hauled herself upright from her hang making sure not to spill pictures all over the berth. Tucking them into neat piles and making sure not to bend any as she took a moment to look around the room.

It was getting late but she wasn't really tired. She'd been having too much fun to be and it seemed the twins were the same.

Sunstreaker sat at the helm of the berth with a small canvas in his lap and jars of paint on the shelf beside him. His fingers were splattered in paint and ink, his dark optics focused fully on what he was doing.

Sideswipe was in about the middle of the berth sitting cross legged with some kind of machine of sorts he was building. Jynx honestly had no idea what it was, but it looked interesting. Though his attention drifted up to her as she sat trying to sort the pile of photos too big for her to hold onto.

"Wild Cat," He said softly, pulling her optics to him as he rocked forward onto his knees. Bending over the side of the berth to the little table of draws beside it. Yanking one open he dug around until he pull out a folder of sorts. It was bright red and full of plastic looking pages.

Her sensors fluttered as he handed it to her.

"Here, put them in this."

"What is it?" She asked.

"A photo album for prints." He explained. "The pictures fit in the slots like this, see."

Showing her, he pulled one from the top of the stacks. It just so happened to be the one Bee took of her pressed between them. His dark optics flickered over it for a nano as a slow smile curled up his lips before he tucked it in.

"Oh." She said, taking the big folder as he handed it to her.

"They won't get lost or damaged this way." He went on. "You want some help?"

"Nah," She shook her helm absently, already busying herself with slipping photos into the slots. "But thank you."

"You're welcome." Sideswipe said softly. Leaning back to where he had been. Blue optics watching as she sat there smiling to herself with a camera laid beside her, a photo album in her lap, tucking the pictures she'd taken into it contently. Glancing over to his brother he found Sunny's optics had lifted from the picture he was painting. Set on her as well before they drifted up to meet Sides'.

Smiling softly over at him Sides let a flare of emotion flash through the bond between them. Watching as it settled in his twin's spark by the slight brightening of his optics. It took a moment but a smile curled up Sunstreaker's lips and the warm, content, happy came back to him in a swirl of promise.

Of hope.


I love those puppies way too much. And after that Sunny and Sides as well as Jynx deserved a little bit of happy.

I hope you all liked it. Jynx is being rather loud so there is a good chance I will get the next chapter out next weekend. That and because this chapter wasn't suppose to end where it did.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I love you all! I'm looking forward to seeing what you all have to say.

-Jaycee