Fowler makes a call he never thought he would. Dreadwing's breakdown continues. Two naughty children get grounded (again).
AN- Title comes from a quote ("We can't save everyone. But that doesn't mean we can't try. Sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth.") in the book The Underground Railroad, which belongs to Colson Whitehead and not me.
When Arcee returned with the humans, the awkward silence finally broke. Bumblebee surged forward to look at those teammates on her palm, buzzing over them in relief and concern even though he knew that, without Raf here to translate, there was no way for them to know it. Ratchet kept moving as though he would follow suite, but never did. Optimus wished his old friend could feel confident in going where he wanted to; none would fault him for worrying, yet the medic seemed to fault himself for forming attachments to alien life forms still.
Holding a leaking arm, Wheeljack sauntered over to the older medic rather than flock around Arcee like most of the others were. Also holding back was Breakdown, who kept casting glances between the femme and Dreadwing. Optimus wondered if he his glances at Arcee betrayed his own concern for the humans she held; he knew that was unlikely, but wished to believe it regardless.
As expected, the presence of a temporary ally still weighed heavily on the group.
Optimus determined that it needed to be addressed next. Even if it meant another fight would occur, though he hoped one would not.
The seeker was already looking at him when he turned to speak.
"Do not bother, Prime," he growled and all other talk went silent. The sound of multiple weapons priming rang in that silence.
Dreadwing seemed unconcerned with the threats around him. "I will not fight. My mission here, however failed, is complete. I will match blades with you another time."
Others may betray my master, but I will never turn on him
I will terminate you- the both of you- the next time we meet
Disappointment mixed with a subdued hope; he had promised to kill Optimus and yet allied with him again. The Prime wanted so badly to believe this state of promised hostilities that failed to manifest would continue.
And a part of him knew it would end one day.
Either because Optimus would be forced to put the seeker down or because Megatron would take Dreadwing for granted in a fatal manner- just as he had many other soldiers before.
A part of his knew this and yet he still clung to hope.
Even as he saw the change in Dreadwing's demeanor; a change that could very well truly mean the end of this unspoken truce they'd lived with for the last two encounters.
"I merely must retrieve my communicator and I will be gone. I must report my failure to the Nemesis," he dismissed. Still, his sword was out; the tip pressed into cold concrete and stained with the energon of insecticons. He had yet to put his weapon away and ease the autobots tensed minds.
Before Dreadwing could leave, Arcee started to shuffle with something; a moment later and she threw a small device at the seeker. He caught it out of midair and narrowed his gaze. Optimus felt himself tensing up in preparation, instinct worried that the decepticon was making to attack the femme. The worry was for naught. Dreadwing stepped back away from the group and lifted his sword to sheathe it absently.
Too absently. Despite himself, he felt concern welling up.
"Dreadwing," the Prime tried, "Are you certain you should fly?...Certain you should leave thi-"
"I do not require your concern," the seeker growled and finally brought his attention back to the present to glare at Optimus. "Nor do I desire it."
He took another step back (limping, Optimus took unhappy note of) unsteadily before he folded up and tore away into the sky.
With the decepticon gone, the remaining bots and humans seemed to relax. Optimus turned to stare them down.
All of the mechs looked exhausted. The humans seemed paled and dirty.
But all were safe. And that made him smile just a bit behind his battlemask.
"While Airachnid remains alive, we struck a substantial blow against her hive and rescued her hostage without being forced to give up any of her ransom prizes," he addressed them all slowly. "And while M.E.C.H. no doubt has other bases of operations, this one has still been shut down. We must not find ourselves underwhelmed by what victories we attain; for such emotion will only lead to hopelessness and hopelessness will drive us to our ends."
The others mulled over his words in respectful silence, regardless of how more than one no doubt had a complaint to make on the matter. Ratchet especially looked doubtful. Arcee had yet to look away from the humans on her servo.
"What about the stuff at this facility?" Bumblebee asked.
Drawing the rest of their attention, he waved over the compound. "There's more of those drone things with the red energon containers. I tripped over a few during the fight. Though I think most got pretty disassembled by that guy..."
Bulkhead shivered. "Ugh. Did our work for us then. We shouldn't keep the stuff around."
There was a pause. Arcee was the one to break it, however slowly. "Yeah. About that. Do we just leave everything here for the humans to pick up? Is there someone we need to call about this?"
The two-wheeler could almost always be trusted to bring protocol up again. She was the most seasoned soldier here. Bumblebee had purposefully remained a scout, Bulkhead and Wheeljack were former wreckers, and Ratchet was a field medic. Arcee, despite her penchant for running headlong into danger when personal motives were in play, could be trusted to adhere to standard clean up procedures and adherence to the chain of command.
"Technically, that'd be me."
All optics went to agent Fowler as he stood straighter on Arcee's palm.
"And technically, I should be telling you to wait for my boys to come get this stuff and drag it to washington. But-" his seemingly perpetual frown deepened.
"Off the record," he started up again and looked at Optimus "-this is all real powerful tech. Real dangerous tech for you fellas if it was turned on you. Much as I trust the boys in green wouldn't do that, they're not always the ones in charge."
The Prime frowned behind the mask.
"I see," he said simply.
The others digested this. As they did, Optimus pondered unhappily. M.E.C.H. remained, in his mind, a human matter and as such he wished for it to be delegated by human enforcement. It was their world, not his.
His world had died and he'd been unable to save it.
"So then what do we do with all this?" Bumblebee was the first to ask.
"Take it," Ratchet offered, "And burn the toxins."
It was the best plan they had.
I must report my failure to the Nemesis
Failure to the warship and its faction, yes. Failure to his master, yes.
But it was to those vehicons who had been waiting to hear good news of their brethren that he dreaded most to go to; and it was them that he needed most to report his failure to.
Dreadwing tore through the clouds as though doing so could distract him.
words of true farewell
Had the vehicons gotten that chance? Had XL-2M99 gotten the chance to bid farewell to XL-8K9C?
He knew it was not so.
Their last conversation no doubt held no apprehension, no sign it would be their last, no sign at all that Dreadwing would merely bring back a corpse.
Not even that. The bodies remained in the place of their desecration. Dreadwing could not carry them.
He couldn't do anything, could he?
Not kill the Prime. Not kill the traitors. Not bring any of the dead back so that they could have a true last conversation with those they left behind.
Till all are one
Till all are one-
If they could remember their lives in the Allspark. If the Allspark even took in sparks anymore.
If it ever had been anything but a relief to all those left behind in life without closure.
words of true farewell-
I shall reunite with you when our master commands it
His jet form swerved in the air, almost peeling into root mode just so he could scrape at his unrelenting audials.
But it wasn't his audials, was it? It was his processor, his memories, his mind- thinking, always thinking, never ceasing-
The Nemesis loomed out of the clouds and Dreadwing had never felt such relief. He let himself transform before he'd landed, grabbing his helm even as he stumbled.
An embarrassing display. Not fit for the second in command of Megatron's forces.
Not fit-
Dreadwing swallowed back his roar. He stood absolutely still, waiting for the outburst to contain in full. Then he moved forward. Each step even. Each servo at his sides untensed. His helm upright and steady.
Of course it was steady. What else would he be? What else could he be?
But he did not finish his stroll to the medbay because he knew-
He knew he could not admit his failure yet.
He did not have the strength to do so. It was pathetic for a 2IC, but natural for a grieving split spark.
His room was dark. Dreadwing did not signal for the lights. He waited by the door while his chronometer seemed to stall from how his mind ran rampant and yet slow, so agonizingly slow, not a thought crawling to its finish line, not a sentence pieced together rationally-
The Prime came to mind. How he had acted. How they had allied again.
How he seemed upset looking over the dead vehicons.
Upset over drones, upset over fighters he slaughtered with ease- a joke. He could not laugh.
Megatron would be angry to hear the news. His lord had been angry ever since losing the insecticon armies to Airachnid. Angry over the human's gall, angry over pragmatic losses he had suffered- no thought on the vehicons the dead left behind. No emotion would have flashed over his face but perhaps inspiration at the sight of their twisted forms.
Prime's emotion, as slight as it was, made Dreadwing's energon boil. It was so unwanted, so disgustingly unwarranted. It was so much more than Megatron would offer. His energon boiled like ice.
Normally, the disapproval on his enemy's face would not matter. But he hadn't been able to help fight back the revolting weakness it brought him. It seemed only to be foreshadowing- only to be another almost expressionless face able to express grievances with his actions tonight.
He buried it beneath nothingness. Buried it in the infinite white where nothing could reach such thoughts, could drag them up, and yet-
Yet they were coming.
Returning to his room had been wise. He could not be seen like this. Not until the impassive white could block this nonsense out.
You massacred defenseless humans
He had killed them before their defenses could trigger in place. Waiting would give them the chance to fight back, to kill him, to do with him what they did to XL-1SN1 and XL-8K9C; it was not a risk worth taking. He did what he had to when fights were balanced against him; with that wrecker he'd run across in space and multiple others. Skyquake had always been the one to make each fight fair. In Dreadwing's mind, if the battle was weighed against him then striking without warning was fair. And M.E.C.H.'s weaponry could take down any cybertronian with sickening ease.
But that hadn't crossed his mind tonight. He had not considered how striking without forewarning could have been fair in its own way; he had just struck. They had screamed as their fortresses burned. They had not been given the chance to fight and die with honor.
And Dreadwing could not care.
Perhaps that made him less than his brother. Perhaps that made the Prime look at him with more angry resolve or unwanted pity.
Perhaps if Skyquake hadn't have left him, Dreadwing would not have had to make the choices he did.
Excuses- a bunch of feeble excuses. Those decepticons were dead and he'd done nothing. His brother was dead and he'd done nothing, not even killed his murderers. Another failure, but one that paled when faced with the dead themselves.
I will do my best to return your brothers to you all.
He had not even buried them. Even the Prime had buried his brother. He'd burned the humans to their earth below and not returned to give dignified ceremony to their victims.
But he would. Even if the vehicons themselves would no longer want his help after this, he would still order the warship to return and retrieve the bodies.
I'm...I'm-
-sorry, was what he meant to say. An apology he was not used to delivering and one that its recipient had not wanted
Don't bother was the response he'd got.
Well he wasn't bothering. He was here, calming down. Returning his mind to a place of peace.
Finally, he stepped away from the door and began to approach the floor of the far side of the room. Further meditation could bring back the controlled peace he'd started the mission with.
The seeker got a ping that he forced himself to look at. Automated message. Soundwave's work then. The communications officer refused to speak or write his words, but still managed to communicate through alerts and taggings just fine.
It was a medical alert. Tags included bleeding on floors, blaster wounds, apparent projectile wounds, and signs of poisoning. A picture of the medbay, with XL-2M99 standing by his tools while Megatron seemed caught in the middle of offering his servo to the traitorous Starscream, also was included with the alert.
As with many of Soundwave's 'words', the alert required a touch of translation. Dreadwing believed he understood its purpose; the TIC was demanding he visit the medical bay to attend to his wounds.
The seeker ignored the ping.
Rather than come in person, Soundwave expressed his displeasure at being brushed aside by sending someone else. Or so Dreadwing imagined it, when the knock came at his door.
"Enter," he said as he refused to move. He would not look behind him. He would not unsettle his meditation.
A few pedesteps entered slowly. They stopped far from where he was kneeling. Too light to be his lord. Too heavy to be Starscream. That, at least, was a small blessing. The sight of his treatment in the image Soundwave had sent put him into a different cloud of rage than the humans earlier had. Dreadwing would not have been able to promise he could have held himself back if it had the traitorous seeker had it been him that disturbed his peace.
If mourning could be called peace.
Neither mech spoke. Any curiosity he felt at having a visitor was suppressed.
Finally, his silence prompted the other to speak first.
"Soundwave wants me to look at you."
The medic, or medic-in-training, then.
Dreadwing could not be sure if he felt relief that he knew his visitor or dread that it was the very vehicon who'd bluntly told him before he was failing at retrieving his brethren. XL-2M99 had never said a word of comfort to him before; why would he start now? Now that the seeker had not saved his friends? Logic said he would not; and that answer said Dreadwing was going to have to hear words he did not want to face yet.
He had no desire to curse Megatron's most loyal officer, but he was feeling very close to doing so to Soundwave now.
"I got a picture of you walking in the hall. You're covered in wounds." He heard the vehicon make a strangled sigh, likely of frustration. "Come on. Get up and go to the medbay with me."
This time the strangled noise came from Dreadwing. The seeker refused to turn. He would not face disappointment. He would not face the expression of unimpressed inevitability.
Don't bother
He would not.
The pedes stepped forward a little closer. But XL-2M99 kept his berth wide still.
It always had been. The medic acted like he was a contaminant- something to be held at arms distance, to grimace when it came close, to laugh in relief when it was gone.
Was that not how all vehicons acted when he entered their domain?
Worse still, after tonight, could he blame them? He expected them to do their job subparly, as that was the best they were built to do; be loyal but lack the strength and ability of a trained officer. He expected himself to be able to do all that which vehicons were not created to.
More than you seem to have dug up with all your training and skill.
Expectations were foolish. He should never have bothered to hold them in the first place. It would have saved him hurt pride.
"Fine. Bleed out here," XL-2M99 said and made just one step back towards the door.
He was waiting.
Dreadwing finally answered his prompt.
"I..."
I'm sorry
I failed
Till we are one once more
"...shut down the human operations on our brethren."
All those things he had never thought to say joined with those things he would not say.
"They are dead. The humans and their victims both."
No reply.
"It was all I could do."
He could have done better.
What else am I supposed to? Can I really assume he is still alive? That any of them are?
"...You are not surprised, I imagine," Dreadwing spoke into the silence.
Not surprised XL-8K9C was gone. Not surprised Dreadwing had amounted to the same to all other forged officers the drone's had.
Which one did he mean? Neither worked and yet both did equally.
XL-2M99 clopped a little closer. Never close enough. Always far enough to strain away, to increase their distance.
Was that not how all vehicons acted when he entered their domain?
Foolish of him to have played their hero. They'd never asked for that and never wanted him to try.
"I knew he was gone-" XL-2M99's voice was high, strained. "I was... braced. For it."
The seeker sighed, vents releasing the air he'd been holding in with tightened plating.
"Please do not think I did not try," he growled out.
Another silence that felt so oppressively judgemental.
"I wish I had tried harder," Dreadwing filled the quiet. "But I failed you. I failed your brothers. I could not protect them."
Having admitted it, hoping it would send the vehicon away and leave him in peace, the seeker turned to look behind him.
XL-2M99 was standing half the room away. His servos were balled into shaking fists. The unwarped side of his visor was brightened.
He had read the silences wrong.
The medic was not judging. He was grieving.
And that was something Dreadwing was well familiar with. Perhaps he could not help save his brethren, save the medic's brother-
But he could at the least show the survivors of this M.E.C.H.'s attack the ancient ceremonies and processes to mourning.
It would've been easy to think they'd have returned to a calmer atmosphere than what they'd left behind in Arizona.
The chaos that was the base served to prove exactly what assumptions got you.
Bulkhead dodged by the junk on the floor and only narrowly avoided flattening Ratchet's makeshift groundbridge control.
Of course, there was more to it; some added depth to explain this mess.
It had started when they were still mulling around the M.E.C.H. base. The crates of decoy Tox-En were emptied and replaced with some of the sketchiest looking pieces of weaponry laying around the place. Eventually, they'd stacked up all the boxes they'd deemed important enough to take back to base. Fowler helped them organize and chose which weapons to hide while Arcee and Bumblebee stayed with the other three humans.
Bulkhead was worried about Miko. She had barely spoken with him. She didn't meet his optics. But now wasn't a good time to talk with her.
By the time they had gotten to go back to base, she'd slipped away. Bulkhead couldn't find where the girl had gone off to and was left to worry over her absence.
Still, that was later. After they had gotten to the base.
First they'd had to go through what he later filed down in his mental category of Those Incidents. Optimus had stood over their pile of crates while he and Jackie returned from where they'd been burning the Tox-En down to tox-slag. Their leader looked over the waiting autobots, the ruined facility behind, and the paling sky on the eastern desert.
He wasn't trying to be dramatic- but Optimus managed without trying.
The impact was ruined a minute later when he commed for a groundbridge and received an unnaturally long pause. Then Raf's voice had piped up, sounding years older than he usually did. "Yeah. I can't do that just now. Give me one moment to get the bridge to work for the other team and I'll get you back. Hopefully in less pieces than them."
Every bot had looked to one of their allies and then at Bumblebee for some sort of explanation.
"What?" the scout threw his servos into a shrug.
"The weirdo is your human," Breakdown said, "You should know what his glitch is."
Optimus didn't deign to join in that. He lifted one finger to his audial and tried to get clarification.
"Rafael? What do you mean?"
"It means I'm busy!" the boy snapped back, sounding uncharacteristically short tempered.
Obviously, he'd been spending too much time with Ratchet.
They waited for elaboration that did not come.
Sitting against Arcee's leg with his mom, Jack rubbed his hands down exhausted eyes. "What is taking us so long?" he yawned.
The movement didn't go unnoticed by Ratchet. The medic kept looking at all three humans and then looking away pointedly.
Bulkhead knew that look. It meant the old guy was taking their exhaustion and hurts personally; it meant he was taking guilt on he didn't deserve.
"Raf? We're all kinda waiting for pickup here and got no clue what you're talking about..." Bumblebee tried through the comms.
Finally the boy's voice came over the comms again.
If it had sounded older before, now it sounded like it came from a human in his hundreds.
"Alright..." Raf sighed, "Alright. I should be abl-yeah, there's no-there's nothing...Ugh. I'll bridge you all back now."
Another confused glance was shared between all.
Then the bridge had opened, the team had picked up boxes, walked through, and almost tripped over the Iacon relics.
...what.
Which brought Bulkhead back up to the current chaos of the base.
Starting with Bumblebee bridging an exhausted Raf back to his house (after the boy had hugged Ms. Darby long and tight) for what little hours of sleep were left for him. The scout was really the only one to keep his head about the care of the humans at the moment, since the rest of them were a teeny bit preoccupied either yelling, being silently impressed, or just watching in twisted entertainment-
Because the relics hadn't just shown up by magic. No, they'd been tugged straight from the Nemesis itself by the two bots that had been ordered to stay on groundbridge/communications duty.
And apparently both bots were only alive right now because the phase shifter could enter the ground rather than let the impact of falling from the sky burst the mechs open.
The relics weren't quite as lucky. The resonance blaster looked like a little block of compressed metal. The immobilizer was in more pieces than it had been when Bumblebee had broke it during the fight with Airachnid. Really, the forge seemed to be the only weapon to look remotely alright.
Ratchet was, to use the human word Fowler let slip on occasion (when he hadn't noticed the kids or June Darby were nearby), pissed. And Optimus was radiating disapproval. Breakdown was being all concerned over Knock Out, who looked just fine frankly, and kept getting mad at the bots currently yelling at the younger medic. Smokescreen was withering by Arcee, who was too tired to yell at him for a second time in one day.
Both wreckers tried to stay out of the mess.
That lasted for a while. Knock Out and Breakdown had made a strategic retreat to their room, Smokescreen had fled for a drive (and then was dragged back because, in simple terms, he was grounded [again]), and Optimus had taken it upon himself to lift all the relics (excluding the pieces of the immobilizer, which Ratchet had swept up to deal with, and including the star saber that had been set against the groundbridge controls earlier) and carry them to one of the empty storage rooms. Arcee had managed to pry June and Jack away from where Ratchet was trying to scan them and took both humans home. The medic stormed into the medbay before they'd even finished saying goodbye to him; he looked furious over how useless the scanners he'd made to analyze humans were, but all the subsiding panic and unwarranted guilt was obvious to the wrecker watching. Miko was still awol, hidden somewhere in the base no doubt.
Left alone, Bulkhead and Wheeljack stayed leaning against the wall opposite the medbay.
Really, he didn't even know what to talk about anymore. It was hard to top the surprise Knock Out and Smokescreen had given them all.
It was the smaller wrecker that broke the peaceable silence.
"Who does he think he is, actin' like this is all on him? Like he's so high and mighty for taking on responsibility he doesn' deserve?" Jackie was frowning at the medbay.
That was just how Ratchet was.
"He does this every time," Bulkhead shrugged.
Didn't seem to be quite the right answer. The other wrecker's frown had only grown deeper.
"None of you ever thought to stop him from doin' it?"
Optimus tried. He was the only one who could try without getting his head chewed off by an angry medic.
"Believe me," the green mech laughed, "He doesn't take to comfort any better than he takes to criticism."
The other wrecker made a humming sound and looked back at the medbay.
"You really don't like him, do you?" Bulkhead shook his head with an exasperated grin. First Perceptor when the sniper had been assigned to their unit, then their commanders- really anyone who bothered to try to act calm and professional just drove Wheeljack up the wall.
But the other wrecker just looked confused at the rhetorical question.
"Who, Ratchet?" he asked.
At Bulkhead's nod, Wheeljack just frowned again.
"Nah. That's not it."
The other mech pushed off the wall and walked towards the medbay before Bulkhead could ask him to elaborate.
And so he was left the only one in the main room.
Well. May as well find Miko at this rate. Maybe she'd tell him what had her acting so weirdly. He was worried about her.
Who was he fooling?
He was worried about all of them.
Even the new rookie and the two con defectors he thought he'd always hate.
