Summary- Tailgate continues to be a sounding board and emotional support bot.

AN- Ahead lays some bs'd medicine/neuroprocess, enjoy :)

If he was a bit less intimidated over complaining about things, Skywarp knew he'd have a whole list of complaints made out. He had very many reasons to complain, in his nervous-to-admit-it opinion.

First and foremost was his creation. If not for his creation, none of the rest of this would be an issue. Of course, he'd also not exist and that sort of existentialism was too terrifying to mull over for long. The matter of his creation meant that he, out of all the clones, got stuck with Starscream's most impossible-to-live-with quality. If he'd just been a normal spark in a normal protoform, maybe he could've lived a normal life. Instead, he came into awareness in a place thick with overwhelming, confusing fear and things hardly improved from there.

Starscream hadn't even gotten a name for him! Sure, the rest weren't named either. The egotist, the liar, the sycophant, the...her...None of them had anything at the time he'd been sent reeling through that spacebridge. He'd needed to get a name from an autobot he'd just met (read: gotten cuffed and dumped on the bottom of a sciff by) to get a designation! And now that autobot was dead.

Dead.

It was bothering him.

The name and the death both. They were intertwined issues. Hot Shot had come up with the designation 'Skywarp'. It had been alright and Kup had basically just said that was that now. Skywarp was Skywarp. End of story. It'd been nice to have a name.

But now the guy who'd come up with it was gone, just gone, like they were all doomed to be, and he didn't know how he felt about keeping it anymore.

Of course, that would mean picking a new name and that held enough fear and what if Hot Shot's ghost came to harass him over it? Were ghosts a thing? He wasn't sure if they'd terrify him or actually be a bit relieving; probably would terrify him (what didn't?) but there was a sick longing sense of relief over the idea of at least seeing/hearing someone again.

That was besides the point. His point was to complain right now. It felt like taking a risk, but he'd already gone through a good two of his complaints and was in too deep to bother stopping now.

So, what next? His creation, his dissociation with his name, what next...

He could complain about the awful situation he was trapped in, but that would involve thinking about inevitable deaths and the ones that had happened and then he'd be thinking of hotel rooms barged into and bars he didn't want to go to and pink plastic curly cups that Hot Shot would say were for sparklings and- Oh. Too late. He'd thought about it all now.

Damn it all.

Rodimus's talk had at least given him something to think about. The problem was his own inability to even start considering following the advice when it- and everything else- seemed so daunting.

He needed to approach this differently. He needed to approach it all at the one root he could bear to find.

At least they did have a qualified medic on board. She'd returned from her own job on the barricade on Rodimus's orders when the Prime had decided to blow the thing as is. She was nice enough, probably. She was still a medic (well, nurse). Starscream had a distrust of medics that had transferred over to Skywarp in the form of a phobia.

Still, Red Alert could probably look inside his head with less risk of completely screwing him over than the others could, so, phobia or no, she was his best option.

That was what Tailgate said, at least, and it seemed realistic enough to him. Tailgate tended to be pretty smart, from what Skywarp could tell.

They'd actually given talking about it a go. That was mainly because of the autobot, but it had still been a joint effort. So the roommates (there hadn't been many rooms on the ship and there were two more passengers than expected, so, after leaving Viianta, there'd been a slight bit of double bunking) (which, now that two of the crew were dead, didn't need continued enforcement- but neither had gone out to find a different room) had kept their door shut and then Skywarp had started speaking from where he was huddled at the corner of the walls. Tailgate just sat on the floor and it made him look hilariously short from the perspective of the mech on top of the berth.

The smaller mech dragged out his misery patiently. It wasn't like Skywarp had any experience talking about his, what, feelings (all fears, mostly)? Starscream had a whole lot of experience complaining, but it was never involving exposing a weakness for someone else. Part of Skywarp really just wanted to snap at Tailgate to shut up and stop pushing. Maybe an older, more stable version of him would have. He was rather glad he didn't have the vocal courage to act that way. It was nicer in the end when Tailgate just got to talk.

So the autobot helped him drag forth that list of complaints through a slow process and finally pitched the idea of getting a medic to see if maybe there was something he could do to his code to help tamper down on all the Starscream that dragged him into this state of basic nonfunctioning.

"But I'm-I don't know if I can," Skywarp whined. "What if she finds s-something? What if she doesn't? W-what if I can never be braver than this?"

What if, what if-

Tailgate didn't seem to understand how concrete the response was. Instead, the autobot scooted a bit forward from where he sat cross-legged and tilted his head earnestly to one side. It was a rather adorable image, all things considered.

"You tried out the new weapons at my old place," Tailgate said. "That could have been embarrassing or dangerous and you still did it. That's more brave than I've been with picking up a gun of some kind."

Alright but-

"And you went out to the planet with the others instead of staying on the bridge with me. That means you volunteered to be a combatant. That's pretty brave too, wouldn't you think?"

It just made him think that he shouldn't have left the ship that fateful cycle (though that, in turn, would've meant that Rodimus wouldn't have come back just because some rust and that left him uneasy to imagine).

"I get scared too- everyone does! But I think-"

It was a prompt.

Skywarp agreed to go talk to Red Alert and the autobot had acted ecstatic for his sake.

Having another presence in his neural net was highly disconcerting. It brought up unlimited fears of what could go wrong or what she could decide to do.

Instead, the nurse disconnected after a scan and moved to sit across from him. To his great discomfort, the entire group had decided to come sit in on this. Granted, the entire group currently consisted of four cybertronians and one of those was him.

"There are anomalies in your programmed code," Red Alert started without prompting after sitting down.

The news was both expected and highly unnerving.

"This is likely where the 'fears' you are concerned over come from. Your self preservation coding is off the charts. Highly abnormal and hardly healthy."

Lovely. Skywarp grimaced further.

"So I'm doomed like this?" he asked helplessly.

The medical autobot didn't look impressed by it. Then again, she didn't look impressed most of the time and the ease she used to have had disappeared when Hot Shot's life signal dropped away.

"A medic- myself included, though I recommend a medbay for proper tools- can overwrite the coding and replace it with something more standard," she said.

Replacing?

Letting someone else take part of him out and put something new in?

"Or your personality component can overwrite implanted codes on its own. It's a slower process, but far more healthy. There's already a slight corrosion on that line of code-" the self preservation code, he thought she'd called it "-as it is. Have you felt any braver recently?" the nurse leveled a stare at him as she added the last sentence far more dryly than the others. A joke, he guessed. Hot Shot would probably say it was sarcasm. Hot Shot couldn't exactly help him understand the complexities of humor anymore.

"No," Skywarp shook his head instead of feeding that line of thinking.

At his side, Tailgate pushed closer.

"I think you act very brave!" he assured brightly and attempted to hug him (probably also as assurance). His arms only managed to circumvent the clone's upper arm.

Though he didn't smile or hug back with so many others watching, the words did cull a bit of his constant fear and that, in turn, was his way of feeling contented relief.

Still, back to the question-

"It's slow? But you could do it faster? I could go into a fight and not panic or- not-"

Red Alert nodded when it became evident he wouldn't finish. Rodimus just clenched his servos together and loosened them, apparently in thought.

"I can start the process, if you'd like," she answered. "Though, as your medic here, I recommend letting your personality component do more of the job. The more experience you get through age and maturity, the greater strength your personality component will gain. This normally would have occurred during sparklinghood, but considering the unique circumstances of your creation..."

She let it drift off. She knew he'd figure it out.

"Still, considering our own circumstances here in danger, I can see why a quick overwrite could be beneficial. Would you like my help?"

Tailgate just kept looking at him with confident support, but that visor didn't offer an answer for him. Rodimus looked ready to speak his own opinion, but he kept quiet.

Apparently, they expected him to figure it out.

Making decisions was terrifying enough that he wished they wouldn't. But he didn't exactly have that option, so he found his voice despite it all.

"I don't- I don't know. The idea of rooting around, o-of changing myself, I don't l-like it. I want this fixed but I don't-"

Did he even know?

He didn't want to not be him anymore, that sort of living oblivion was absolutely chilling, but he didn't really like being him either.

Why'd everything have to be so damn miserable all the time?

Not for the last time, Skywarp offered a few bitter words towards Starscream (and, of course, hoped frantically that there was no way his creator could hear the thoughts, though that anxiety couldn't be culled anymore than the rest of his fears could).