Transformers and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

AN- This first chapter makes references to RID 2015 (in regards to Knock Out seeming to appear briefly on a list of 'wanted' Autobots) and the IDW series MTMTE
All chapters after this occur during TF:Prime.
Warnings: relatively light, although subject to change. The occasional language (human and Cybertronian), mentions of high grade, canon typical violence. Knock Out is not a good person (read: he's a [at times dangerous and at times emotionally hurtful] narcissist) in many respects but he is trying here.
There is no update schedule planned but this shouldn't drag any longer than 2021.
Un'beta'd, so if you noticed any grammar/spelling errors, please point them out so I can correct them :)
I'm also, at this point in time, unsure whether this will end up being Breakdown/Knock Out or whether there's too much baggage there.
That said, please enjoy the show!

It was shocking how slow the world had spun out of control. Each new movement, each addition to the council, each new law; everything had happened at a quietly glacial speed and that, in turn, had made the end of the world shoot out at him with speed he was powerless to stop.

But he was being dramatic.

The world hadn't ended. There was no great civil war. Cybertron and Earth, the two planets he was most attached to, both lived on.

It was such a shame Knock Out couldn't go to either.

The scientist had been found shortly after his exile. News that a warrant had gone out after him had prompted Knock Out to abandon everything he had built on Cybertron.

It made him really miss the days following the war's end. When it was just a few Cybertronians that wandered this planet. When medics were in such high demand that Knock Out had been almost seamlessly integrated with the Prime-less 'Team Prime'. When he'd come to realize so much about not just others, but himself.

Those were the days.

Back when Cybertron was wild and unpopulated.

It hadn't been many solar cycles since then. But Knock Out hadn't seen those people he'd started to call his 'friends'.

Which really hurt because it was all their fault. Oh, he was pouting again. Did it matter?

Anyway, it was their fault. They'd slowly shown him a side of mechs that Knock Out simply hadn't noticed before. They'd forced him to try his best at seeing others for who they were instead of what he wanted them to be.

There was one big regret all this brought up.

Really, there should have been thousands. Right? Butchering the human that wore Breakdown's body. Staying with the decepticons instead of going neutral long before. Vorns of murder and messy operations completed with glee.

The autobots didn't like all that. So he shouldn't either, right? If he was going to be hunted down by Cybertron's law for becoming an autobot, he should accept that role whole heartedly, shouldn't he?

But the regrets he was supposed to have as a good autobot didn't come, the occasional pin prick of discomfort aside.

His regret was something different.

It had nothing to do with torture or murder or petty sabotage. He had been nothing but pampering to the mech. Showered him in the best of gifts and care.

And never, in all of that, had he ever taken notice if Breakdown liked the gifts or care.

Arcee had been the first one he'd talked to about the uncomfortably growing regret. It developed during his time with the autobots from Earth. To be safe, one must become a part of your surroundings, after all. Knock Out valued his plating very, very much. He had to keep it safe.

He had to become one of them.

So he watched their interactions and picked up on how to seamlessly enter them. He watched them interact with their fleshy friends and learned how to do the same without any hint of outward disgust.

He watched them as they cared and sacrificed their own wishes for the dreams of another and operated with every semblance of a 'family' and...and it opened a door. One that made living far more uncomfortable.

Knock Out didn't naturally care about others unless it was how those others related to him. He surrounded himself with mechs that would always be second to him and gave him the appraise he craved to live.

Breakdown had been one of those mechs. He had been the mech. Everyone around them thought they were close. Slag it, Knock Out had thought they were close. It was only after the war ended that he truly discovered what close meant.

He'd spent vorns alongside his nurse, living through misadventures and buffing sessions, laughs and breakdowns, survival and pampering.

But he hadn't ever heard Breakdown. What had gone through his processor after the first M.E.C.H. incident? What would he have thought of Knock Out defecting at the end of the war? What would he himself have done?

It really, really irked him that he didn't know what any of Breakdown's answers would have been.

There was a sense of irony to the two of them. Knock Out had been the decepticon C.M.O. at the end of the war and then had defected. When push came to shove, he hadn't become neutral. He'd gone for the whole thing; the badge, the name, even the warrant from an anti-Autobot council. He was a decepticon traitor. Brainstorm had spent the war as an Autobot scientist that wore the badge of the decepticon's under his mask. He was an autobot traitor. Sure, he didn't really have any loyalty to the team he played a double agent for but that hardly mattered to either side.

Two traitors, the both of them. And the current Cybertron did not want either running around free.

Neither exactly wanted to go to a boring prison cell either.

So many cycles had been spent with Knock Out wishing he could make contact with one of the old members of 'Team Prime'; wishing he could see one or all of them again. Just a call, even. Just a notice that they hadn't given up. That they weren't taking this corrupt occupation sitting down.

Now he spent his cycles with a different wish:

I hope this works.

It was just his luck he'd landed a place to stay atop this small moon with a crazy scientist. Or 'brilliant' if it was Brainstorm describing himself. Whether it was insanity or actual brilliance, the point was that he was willing to try just about anything.

And so when Knock Out explained his desire one megacycle, the other had actually decided to, well, get to work on it.

Until one cycle, the medic was standing before a medbay berth acquitted with equipment he didn't recognize while the short seeker waited for his signal.

"It can only send your consciousness back," Brainstorm moved around the berth to look straight up at him. Servos were planted cockily on hips and his mask was shut to expression. "Or rather, clone it and send that copy back right into the body of the timeline this will be creating. The 'you' that will get up from that table will have no way of knowing if your double succeeded or not. You won't get to see the world that copy makes for himself."

Knock Out's fingers gritted tighter.

"So we've established. I don't care. All I want is to give him this chance at life," he shot back.

Which wasn't fully true.

There were plenty of selfish motivations at play. Knock Out wanted to relieve his curiosity about all the 'what's' he wanted to know about Breakdown. He wanted to relieve his own dull grief and give himself another chance with the blue mech.

But he did want to do this for Breakdown himself. It wasn't an innate want, but it was a decision he was consciously making. That counted for something, didn't it? Arcee probably would say so. And if one of his role models thought he was thinking right, that had to mean he was on the right track here with motivations.

"Are you sure this is the method you want to try?" the scientist asked. "There's always proper time travel-"

"I know, I know," Knock Out waved him off. "Go back, shoot the Big M when he's not so big, etc etc. We've talked about this."

And the medic had already decided.

He wasn't trying to set out to prevent the war or anything (Primus knew it would have started anyways with how bad things were back then). The goal was just to give Breakdown a second chance. A chance to survive the war. A chance to be who he was instead of what Knock Out wanted him to be.

A chance for him to really see his nurse for the first time.

"Plug me in."

The seeker got him ready while Knock Out leaned uneasily against the berth. Those haughty, cocksure yellow optics watched him closely for second thoughts. Their plain color lacking in decoratives only reminded the medic of Breakdown's. Servos clenched tight, he offered no signs of hesitation.

Finally there was no more time for stalling. Brainstorm looked over from where he stood by the lever that would begin the experiment.

"Guess I'll see you in a click," he offered a two finger salute. "Good luck on the other side."

The lever tugged up. A moment later and Brainstorm was unhooking Knock Out from the machinery while the medic rose shakily from the berth.

Or at least the Knock Out in that timeline did.

"-ghk!"

It was an unflattering arrival. The speedster curled over himself in shock, hit his head on the desk he was standing by, and finally managed to straighten up enough to lean against it. Both silver servos lay on the desk and he found himself looking at them. Then he lifted them to his face to feel around its perfect porcelain contours.

He was alive! He'd made it!

Hadn't he?

Knock Out reset his optics and looked about the room he was in. Yes. It was not the place on that moon he'd been bunkering in. This was his old room on the Nemesis. And-

And if it was successful, than he may not have much time.

The door slid open and Knock Out got a good look at the halls of the warship. They were dim, very purple, and sparsely inhabited by vehicons. Not the ones he'd gotten used to, with their decals and colorful paints- the uniform ones of the decepticon army. And the halls lacked the certain charm that he, Smokescreen, and the human Miko had given them (ie they lacked the rampant graffiti that the Nemesis of the future had on it).

This was still the warship during war then. A quick check to his chronometer showed the Earth date and time.

January 31. 21:30. The night that Breakdown had died.

Knock Out tore down the Nemesis until he reached the groundbridge command center.

"Find me the coordinates of the last bridge!" he demanded at the nearest vehicon. The drone took a step back.

"Sir! We-that bridge was used for commanders Dreadwing and Arachnid, sir. It's not protocol to reopen without direct orders from high com-"

"I'm ordering you to!" Knock Out shoved against the vehicon's chest and pushed it back.

Well, that was rather Starscream-esque of him. But there was no time to chuckle or feel disgust. He had to get there before Arachnid got her slimy little servos on his nurse.

"Get it open!"

They would likely check with central about his clearance after he'd gone through. Soundwave (Knock Out had to suppress a shudder at the reminder that Soundwave was up and about in his world again) would catch on before they even made that call. But the spymaster would only see that he had followed the other three. He wouldn't be able to suspect treason or anything. Knock Out had a nearly marless record, other than an occasional prohibited race or two. That had to buy him time enough.

The green light of the groundbridge sparked into view. The medic charged through the bright vortex-

and landed on the cold dirt of Earth. The sky overhead was dark.

He was in the woods. In the woods.

But this time around, if there was going to be a life signal that would go offline tonight in these woods, it would belong to a certain insecticon femme. Knock Out was determined of that much.

AN- Thank you for your time! Please drop a thought or two if you are so inclined : Reviews make updates come much faster