VIII: Bittersweet

"Why do you have to be such an asshole about this?"

Even subtle-as-a-bullet-train Vinnie treaded lightly. Throttle never yelled, not even when he was angry. He rarely even got angry.

"Orders are orders, runt," Quickshift's barely audible reply could have frozen anyone where they stood, even all the way from Mars. Throttle didn't sound overly phased by his older brother's icy tone.

"You outrank her doncha?" he sounded almost petulant. They didn't hear Quickshift's response as anything other than a low mumble, but they quite clearly heard Throttle's yell of frustraion, along with the sound of something being smashed.

"Shite," Modo growled. He bounded forward, moving quicker than someone his size and bulk had any right to, beating both Charley and Vinnie into the comm room. Throttle was slumped on the floor, his back against the farthest wall, surrounded by what looked like the remains of the frequency scanner. "Ease up on the hardware bro," Modo said gently, quicky assessing the damage with his remaining eye. That looked like the only thing that was broken, and although it was in a few pieces it didn't look like anything that couldn't be repaired. Assuming they could find the parts and assuming that nothing Martian had been damaged.

Throttle gave no indication of having hard him, remaining where he was holding his head in his hands. Modo paused for a second, not entirely certain what he should do, before sweeping across the floor and dropping to one knee in front of Throttle.

"Bro..." he tried.

"I've lost her," Throttle said, his voice hollow, barely audible. "Oh God I've lost her." He seemed to collapse further, curling into a ball, his sobs muffled.

For lack of anything better to do, Modo leaned forward and put his real arm around him.

-= o =-

Stoker paused in his restless pacing to glance again at Windsong. Her countenance was still tense, but at least she seemed to have stopped panicking. She was focusing very hard on cup of warm milk he had managed to scrounge up for her. Carbine had been given some mild sedatives and calmed down relatively quickly, but was either unable or unwilling to remember or talk about whatever it was that had possessed her to scream her boyfriend's - ex-boyfriend's? - name.

"How you feelin' princess?" he said casually, his mechanical tail humming softly as it viciously cut twice through the air, illustrating his own tension, before settling back into its usual random, non-descript waving.

"Okay," the little girl answered listlessly. Stoker approached her and dropped to one knee, eye level with her.

"Can you tell me who he is?"

A visible shudder ran through the child.

"Hey," Stoker tapped her knee lightly with one hand, "don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."

Windsong raised her head, gazing at him through the silver gems that served as her eyes. "Even Braxi was scared of him and Braxi was biggerer than you."

For some reason he couldn't quite identify, Stoker paused scant moments before spitting out some usual bravado tough macho mouse response. He studied the child for a moment before smiling casually and replying, "Well we'll jus' haveta keep away from him then won't we."

Windsong continued staring at him for a second. After not too much longer, a shy smile crossed her face. "Yeah," she answered.

"No problem then," Stoker beamed, wondering what on Mars had possessed him to come up with something like that but figuring it didn't really matter as long as it made the kid happy. "So can you tell me more about this guy so we can avoid him?"

Windsong curled up in her chair, hugging her knees to her chest. "He's mean," she said softly, the shudder running through her again.

"What's his name?"

Windsong shuddered again. She hugged herself tighter.

Something twigged inside Stoker. Following an instinct which had always been there but he'd never felt before, he swept Windsong up, plonked himself on the chair she'd been sitting on and settled her in his lap. She curled up against him, her tiny frame trembling. He held her gently, suddenly very aware of how small and delicate she was. Almost unconsciously, he smoothed her soft white hair. "It's okay," he murmured, "I won't let anything hurt you."

"Slider," Windsong only just whispered. Stoker hugged her gently as her trembling increased. He wanted to ask what this Slider had done. He knew he wouldn't. He didn't want the kid to be remembering things she didn't want to be remembering. Added to that he could guess at a few things and even the prospect of possibility of any of them made him want to hunt down this Slider guy on principle.

"What's this Slider look like?" he kept his voice low and soothing and casual.

Windsong's trembling increased at the mention of the name, but still managed to calm down enough to sit up and give him an odd look. "Anything he wants," she said, her voice only just above a whisper but still making it sound like the question was ridiculous.

I don't know if I can handle this shapeshifter crap, Stoker groaned mentally.