Not got much to say for this chapter, just hope you all enjoy!
California
Barricade was going shoot his self-preservation.
Metaphorically of course.
But he was this close to just outright shooting something as well.
Fernando had gone off somewhere the day before, and Starscream, who was now mostly back in working order at last, the patience of the mech was something of a surprise, and was now focused solely on two things, getting all the information he could out of Fernando so they wouldn't need the abomination anymore, and two, getting revenge on the smallest of the group, Ira, for beating him in aerial combat.
Someone's pride was still smarting evidently.
Frenzy had been, for the last few weeks now, all but catatonic, to the point he'd humoured putting him in his subspace.
Old words telling him specifically not to do that many vorns ago kept him from doing as such.
It was surprising how much of an effect ghosts from the past could have on one's life in the present, Frenzy probably would have agreed with him if he was alert to do so.
Barricade remembered Frenzy's carrier, the little mini took after her more than his sire, she had been, to take a human term, a Spitfire, the sass, passion and spunk to Soundwaves more cautious, curious and ever alert nature.
Soundwave and his minis had been devastated when she'd perished early in the war…
Right alongside his own beloved…
The one who's old words stopped him from putting Frenzy in his subspace, he couldn't quite remember why… his memory banks were starting to corrode from poor maintenance, and few to no pulls on the old drives to restart them and defrag them…
She always told him to do that every Vorn… but… with the war… he lost track…
He regretted it now… her faceplates were starting to distort… he knew Frenzy's carrier better, Frenzy reminded him of her every other cycle when the mini was alert… but his own?
She was slipping away…
No, he couldn't let that happen… Starscream was keeping Demolisher and Bonecrusher occupied, Starscream was giving him a break for all of his dutiful patrols…
Perfect time to defrag the old memories of his old love.
Of his life before the revolution… during… and that time when the war seemed to… be almost trivial…
Before it was made truly personal.
But where to start?
The beginning? He frequented those the most, not that was much more than the rest…
No, something mundane… yes… something mundane… something to remind him why he was still fighting…
Kaon
He was grumbling, his four optics narrowed on the destination ahead, his servos full with the pedes of the mech he was dragging, a mech easily a third over his own size.
A circuit speeder was still jammed in the mechs arm, bobbing every time he managed to haul the mechs limp weight a few steps further.
His target? The clinic.
Yes he was an Enforcer, one of the few secretly not corrupt in Kaon, he had a full life with work, but this, this was something he did on the side.
Because he knew his love needed all the servos helping her that she could get, and she only really had him, and that other medic she'd managed to wrangle into working with her when she couldn't be in Kaon herself.
Before he even knew it, he'd made it close enough for her to risk stepping out to help.
She towered over him.
She was white, white with two tones of red, the colours of a medic, but they made her look like a vision.
White wasn't something bots saw in Kaon, but her? Oh she was like a star, his star, his light in the forgotten city.
Her optics furrowed behind that soft blue visor, moving to kneel, putting her helm level with his. "Let me 'Cade."
She was double his height, she stood helm to helm with some of the tallest mechs out there, all the more of her to love, really.
He let her take the mech, easily hefting him up onto one of her broad shoulders.
And then she picked him up with the other arm, bringing him close to kiss the side of his helm. "Thank you."
Her thank you, just those two words, lit up his cycle like nothing else.
He was exhausted after his appointed work, but every cycle he went out, found a mech or femme in need, and brought them to her, and every time she said those two little words, he'd reply. "Just doing my duty ma'am."
It always made her giggle, to see and hear her giant frame giggle, oh it sent his spark spinning like nothing else. "Hmm…" Her attention was on her newest patient." Fairly big… he'll need a lot to flush everything out."
And with that, she carried them both inside, already focused on getting her latest patient well again.
Her partner medic wasn't there, he worked five cycles in the clinic, she worked whenever she could, there was often demand for her back in Iacon she couldn't ignore.
Joors later, when the mechs systems were flushed, and he'd been set up on one of the recovery berths, she finally put her focus solely on him, and only him.
He knew what was coming, but seeing the sway or her hips, emphasised by the white flared armour that covered them as she sauntered over to him… it did certain things to him.
"Such a good job you did, he'd of been offline by the next cycle." She cupped the side of his helm with her claw tipped servo, the visor sliding away to reveal her soft blues, ones that contrasted so well against his four reds.
They'd barely pressed their dermas to each other, his plain to her deep red, when a familiar wail came from the other room.
He raised an optic ridge and she just smiled. "We got another one this cycle, found him around the back, he's a Praxian."
Oh now that was something, someone left a Praxian sparkling… in a back alley… in Kaon?
She took his servo, and led him further into the clinic, into the private area reserved for them, and the little ones that were showing up more and more frequently.
Sure enough, there in the little incubator, was a squirming sparkling, barely online from what he could tell, laying on his front so as not to damage the doorwing nubs.
Completely grey and silver, no colour would show until he moved into his youngling stage.
But the sparkling was wide awake, big blue optics squinted as he wailed.
She opened the incubator, the sparkling fit within her servo with room to spare…
Premature emergence, he realised.
"We'll need to hold onto this one longer than the others… ready to be a sire again for a bit?" She asked, well aware of his answer.
He smiled, reaching up to stroke a clawed digit ever so carefully along that smooth helm, too big for the body it was attached to, already calmed with the close proximity of the beating spark hidden away under the armour he was held to. "Of course, who could say no to a faceplate like that?"
She huffed a quiet laugh through her vents. "We might even have to designate him… 'Cade… maybe…"
He knew where she was going, but raised a servo. "We can't… at least, not officially, the way things are going outside… we can't risk there being documents connecting any of us to the other… we can't risk the Senate using one of us to hurt the other."
He saw her flinch, and it pained his spark to know why… he'd pried it from her one night, when she'd slipped into the clinic, a limp in her gait obvious, the metal band around her neck bent, near crushed against the cabling that it normally hung loose around…
Two of her closest friends were being held in what was best described as slavery… and the Senate held their suffering over his love, and another mutual friend as 'incentive' to remain 'docile'.
It had sent his spark into a burning rage, she had miss-read his anger…
It was the one time he'd seen her on her knees, begging him to forgive her…
They'd held each other that night like a lifeline.
She sagged, the motion jarring him from those thoughts, but relented, and oh how it broke his spark to see her worry, he reached up, just managing to cup her own helm, she knelt for him to make it easier. "I love you… I love you… I love you… and when we've won… when the Senate falls… we'll bond… and then, we can adopt all the little bitlets we want, this one included." He reached out to stroke the little ones helm, it beeped at him, those big blues staring over at him in awe, dwarfed by the giant who carried him in the crook of her arm.
This was why he was part of the revolution, this was why he was Megatronus' optic in the Kaonian Enforcer system, this was why he was ready to fight to the very end against the Senate, to end their reign once and for all.
So that one cycle, he could finally bond with his other half, raise this little one, and maybe a few more they found, and no longer have to fear for her clinic being discovered by those who employed her in Iacon.
He was doing this, for a better future, a better future for all of Cybertron.
He reached up and kissed her again, this time watched by curious optics.
Pulling away he spoke again. "I love you, I love you Dust, we're going to win this."
The smile on her faceplates made his spark soar. It was that knowing smile, the one filled with so much love and adoration, they'd get through this, together.
The giggle from the little sparkling made his spark hit the stratosphere, he reached out, and let the little sparkling wrap his whole servo around the tip of his digit.
They'd never have their own… the Senate had stolen that option from his love, and he refused to just… use another femme for that, so, they would adopt, this one, and any others that so desperately needed someone to look after them.
That was why he would fight, why he counted the days till the revolution began… surely it wasn't too far away?
Only time would truly tell… for now, he was going to enjoy this moment…
"'Cade?"
"Hmm?"
"The little one's in recharge."
He nodded and watched her ever so carefully place the tiny sparkling back in the incubator, an action that would normally seem impossible with a frame of her size.
And if he ducked his helm just low enough to catch a peak of her hidden array?
Well, he couldn't help his love was so tall.
She turned back to him once the little one was safely sealed away.
They were barely out of the room and into their own when they were on each other again, his pedes wrapped around her hips, neck cables craning as she bowed hers down.
This time, it wasn't a slow kiss, it was one of heated passion.
His spark strained, desperate to be released.
His HUD pinged, requesting his spark camber to open.
Just as every time, he had to press the negative… no matter how much it hurt to deny himself the wonder that was his loves golden and white spark.
Especially when he let the rest of his systems do as they desired.
Coming back to the present from that memory was painful, coming back to a world where his beloved was gone… her features renewed in his memory banks, even that little one, the one they'd held onto, through the revolution, and even into the beginnings of the war… before they'd been forced to leave him in safer servos… only to lose contact with them soon after, before they'd ever properly designated him… it was… beyond words to describe really, just how much his spark now hurt once more, reminded of it's agony.
He'd long since wept all he could for his lost beloved, his spark, though not bonded to hers, had still torn itself asunder when he'd received that final message.
He'd only listened to it once, when he thought it was just her reporting in…
He'd saved that recording, in a memory heavily encrypted thanks to Soundwave, the similarly grieving mech had done much the same.
The last words their beloveds had ever spoken to them…
Soundwave had taken his vow of silence the cycle they were declared offline, what good were words when they couldn't convince the love of one's life to stay, to stay with them, not go out into battle…?
Barricade had taken no such vow, they'd been stationed in different cities when Dust had been called to be the medic for a unit that also held Shrike, those two always fought in the same unit when they could, something about Dust wanting to make sure the smaller scientist didn't over do it, which she did, every single time.
His last words to her had been full of love, promising a quiet lunar cycle with a few cubes of high grade he'd managed to distil.
She'd smiled, though her smile hadn't been as sure, she always fretted before a battle, and that one had been set to be a big one…
He hadn't been worried, the unit was tasked with infiltrating the target before the main army began to fight, they'd have the target claimed before the Autobots even arrived…
At least… that had been the plan…
His last words had been 'I love you.' Her's had been. 'I love you too, I'll hold you to that promise of Energon.'
He'd ended the call after a quick shared laugh, his shift was going to start soon.
At least his last memory of her faceplates were of her laughing… optics full of love and a servo just visible stroking the side of the camera in a mock caress...
"I'M BACK WHORES!"
Snapped from his remembrance, his helm swung to see Fernando standing in the entrance, hobbled by something in his talons.
A closer inspection of the thing made him want to purge, and he thanked fate that Frenzy was catatonic.
For all he disliked organics, and humans in general… the bright red flesh of a boiled human wasn't something he wanted to see, especially as the flesh, so well passed cooked sloughed off the bone in chunks that splattered to the floor on contact…
There it was, clutched in those talons, it's final scream still on its face, he couldn't even tell if it had been male or female, all he knew was it had been boiled alive.
Fernando didn't notice his disgust, his visible features morphed into a sadistic smirk. "And I just discovered a nifty trick~."
He glanced to Starscream and the other two, they were grinning, smirking even, as if Fernando had finally won some sort of favour in their depraved processors…
He had to get this to Kia.
In the moment that followed, Barricade witnessed something that would likely never degrade in his memory core.
Fernando leaned down, snapped open his lower jaw far further than was natural, and bit the boiled alive human in half.
The crack of bone, the sheering of frayed flesh…
Barricade turned, and left, he didn't run, no, he sent a delayed message to Starscream, he would go ahead, he would go to Europe.
That was the last straw, and Kia needed to know exactly what her younger brother had done.
Preferably as soon as she opened his last report…
Or the one before that…
He'd been sending reports more frequently, made them shorter and sweeter, easier for the Harpy to read through and send a reply quickly.
But the last three hadn't even been opened.
Another reason to go to Europe, to find out what happened to his new employer.
Triage Earth
Derrick was awake, he had been for a few hours…
It had been well over a week since his heart attack, but they were keeping him on the ship, attached to all of these machines monitoring his heart.
He shouldn't be surprised, his heart had gone and gotten itself in an offbeat rhythm, it was a curse in the Orichiono line to have heart conditions, his big sisters were the most severe case of course.
His thoughts were cut off by the door opening to the small medical ward that existed within the ship.
He wasn't even surprised when Serene popped her head through the door. "Look who I brought for you~!" She chirped, before her head vanished with a yelp of surprise, and Ivan strode through the door, closing it behind him. "Damnit kid, you couldn't of picked a worse time, could yah?"
Derrick noticed his bodyguards hand cuff was missing the other half, looked like he'd been cut free instead of freed with a key, the captain didn't know about this visit.
He shrugged at the remark. "I had little control in the matter… Ivan… while I was under… I saw my sisters…" His expression fell.
At least, he thought they were his sisters, the words he heard sounded like them, the dry wit of Wren and the bubbly snark of Aria weren't easily duplicated, but half the time, when he was looking through them… they… they were made of metal? Their arms were wings?
He couldn't tell Ivan that, he'd think it was just a dream brought about by the amount of CPR and shocks they had to give him to get his heart beating on the regular again.
How was he supposed to tell Ivan he'd seen his sisters, and equally metal Harpy looking females responding to Ira and Kia, all in turn speaking with Optimus Prime and his Bots?!
He had a physical mutation, but telling Ivan that might just be enough to label him a victim of the sickness rot…
He didn't want to die, and he didn't want Ivan to deal with the consequences of having to put him down.
So, he didn't mention it, maybe if it kept happening… but who would look after Epsilon? Who would keep looking for his sisters?
Ivan wasn't a psychic, so missed all of his internal musings. "Oh? Anything useful?"
Derrick shook his head. "Just… memories… some good… some bad…" He glanced away.
Ivan's expression fell, and he moved to sit in the chair next to the medical cot. "Hey, kid, life's like that, just focus on the good, tell me about some maybe?"
Derrick huffed in good humour. Of course Ivan would use this chance to pry into the secretive world of the Orichionos… Maybe… considering everything, Ivan could get more than a little peak… "Well… I remember, this one time, I couldn't sleep well… so I snuck into their room, they didn't notice, they just kept talking… I'll always marvel at how they did that… taking turns… then… I noticed something, their conversation had a third part to it, yeah they were talking, but less to eachother, and more to the air, I think they were talking to someone, cause they seemed to get replies about what they said… That was the night I met him…"
Ivan's head tilted to the side. "Him?"
"Well, Aria and Wren called him 'Voice', he was the manors poltergeist… He proved it by poking me." He pointed to a scar on his cheek. "He'd never thought to trim his claw like nails… he kept us all safe, we think he was a previous bodyguard who'd died defending the family at some point."
He glanced to Ivan, and was shocked to see the mans attention so rapt and focused on him, it was like he'd just offered the man the holy grail itself. "Yeah… so… Voice was like, our guardian, and big brother, he was more with the twins, but because they were always close, I guess he was always there too, looking out for all of us, he's the one who trained them to fight…" To kill.
Ivan nodded. "Yeah, sounds about right for the Orichiono's, fuck I ain' even surprised."
He had to laugh at that. "Yeah… I was just happy there was someone else keeping us safe… explained how they knew how to poison their mother…"
It explained a lot of things, Voice seemed dead set on training his big sisters in how to be unstoppable killing machines… he never got a full explanation from them, but something had happened, something bad, and now, his big sisters had no qualms in killing, by the time he met Voice officially that night, in fact, the whole time he'd known them, since father had introduced him and his mother to his half sisters after they poisoned their own mother… they'd always been… volatile, hostile, Aria kept a shiv knife in her pocket, even when they were sleeping in bed…
Ivan huffed. "Let me guess, he taught Wren to shoot, and Aria to throw knives with enough accuracy to split a flies wing?" The man seemed to shudder at that, likely remembering the time he learned never to sneak up behind the twins.
Derrick actually nodded. "Yeah, he figured Wren's eye… would be an advantage, turned out he was right, then Aira wanted something to be her signature, and well, the rest is history."
Ivan was nodded, then shook his head. "I believe it, every damn word out of your mouth… Fuck… a poltergeist?!"
Derrick just shrugged from where he was lying on the cot. "Yeah, I mean, I was like, what? Six? I thought the Voice was the coolest thing since sliced bread, hell, even cooler… but then…" He trailed off.
Ivan leaned in. "And then…?"
Derrick reached up and rubbed at his chest. "He… a few months after my mother… you know… did what she did… when we were finally safe from harm… the risk of someone trying to murder us in our sleep that belonged to blood… he… he vanished… like a flame, taken out by a sharp wind… they were… I didn't see them for weeks… they destroyed their room, screamed… thrashed… I could hear them… no matter where I was in the manor, they'd scream at nothing… everyday I put food and water just inside their room, when they screamed themselves to sleep… I don't think they had much of it… by the time they came out… they were skeletal…"
He was shaking, the memories of that time… they took losing Voice… badly… he was like… their stability, the load bearer that held them up… with him gone, his big sisters crumbled… it was the one time, the one time he ever saw them break… or more accurately, heard.
It changed something in them, their protectiveness of him skyrocketed, arguably beyond sane parameters, but his big sisters had always had the odd screw loose, losing Voice just loosened a few more.
It was why they'd taken Ira on, that broken little teen they'd pulled to safety, her instability became their stability, their norm, and they craved that, he figured their reasoning was, if they could support Ira enough for the redhead to stabilise, they could support each other to do the same.
When they began the Triage, when it snowballed into a global underground superpower in only a few short years, Derrick believed they had found stability, and he was right in a way, the constant demands, the weight of the world on their shoulders, it kept them focused on the now, not on those they'd lost in the ever furthering past…
And then, they vanished too… just like Voice… just as quickly… and suddenly… he knew exactly how they felt… and yet, he knew their bond with Voice was different, he'd never put a finger on specifically how, he just knew.
"Kid, hey, hey kid, snap out of it."
Ivan's voice brought him out of those thoughts, and he looked back to his bodyguard apologetically. "Yeah, sorry Ivan… just… got lost in thought…"
The burly man just huffed. "Yeah, I know, you're sisters always did that when they had meetings with Kia and Ira."
He could imagine that.
Their conversation wasn't able to progress any further, as the sounds of hammering on the door cut off what Derrick had planned to say next.
The Captain had found out about Ivan's little jaunt to the medical ward, and wanted him right back down in the cargo hold last week.
Derrick watched Ivan get up and go, though before he did, he leant down and whispered something in his ear. "Four weeks, we've been on this ship for four weeks, we're not going to Iceland."
Derrick just nodded, letting his bodyguard know he understand, the ship would need more fuel eventually, and that would be when they escaped.
Not two minutes after Ivan left, Serene appeared, a bright smile on her features, as she waved his phone. "I finished transferring everything!"
He gave her a weak smile, feigning that he was still rather disoriented, and that after seeing Ivan, he needed more rest.
She'd pouted, and to his dismay, merely took the same seat Ivan had, and reached out, taking his hand, like some concerned relative.
He would not humour what her gaze actually meant, he wanted nothing to do with one of Ivan's daughters.
Orichiono Manor, Monaco
The roar of the massive Peterbilt as it pulled up into the large garage drew the attention of the staff, who seemed to flock on mass to the double doors that lead further into the manor.
Over twenty sets of eyes watched on as the familiar red, blue and silver pulled to a stop, the trailer it, or rather, he pulled drawing most of the eyes.
They all knew who was inside.
Stephan stepped forwards, and pressed a button on a panel on the wall.
There was the sound of machinery coming to life, and suddenly the entire floor the Peterbilt and trailer were on, were dropping downwards, down into the bunker, where the eyes would not follow.
They would return to their duties maintaining the manor in it's perfect condition, nothing less would be accepted for the return of their ladies.
It took over two minutes for the piece of floor to be lowered down, a new temporary facsimile of the flooring closing in place far above in the garage, plunging both semi and trailer in darkness until the massive trucks high beams lit up.
Finally the flooring came to a stop, revealing the bunker, now almost complete.
The Cybertronian scaled bunker was an impressive feat, the entire thing sans berth rooms was open plan.
Now it was just a matter of creating the technology to fill it, but that would come later.
For now, Optimus Prime, unhitched himself from the trailer, looking over to see his weapons specialist approach. "Ironhide…"
The smaller red and black themed mech just nodded in understanding, they all knew the situation.
Both turned their attention to the trailer, and Optimus sent the command for the trailer to unfold, the same trick the original trailer that had carried the twins to the Gilded Falcon had.
It did just as commanded, the top, sides, front and back shifting away and folding into the base to reveal the precious cargo within.
The beast form of the twins were soon revealed, ocean green optics scrunched up with the sudden light, as much of a grimace as their beast form could do present on their features, they shifted, but didn't make much progress in moving.
Unsurprising, considering how tightly strapped down to the base of the trailer they were.
It was a precaution, they had been kept in Rome for six days, whilst Ratchet did all he could to try and undo or at least abate some of the damage caused by whatever relic it was that was now merged with their spark chamber.
They had had two more outbursts in that time, blows to the helm had sufficed to knock them into stasis both times with little issue…
But it had been decided that, for the twins to work through their scrambled memories, to try and get control of the outbursts, being in a more familiar location, such as their childhood home, would be preferable.
And that's how they ended up here, in their beast form, as it could theoretically do less damage, strapped down to the base of the trailer, managing their claustrophobia, something they'd begrudgingly admitted to when the trailer had been brought up, with both Prime and his Weapons Specialist looking down at them with a sickening amount of pity.
They couldn't talk in their beast form, not that the strap holding their beak shut would of let them, another precaution, they were all very much aware of how sharp their beak was, and how it would slice through the other straps with ease if they'd had a panic on the journey.
Judging from the talon marks they could spot where the twins had kicked out, that had evidently happened at some point.
Now with a simple command, the straps came loose from their fastenings, and a heavy silence fell between the four of them as they all froze in place for a moment.
After the blink of those large, avian optics, plating began to shift, upwards of a few million feathers pulling into themselves as they vanished into the tiny spots on the Harpies protoform, revealing the shifting armour plating as they shifted into their bipedal form.
It was a fascinating transformation, one all the Harpies seemed to avoid as much as possible, likely due to the foreign feeling of the process being so drastically different from anything they had experienced when they were simply human.
Regardless, when the transformation was complete, and the twin Harpies remained laying on the trailer, hesitant to move any further, Optimus knelt, and offered his servo, and waited.
Their optics were closed now, this smaller set, the ones he'd tried to spy on more than one occasion, now they were no longer hidden by their visor, and had instead been hidden behind closed optic coverings ever since the twins had came back too those few days ago, and realised they'd broken the visor that had previously hidden them.
Sais visor had apparently had the job of preventing them from being blinded by the ambient light around them.
A revelation that they'd been able to pry from them after the twins had tried to walk around without their optics open.
Now, he waited for them to be ready, there was no reason to rush them, to just grab them and carry them somewhere, no, they needed to be as calm as possible, and taking away the decision of where they went was abjectly the furthest thing from what they needed at present.
He and Ironhide, who kept a few steps away so as not to crowd them, waited as their protrusions bopped and bounced, picking up anything and everything as they seemed to get another check of the world around them.
Then and only then, did Aria's wing slowly begin to move, shifting away from their now larger and strewn out form.
He took the furthest joint in a careful hold, just enough to help hold the wing up, tired and stiff from being bound down, before he began to slowly move backwards, and pull.
They were so light, even that was enough to get their frame scraping across the trailers flooring, until Wren's leg moved, and landed on the ground, it was a bit of an awkward angle, but soon enough, he was pulling them upwards, up so they could stand themselves.
Only then did he step back, watching those protrusions flare, and the floor length tail feathers as well, acting to balance the rest of them without anything visual to base their orientation.
Only then did Aria speak. "Thank you… for helping us."
They'd become timid, the loss of their sight in this form had cost them some of the confidence and businesswomen bravado he and the rest of his mechs had come to suspect from them.
A reasonable thing really, so he just slowly made a show of nodding, keeping his optics on those protrusions.
They'd finally gotten a proper explanation on how they functioned, something of a hybrid between echolocation, and a 360 degree radar, picking up the electronic pulses unique to everything, and mapping them out into a translation of the world around them.
It was hard to wrap the processor around, just as hard as trying to live by that, hearing and touch alone apparently.
He kept his hold on Aria's wing, for she didn't pull away, he assumed she was using it to ground the both of them in place, and they were waiting for him to lead them on.
So lead them on he did, walking oh so slowly backwards to make sure nothing happened, there wasn't anything to trip on persee, but the twins were still very new to getting by without their optics.
He glanced to Ironhide for a moment, a silent request, and the smaller mech nodded, making his way to the platform, he'd patrol for a while, give the twins their much needed space and privacy.
Optimus felt his back come to one of the walls. "I'm going to sit now, turn around and you can join me."
They nodded, and he did just that, keeping his hold on Aria's wing so she could feel him move down, until his aft was on the ground and his legs stretched out in front of him.
Only after a few more moments, did the twins move, slowly Aria pulled her wing free, and they cautiously turned their helm, the rest of their frame following the motion until their back met the wall, and they carefully slid down.
Their broad shoulder armour banged against his, and they flinched further away from the sound and impact. "Sorry." They both mumbled in unison.
He just nodded slowly, slow, grand gestures were the easiest for them to pick up. "It is alright." He let them fall into silence.
It was in moments of vulnerability, that humans seemed to come out of their shells most, he knew there were things the twins wished to say, many things, he just had to wait until they'd collected themselves enough to say them.
Almost ten minutes later, it happened.
"We should of told you…" Aria muttered, her wing shifting along with her pede, so they could rest the side of their helm against the new bend in their upper knee joint, the wing coming to wrap around it all. "That… that some of our eyes found the clues, that lead to the relic… We should of told you… had at least one of you come with us…"
He nodded. "Yes… why didn't you?"
They shrugged, Wren answered. "We… we were scared… the Allspark was something Sector Seven had had in their clutches for decades, they'd documented everything, could create life from machines, big, obviously alien… we knew what we were going into, and we had you lot… but… all we knew was a glimpse of what it looked like when we first found it… where it was, in theory, theory turned out to be true… and that it had brought us here… we had no idea what it even did, same with Ira's relics."
He nodded along, but then got caught on the last word. "Relics? As in the plural definition?"
They nodded, Aria took her turn. "Yeah… Ira's friend tossed her her car keys… all she had time to do was see the four keys weren't her car keys, before she was hitting the forest floor in Germany… so there's four, key shaped looking relics we need to hunt down… but after what that relic did to us, she's probably not interested in even looking for them…which is… understandable…"
Wren was using her wing to rub at their chassis, Ratchet had done what he could, but the relic was not something that would just, move out of the way, so his CMO had to, persuade, a good chunk of the cabling, and even shift the pumps their shared spark chamber contained to fit around those bridges and spikes of metal, it took away most of the pain, but the risk they were in from a punctured fuel pump or spark was high now, too high for anyone's liking.
He continued to nod before speaking. "Ira has been taking your… situation… especially hard…"
They nodded, and the look of pain on their features at the notion was telling. Wren answered. "She found us… unresponsive, she doesn't take loss well… thought we were dead…"
"We told her we weren't going anywhere when we first woke up… but then the pain hit… and well… we went back under, that's when she called for Kia… the second time we think..." Aria followed.
"You probably noticed how much she clung to us… she clung to us even as… even as we…" Wren cut off, their faceplates pressing into both of their bent knees, they were bent double now, and in the light, he could see they were starting to shake.
Carefully, slowly, he rested a servo on the ridged plating on their back, and began to push the servo downwards, he'd seen the twins do it to Ira when the Red Kite lost her composure whilst they were all in Rome, it seemed to help ground the smaller scavenger.
Grounding was exactly what they needed, and as he felt them push back into his servo, the ridges plating flaring to try and follow his servo down, he knew it was working. "What, did the relic do?"
They both huffed and Aria answered. "Better question, what didn't it do? It… it got into our head, into our mind, and shoved everything around, the timeline of our entire life is in tatters… and we're gonna have to piece it all back together… but… there's certain things… that were pulled out of where we put them… and… it's stuff that's making us…" She trailed off.
"Lash out?" He provided, they nodded.
A quick search similar to their description, and he found it, compartmentalising, the act of storing memories away when they were too painful to have in the primary conscious, but could make sudden and volatile re-occurrences, causing relapses.
It troubled him, he wouldn't hide that. "You are not alone in this… not anymore…"
He did much the same after all, burying painful memories down, a number of which were starting to resurface, they weren't causing the reactions like those of the twins, he'd compartmentalised them all for different reasons… but they were starting to rise back to the surface as well…
He continued to offer his physical touch to ground them.
Then, the lights started to dim, and he spotted their optics starting to crack open, the faint glow within causing his spark to jump.
By the time the entire bunker was nearly pitch black, when only the bright whites of their armour hadn't quite yet blended into the dark world, did those optics finally open fully.
Green, bright near emerald/ocean green, with tiny flecks of blue in the finer mechanisms.
They were wide, the central orbs taking up much more of the optics than his own, a tell of their light sensitivity.
The glow was bright, lighting up the nasal ridge that had been hidden by the visor, and their optic ridges, in an eerie green hue.
A few moments of staring, and the sound of parts moving brought him fully back to the present, just in time for one wing to wrap around his back, followed by the other.
Swiftly followed by the rest of them pushing up against him, and a muttered. "Thank you." Before they pulled back away, rose, and walked away to where the rooms were, there was already one set up for the owners of the bunker, obviously.
He listened more than saw them go, when the sound of large hanger sized doors sliding back shut reached him, the lights in the main bunker slowly turned back on.
He glanced around where he was sitting, and spotted something, one of their under wing feathers, the white with mottled black zigzags…
He carefully picked it up, observing the fascinating thing, so small, but able to pull all of it's fibres in, and shrink down into its designated spot on their protoform…
He looked around, and then pocketed the feather into his subspace, though also spotted a few more just laying around, apparently the feathers were replaced on a somewhat frequent basis.
Still, it was a nice little trinket to ask Lena to hang up somewhere in his altmode for him.
He only hoped they wouldn't mind.
Welp, that's all for now, hope you all enjoyed!
