Title inspiration: "Brother" by Kodaline

A/N HardyGal: Set after Predacons Rising

"Primus, this is eerie."

"You've said that about five times now."

"That's just cause it's true. I mean, I never got to see any of Cybertron's cities during their heyday, but even I know that a city's supposed to be full'a bots."

"You do have a point," Arcee conceded, her sensors casting a glance towards what had once been a bustling bar as she and her teammate drove past it.

"Wow, did you just agree with me?"

"Don't get used to it, kid."

Arcee turned attention from the crumbling bar to the equally crumbling towers that made up the crumbling city.

"I was never one for crowds," she said, "but even I have to admit, I miss the rush of the city. Even with Cybertron being restored, right now everything still feels…"

"Lifeless?" Smokescreen provided.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I feel ya. I can't wait to see what this place is gonna be like when everyone starts coming back home. Woah…"

Smokescreen slowed his pace, falling behind Arcee, and transformed, staring up at something.

"What is it?" Arcee spun around on her back wheel and transformed, rushing to the younger bot's side. "Did you find something?"

"Naw, it's just another old building." Smokescreen pointed towards said old building. "The architecture's ancient, though. Like, Early Functionalism era style."

Arcee stared up at the building. It was large and open, several pillars making up the entrance and allowing clear access to and view of the entrance hall. She could definitely tell it was old, far older than most of the surrounding buildings, but that was as far as her knowledge or interest went.

"Wow," Arcee said drily. "I never pegged you as an architecture buff."

"Hey, it's basic historical knowledge," Smokescreen exclaimed with a crooked grin. "I didn't spend my time at the Archives just sittin' around, y'know."

He began to approach the building. Arcee allowed herself a smirk as she followed.

"Well, I would hope that you spent your time at the Archives doing your assignment."

"I was...!" Smokescreen sounded just a bit defensive. "I mean, until… Y'know…"

"Right." Arcee's amusement faded.

Silence settled over the duo. Against her own character, Arcee considered breaking it.

Arcee could easily claim to prefer the silence over listening to Smokescreen ramble about everything and nothing, but even she would readily admit that she didn't mind it all that much. Now. The kid was as entertaining in his earnestness as he was annoying. Honestly, he kind of reminded Arcee of Cliffjumper, just a little - he was a definite conversationalist. It was a bit unsettling when he just went quiet.

Fortunately for Arcee's character, Smokescreen was never quiet for long.

"Man," he laughed, "it's amazin' this thing wasn't blown all to slag during the War...!"

He trotted up the steps at the front of the building.

"Reckon we'll find anything useful inside?" Arcee asked, following at a more moderate pace.

Smokescreen shrugged, walking along the front of the building as he peered inside. "Dunno. I mean, it's been a long time. Probably would've already been looted eons ago, right?"

"With how long Cybertron's been abandoned, you never know."

Arcee stepped through the largest and middlemost opening in the pillars. She noticed the ground shift slightly beneath her pedes. The sudden clatter and clang of metal had her drawing her blasters.

"Arcee!" Smokescreen shouted.

The next thing Arcee knew, she was shoved further into the building. She spun around and briefly caught sight of Smokescreen's alarmed optics before he was yanked out of sight.

Screams filled the dusty atmosphere.

"Smokescreen!"

Arcee frantically scanned the environment for her teammate. It didn't take her long at all to locate him, and she couldn't prevent a gasp escaping her voice box when she did.

Smokescreen was hanging from the ceiling between two of the pillars, strung up like a corpse in a Decepticon prison, armour pierced by many rusty hooks. Hooked through his servos, arms, and torso, through his wrist joints, elbow joints, and shoulder joints, hooked through his slagging doorwings–

None of the hooks appeared to have pierced anything vital, but energon was already starting to leak from the numerous wounds, and Smokescreen was screaming.

"Scrap!" Arcee swore, retracting her blasters. "Smokescreen, calm down!"

The screaming only seemed to get louder as Smokescreen writhed and struggled against the hooks and chains. Arcee could already hear the rookie's voice box crackling with the force of his unbridled agony.

"Smokescreen, listen to me!" Arcee snapped, and if her voice shook with memories of chains and acid and a defenseless partner, that was only for her to know. "The more you struggle, the more it's gonna hurt! You have to get a hold of yourself!"

A cracked wail was her only response. Arcee felt her spark curl in on itself. She couldn't blame the kid. To be stabbed at all was painful enough, but to be stabbed numerous times and have one's weight hanging from the stab wounds and have some of those stab wounds be through an especially sensitive component like a pair of doorwings - the agony would be debilitating.

But Smokescreen's struggles quickly slowed, and soon he simply hung from the hooks and chains, his vents convulsive, gasping, and frantic.

"Smokescreen, can you hear me?" Arcee asked urgently.

Smokescreen lifted his head slightly and looked down at her through one pained optic.

"Ar...cee..." He cringed, then immediately cried out as the small shift in movement aggravated his injuries. "Augh–! Scrap! That hurts, that really, really hurts...!"

"I know, I know, I'm looking for a way to get you down," Arcee said, scouring for any mechanism that could possibly disable the trap. "But you have to calm down...! If you don't, your systems will overheat, and you'll black out!"

"It is gettin' really hot..." Smokescreen rasped.

"You're panicking. Focus on something else, something besides the pain...!"

Smokescreen laughed. It was a short and cracked sound, high with pain and anxiety, and very much unlike his usual laugh.

"Eas- Easier said than done..." He shifted again, the resulting cry coming out hitched and unquestionably distressed. "Senses... goin' haywire... Ghh, Primus–! It hurts! It really slaggin' hurts!"

"Smokescreen–"

"Arcee, please just get me down!"

"I'm working on it!"

The sound Arcee received in response was comparable to a human sob. The older of the two bots took a moment to compose herself.

"Okay," she murmured, more to herself than to the rookie Autobot currently on the verge of hysteria. "Okay, Smokescreen, talk to me."

"Wh...? I don't–"

"Talk to me, Smokescreen, come on...! You always have something to talk about, so talk, get your processor off your current situation and just talk...!"

"I... Heh..." Smokescreen laughed again. It was still short and riddled with pain, but it was a lot closer to the laugh Arcee knew. "Are you seriously ordering me t' just... talk...?"

Despite the situation, Arcee allowed herself a small smile. "Don't get used to it, kid."

"Yessir, ma'am..."

"So, you claim you didn't spend your time at the Iacon Archives just sitting around. So what else did you do? Besides your assignment, of course."

"I… studied, mostly…"

"Don't tell me you decided to browse the Archives all by yourself."

"Heh, no... Alpha Trion knew how unhappy I was... with my assignment... Old bot convinced me to look up stuff about Optimus... Knew how much I admired him... Things just kinda went from there after that..."

Smokescreen's venting, though still laboured and shaky, began to ease in its franticness.

"Should've figured it started like that," Arcee chuckled. "Besides Optimus, what did you enjoy studying the most?"

"Battle records... 'Specially the Wrecker stuff... Some of the history and mythology stuff was cool too..."

And so it went on. As Arcee searched the entrance hall for some way to release Smokescreen (while keeping an optic out for any similar traps), she kept the kid talking. Even in pain, he proved to remain an eager conversationalist. Through heavy but steady vents, broken only by the occasional groan or cry, Smokescreen rambled about what he had studied in Iacon, about what Alpha Trion had been like, about the other Guards that had been stationed at the Archives. And throughout it all, Arcee kept him focused. Only a few times did Smokescreen nearly lose his composure again, but Arcee threw another question at him, and he answered with a soldier's response time.

The kid was doing good. Arcee reminded herself to tell him that once this was all over.

"Well..." Arcee finally stood back in front of Smokescreen, processor and vocals grim. "The good news is aren't gonna die anytime soon."

Throughout her search, Arcee had kept glancing at Smokescreen, and by extension, the trap he was stuck in. With every glance she slowly realised that each hook was deliberately placed to maximise pain and minimise death. Arcee had arguably seen and experienced far worse devices throughout the War, but it still made her spark sick.

Smokescreen let out another cracked laugh. "Guess I should be happy 'bout that... 'n what's the bad news...?"

"I couldn't find any way to disable the trap."

Smokescreen's chestplates hitched. "Ar- Arcee–"

"I'm gonna have to go and find a place to contact homebase for backup in order to get you down safely."

The signal in this part of the city was absolute slag. Reporting back to homebase had proven to be pain in the aft throughout the scouting mission, as the two of them had been periodically forced to drive aimlessly around the city until they found a spot where the signal could get through. Considering the current situation, that was far less ideal than usual, but Arcee didn't see much of a choice. The only other option would be to attempt to shoot Smokescreen free, and that was even less ideal.

"Wait– Wait a second...!" There was a distinct note of panic in Smokescreen's voice. "Isn't there some other way?"

"Don't worry," Arcee assured. "I'll be right back."

"I know, but isn't there a way to get me down right now...?!"

"Not without potentially hurting you even more...!"

"Arcee, please, I can't–!"

In his agitation, Smokescreen shifted once more in the chains, and his words were immediately lost in a wail. He went limp, head dropping against his chestplates. Arcee could hear him venting harshly through grit denta, could see his frame shaking as badly as his voice as he struggled to maintain some semblance of composure.

"No, you're right," he rasped. "'m sorry, just go..."

It had struck Arcee many times since she first met Smokescreen that he was just a kid. Most of the time it struck her negatively, when he did something reckless or impulsive or just annoying. Sometimes it would actually strike her fondly, when his boundless optimism actually made other bots smile or when he wrangled Bumblebee into doing something just for fun. It was striking Arcee again now - a spark crushing combination of the two, borne from the realisation that Smokescreen was both a kid and a soldier. Specifically, he was a kid putting his entire spark into being a warrior.

A warrior powered through the agony. A warrior didn't panic. A warrior didn't ask his squadmate to stay with him because he was afraid and in pain.

Arcee regarded the rookie hanging above her, his soft groans clawing at her audio receptors, before bringing out her blasters.

"Smokescreen," she said slowly, hesitantly. "Do you trust me?"

The response, though tight and wavering, was immediate. "Absolutely... With my life..."

(Arcee wasn't sure how she felt about that, but that would be an uncomfortable emotion she would have to neglect later).

"Okay." Arcee aimed her blasters carefully. "Keep your head down. This is probably gonna hurt."

Many blaster shots later, and Smokescreen fell to the ground with a yell and crash. Arcee immediately ran to his side, placing a servo on the younger bot's shoulder.

"What's your status?" she asked tensely.

"Owww..."

Smokescreen attempted to push himself upright, only to nearly fall back on his faceplates as his injured arms failed him. Arcee grabbed his arm, preventing the fall, and helped him sit upright.

"...That wasn't fun," Smokescreen said finally. He cast exhausted optics and an equally exhausted smile towards Arcee. "Thank you..."

"Of course. How're you feeling?"

"It still hurts, but definitely not as bad." Smokescreen shuddered slightly, injured doorwings dipping. "I just wanted to get outta that thing..."

"I don't blame you," Arcee said. "I am sorry for the rough landing."

Smokescreen shook his head, slowly but earnestly. "It's no problem. I probably deserved it after getting into that situation to begin with..."

"Don't talk like that," Arcee said sternly. "Your quick thinking saved me from being in that position."

"But I wouldn't've needed to watch your back if I hadn't decided to–"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Arcee cut in with a raised servo. "You still take every mistake you make as though it's a failing of your character. There was no way you could have known what was going to happen, and you had my back. That's more than enough to make up for whatever terrible failure you seem to think you've made.

"Don't argue with me on this," she added as Smokescreen opened his mouth to respond.

"...Yes, ma'am."

Arcee allowed her demeanour to soften, and she stood up. "So, should I go try to contact homebase and have them 'bridge directly to you, or do you want me to support you and we'll both go looking for a signal?"

"I'm fine with stayin' here," Smokescreen said, slumping forward. "It'll prob'ly be easier on the both of us."

"Are you sure?"

Smokescreen gave her his typical grin. "You've been real nice to me, Arcee, is somethin' up with ya?"

"Smokescreen."

The rookie's expression faded, and he looked away. He pressed an injured servo over one of his injured shoulders. Like most bots, Smokescreen was bigger and taller than Arcee, but she couldn't help but think he looked smaller like this.

"I'll be fine." Smokescreen looked at her earnestly. "Honest...! I just need to rest up a sec."

Arcee nodded. "All right."

"I mean, hey, you're the quickest scout the Autobot army's ever known...!" Smokescreen said animatedly, enthusiasm managing to shine through his still crackling voice box. "Bet I won't even need to count the minutes."

"You got that right," Arcee said with a smirk.

Then, she placed a gentle servo on Smokescreen's shoulder, careful to avoid his injuries.

"You're doing great, kid. Thank you for watching my back."

Not even the pain and fatigue was enough to dim the way Smokescreen lit up as he smiled. "I did tell ya there was nothing I wouldn't do for you guys."

Arcee rolled her optics. "All right, don't let it get to your head."

"Heh, sorry."

As Arcee stepped back and prepared to speed off, Smokescreen sobered and spoke up again.

"Thank you, too," he said. "Again. For havin' my back. Keepin' me calm. All that."

"We're teammates. There's nothing I, or anyone else on the team, wouldn't do for you either." Arcee transformed and revved her engine. "I'll see you soon."

"I know. I'll be countin' the seconds."

Arcee chuckled and sped away. She kept her rearview mirror angled towards Smokescreen and watched him settle down to wait until she turned out of sight.