Oh, boy, it's a Christmas miracle! Been picking at this throughout the semester, and then it was getting so long that I ended up splitting it off at a better point. I really hope you guys enjoy it, and I appreciate folks sticking it out for an update!
A few things happened at once.
Updraft must have choked out some kind of noise, maybe a sob, because Skywarp's optics went bright and he loosened his grip a fraction. Knock Out stepped forward, but Uppercut squared her shoulders. At her full height, optics blazing, Updraft would have been afraid of her. She was broader at the shoulders than even Dreadwing.
She remembered, at the same time, her comm. Smokey, come back, there's trouble. Please.
"Excuse me," Uppercut said, her voice barely wavering. "Like my sire said, we're closed, and—"
"Uppercut," Knock Out said. "Upstairs."
The low, dark voice he used made Updraft shiver. Skywarp's optics had gone wide at Uppercut's perfect Vosian. (Deliberate, surely. Uppercut had spoken Standard all through the day.)
"Dad—"
"Upstairs this instant."
Uppercut looked surprised. After a long moment she moved, slowly, towards the door. Skywarp didn't seem intent to stop her.
"Don't worry," Skywarp said. "We're not pressing charges on the dependent living in the house—"
"Charges?!" Updraft said, horrified. "Why would you press charges, I came here myself!"
"Coercion, kidnapping, anti-Functionist fraternizing," Skywarp said. "A few more. Starscream can make it happen."
Updraft wanted to strike him. Knock Out's optics were blazing, but he stood still next to them, waiting.
"I came here on my own," Updraft said. To her continued fury, her own voice wobbled. "Nobody kidnapped me or made me do anything!"
"Yep, and we're going to have a long talk about that," Skywarp said. He jangled the cuff, and Knock Out's optics became slits. "Once we're out of this slum, and back home."
There was a commotion outside the door. Updraft hardly heard them. The dark, choking horror she was feeling, pressing hard on her spark, was making it hard to concentrate. She tried to straighten up. Look proud.
"I'm not going anywhere until you uncuff me," she said. She made sure to look in Skywarp's optics, so he could see how the brightness of her optics flickered, the coolant in their corners.
Skywarp relented. It must have pained him to hurt her, though she didn't feel sorry about it. If he was going to do something like this, he had better expect her anger. Slowly, optics on her, he unlocked the cuff. Updraft didn't move. This would be so much worse, for herself and Knock Out, if she bolted.
When Skywarp reached for the door, Updraft raised her hand. He paused.
"If the trine comes here and starts arresting my sire or something, I'm going to make this miserable." To her relief, her voice had steadied. "You know I can. We're going to talk this out."
"Your—Primus. I still can't believe that wing traitor's your—"
"That's enough!" Updraft snapped. "I like him. I wanted to meet them. Go let them in, whatever, you already trespassed."
A message from Smokescreen, one she barely registered: On my way. Are you hurt? Need to talk?
Maybe she shouldn't have called him, not now, but it still eased her spark to know he'd be here. She hoped he could take care of himself once he was. Knock Out stepped a bit closer, as soon as Skywarp had turned his head away.
"Legally he can come in," he murmured. He sounded resigned. "If he has 'good reasoning and appropriate caste.'"
Updraft didn't have time to be disgusted by this. She flicked her wings up proudly and clamped down on her spark's anxious flare, watching Skywarp pull open the door.
"—I would have broken it down," Thundercracker was saying as he entered. Updraft willed herself to sink through the floor, but in the same second, his optics fell on her and flashed almost white.
"Updraft!" In a second he had rushed past Skywarp and taken her shoulders. She flinched, in spite of her best efforts. "Are you hurt? Are you sick?"
She blinked up at him, and his wings tensed visibly. His grip tightened.
"You must be," he said. "I don't see why else you'd go and do something so foolish."
His voice was soft and hoarse, the way it had been years ago in that hospital. They had been watching Skywarp hang limp in a CR chamber then. Updraft felt like how he'd looked—still and strung out. It was only when he turned and looked at Knock Out that she saw the same anger as Skywarp, felt it radiate from his very spark. He dented her shoulder, and she ducked away.
"You," he said to Knock Out. "How dare you get involved where you're not wanted, roller."
"TC!" Updraft said, over Starscream's voice outside. He was snarling something at Breakdown—and at the big mech's low voice, stopped abruptly. Updraft would have paid to hear what he'd said.
"Seekers," Knock Out said carefully. His shoulders were held stiff, his optics dark red. "No one coerced this young bot into paying her visit. Let's talk about this, like reasonable mechs."
"Nothing about this is reasonable," Thundercracker said flatly. He was right, in Updraft's opinion, but not for the reasons he was thinking. "But…yes," he said, after a moment. "Sure. She doesn't seem happy about the notion of arresting you."
"Of course I'm not!" Updraft said angrily. Thundercracker and Skywarp both gave her long looks, and Updraft prayed she met them steadily.
"Knock Out!"
Starscream's shrill voice made them all wince, and Updraft really did step back when her carrier's wild optics raked over her and Knock Out. Knock Out stiffened. What had he ever seen in her carrier?
Starscream seemed to vibrate with his anger. Before Updraft could move out of the way, his claws had closed around her cockpit and yanked, pulling her forward. She yelped, and as Knock Out moved forward to intervene Starscream had shoved him, too.
"My finish!— I mean, good evening, Starscream," Knock Out ground out. He took a step back, and as Updraft stepped forward, ready to take her own shove, she saw Breakdown appear in the doorway. If nothing else, he could probably cow Starscream into leaving the family alone through bulk alone.
She was ready when Starscream grabbed her wrist, and twisted, though she still grit her teeth in pain.
"This is why I kept this from you," her carrier hissed. "I worried you'd be a damn fool just like him—and look how right I was! Skywarp, for spark's sake, where are the cuffs!"
Skywarp, her very first ally, looked guilty. Updraft's spark folded in smaller.
"They were hurting her," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Starscream leaned in close, optic to optic with Updraft. "You," he growled, "are going to hurt from a lot more than cuffs when I'm through with you."
"Starscream," Thundercracker said sharply. Knock Out's optics went bright, angry in an entirely different way. Starscream stared at her for another long moment, before he stepped, slowly, back.
"Don't hurt these people," Updraft said. "Please, they didn't do anything."
"They tried to steal you away from me!" Starscream snapped. "Oh, you might think they're talking sweet, but I know how low-castes are! He probably wants to sell your wings off for parts!"
Knock Out's jaw was set at the insult, but Breakdown's optics went narrow. Updraft gave her head a tiny shake and he nodded, near imperceptibly, in response.
She was not nearly in the same danger if she spoke up (even if her pounding spark disagreed).
"He said he met you in Rodion," Updraft said. "If it's such a big deal that he's low-caste, then why did you come here and frag him?"
Starscream choked. Thundercracker gasped "Updraft!" and Skywarp almost nodded, as if he saw her point. She didn't dare turn and look at Knock Out's face.
"That's inappropriate to discuss!" Starscream said, still sputtering. "You were raised better than that!"
Updraft shrugged. Fear and Starscream's draining presence kept her from doing much more, as Knock Out stepped, protectively, in front of her.
"You never told this child where she came from," he said, chin tilted up. Updraft could see the Seeker he'd once been, an aristocrat from above the world. "Of course she got curious. What did you expect, a complacent little fool you could push and pull?"
Starscream's optics were so bright that Updraft wondered if he'd popped an energon line. She wished the image could be satisfying.
"I don't want any trouble," Updraft said. That shake in her voice was infuriating. "No arresting anyone, and l'll be good. Please?"
"You'll be good whether or not I—"
"Starscream!" Updraft said. She hated the desperation, the squeak of her vocalizer. She tried not to look at Knock Out. "Carrier. I'm sorry. I disrespected our caste and ran away. Just don't cause trouble for them. Let's go."
Knock Out's brave, noble posture had slipped into something tired. Updraft couldn't bring herself to look directly at him, but she detected no disappointment, not in her. She should have known better than to think this could go well.
Better she be miserable and keep the trine from pressing those fake charges, though. Uppercut wouldn't be able to post bail for the others, and lawyers were expensive.
Uppercut had gone upstairs, but Updraft turned towards the inside door anyway. And of course, her new, brave sister hadn't really gone upstairs, and was watching them with… some kind of purpose. She shook her head, minutely, at Updraft, optics blazing.
Updraft turned away. Shame and fear roared around in her spark, but apparently, Uppercut was a lot like her. Enough that she might do something stupid, and Updraft definitely wasn't worth the trouble it would cause.
She didn't have time to worry too much about it. As if on cue, she heard the hum of an expensive engine, then its roar as Smokescreen drove through the doorway, almost running Skywarp over before transforming, landing in the room's middle. His optics were wide and confused, taking in the whole baffling scene.
Maybe Updraft should have given him more details.
"Updraft?! Are you okay? These guys bothering you?"
She would have to put some kind of stop to people grabbing her shoulders. Still, she didn't shrink back, not even when those wild eyes blazed on her.
She heard Breakdown first. "My door."
"I hope you can pay for that," Knock Out said weakly. He had rested one hand against his work table, as some kind of support against the unfolding ridiculousness.
Smokescreen looked sheepish. "My bad." He stepped back from Updraft gingerly, optics now on Starscream. "That your carrier?"
"That would be me, yes," Starscream snapped. "And we were just leaving. Come now, Updraft."
"Hold up." Skywarp had lifted his hand, his optics dimmed in thought. His finger pointed, resting first on Updraft, then Smokescreen (who looked ready to fight, and while Updraft appreciated the sentiment, this could not be allowed to get worse). "Who is that?"
"I met him yesterday," she said, wondering if the lie would stick. "He's a family friend."
Don't, she sent, to Smokescreen. Just follow along. They'll hurt you.
Unfortunately for her, Thundercracker was staring now too. Calculating and serious, the way he looked when she had been little and causing trouble. It was far more unsettling now, when the trouble she was in was real.
"We do know him," he said, optics going bright with surprise.
Skywarp blinked. "We do?"
"From the hospital! The Iacon bombings!"
"The what?" Knock Out cried. He looked amazed. Starscream looked as if he'd been struck.
"The Iacon—you! You're that kid who ran off with her!" Skywarp had been unconscious in that hospital, but he had seen Smokescreen before the disaster, as he and Updraft had disappeared. And Thundercracker would have told him everything.
Instead of attempting to prop her flimsy lie, Smokescreen stiffened. His doors stuck straight out from his back, quivering, and Updraft thought of how much they looked like wings.
"Yep!" he said proudly. "She's my friend, and I'll help her through anything!"
Updraft resisted the urge to slap him. For his own safety, because Starscream would surely do worse. Thundercracker was staring at her, disbelieving, and Updraft felt crushed by the weight of his disapproval.
"I got his comm frequency before he left," she said. She didn't mention Dreadwing, and prayed Smokescreen wouldn't either. "Everyone's...everyone has secrets, TC."
"A roller?" Thundercracker said, softly. This was not just about the comm, or this whole awful web, and it all made Updraft's spark roil in her chest. And that implication was ridiculous, but she was no longer the person Thundercracker knew, not to him. That ached.
"Alright," Starscream snarled, reaching out again. "We're done here. The Enforcers are on their way, and-"
"-I'm an adult," Updraft snapped back. Smokescreen had opened his mouth, too, but something about the way Thundercracker was looking at her changed her voice. It was clear again, braver than she had thought she could manage. "I'm going to apologize, because you're wasting police time, and say I came here of my own accord. People simper at you because you've got money, but no one really likes you. You can't bribe Rodion authorities."
There was a long silence. Her flash of bravery ebbed, the fear lapping back at it insistently. Those didn't feel like her words, but they were true. Truer than any of her wavering and desperation from minutes ago. Starscream's optics were almost white in their rage, and she could see the quiver in his wingtips.
"Updraft..." Skywarp said quietly, and she braced herself.
He was staring, but the shock in his optics was not TC's. The terrifying anger he'd teleported in with had died, to be replaced with...something else. It looked like he was formulating some idea, which was what usually happened when he was about to disagree with the trine. That rarely happened—not out loud, anyway.
Updraft really had turned the world upside down.
"…Well, you didn't end up in the hospital this time," Skywarp said, weakly. Updraft wondered if the mech who had broken in had been someone else. Painted like Skywarp, far angrier. Smokescreen's warm palm rested on her arm, and she tried not to lean into it. "Starscream—"
"What?" Starscream and Thundercracker said, in unison. Skywarp held firm.
"They didn't hurt her. So maybe—"
"Oh," Starscream scoffed. "Now you back out? I'm sorry, weren't you discussing just an hour ago how you'd peel her sire's plating off to the protoform? You volunteered to come get her! Are you really that soft once you get a look at her crying?"
"Sir—"
"Skywarp," Thundercracker said sharply. "Really, her sire's a wing traitor. You just don't like seeing her upset—"
"Oh, and you do?" Skywarp said. Updraft watched Starscream's hand quiver, and how he moved to raise it. To grab him, maybe. Strike him, because Updraft wasn't in reach.
"Well, you won't have to," Updraft said. She felt her wings straighten up, braver than she felt. "I changed my mind. I'm not going."
Starscream smiled—not the reaction she'd expected, or wanted. He took a step forward, heels clicking on the floor.
"Are you?" he purred. "You must have learned how to flip-flop from Skywarp. What about your sire? Or his family. I thought their safety was important to you?"
"Updraft," Knock Out said. Her spark was pounding too hard to tell if it as a warning or not. She glanced at him, and knew Uppercut's optics were still blazing from the doorway.
"This is pretty pathetic," Updraft said finally. "To bully a bunch of lower castes because your daughter has a mind of her own."
"You little, insolent, Primus-forsaken—"
"Enough!" Smokescreen snapped. His doors were quivering, and Updraft knew he was scared, too. "Don't call your sparklet that. I thought you were well-bred."
Baiting Starscream was generally a mistake, but it was still satisfying to see her carrier's optics bug out of his head.
"I am higher rank than you will ever be," Starscream said grimly. Updraft hated seeing Thundercracker acknowledge this with a nod. "And because of that, you're not good enough for my sparklet."
He had that all wrong, too, but Updraft didn't touch it. Starscream was the last person who should have been talking down being near rollers.
Knock Out looked ready to sustain some kind of blow. She wondered if all low-caste had to tiptoe like this—or if it was learned, from falling so far.
No, that wasn't true. Dreadwing and Skyquake had Starscream cowed—and they were in his payroll. They were fearless in the face of caste, from Updraft's point of view. But they were not exactly settled and living quiet lives, either. They could have always left.
She would not settle either, no matter the consequences.
The knock on the wall jolted her. She felt her spark skip again, and Smokescreen step closer to her, when voices grew louder outside and a tall, straight-backed Enforcer stepped through the door. Breakdown followed behind, and to her relief he wasn't cuffed. He'd done nothing wrong, but how could she be sure, really?
"Officer," Knock Out said, tilting his head respectfully. Starscream smirked, as if he'd won some great prize and was trying to accept graciously.
"Thank you for arriving so promptly," her carrier simpered. Updraft wanted to purge. "Now, it would have been better if you had arrived before, but-"
The Enforcer walked past Starscream and the trine, as if he wasn't there. Starscream and Thundercracker looked affronted—Skywarp looked at his feet. He stopped in front of Updraft and Smokescreen, who still looked ready to jump to her rescue any time.
"Are you Updraft of the Vosian Heights?" he asked. She almost just nodded dumbly, her vocalizer suddenly not working.
"Yes, officer," she said, just in time—her carrier's mouth had just opened. She had never spoken to the police. She had never had reason to.
"We were called in on charges related to kidnapping and anti-Functionism," he said, looking around. Starscream was puffed up, in contrast to Skywarp's dipped wings and dimmed optics. "Very serious. Do you understand that?"
"I do, sir," she said, straightening up. "And I'd like to apologize. I was absolutely not kidnapped."
"Surely you can see that this caste is well below our own," Starscream said quickly. He stepped forward and reached out, towards Updraft's stepped back neatly, closer to Smokescreen, and was satisfied when Starscream's optics narrowed.
"I do see that," the Enforcer said calmly. It made Updraft prickle, but no one else seemed phased. It was a fact, after all. "Who inhabits this building?"
"Myself," Knock Out said. "My conjux, and our grown sparklets." He tapped his wrist, and a small hologram displayed some kind of form. "The deed to our property."
The Enforcer raised a brow. "Ah. You own the property?"
"We do, yes," Knock Out said, a note of pride in his voice. "You'll find it's fully paid off."
"More for you to lose," she heard Thundercracker mumble. Her spark curdled. It didn't much help when the officer turned back to her, optics dialed up in brightness.
"You weren't coerced into coming here?" he asked. "Are you here for an upgrade?"
Updraft shook her head. She focused on his chevron—red, like Smokescreen's, and therefore comforting—and tried to call on more bravery. "No, officer. This is a personal visit, and I'm not in any danger."
"I was called by a very high caste, on the most direct emergency line," the Enforcer said. Updraft shivered, out to her wingtips. "You knew nothing about this."
"No, sir."
The Enforcer watched her, for a long moment, and she wondered how police figured out someone was lying. Then he turned to her carrier. Starscream's wings had drooped a fraction, not enough for a grounder to notice. It said everything to Updraft.
"I've just cross-referenced this young bot in the database," the officer said, still with that unruffled calm. "The documents sent to us to aid our investigation are out of date. This bot has her flight license—which, I understand, grants independence to Vosian mechs."
"Well," Starscream said, as he did some combination of shaking and shrugging. "It was a recent exam, you understand. I often forget she's grown now, anyway, fast as time blows by—"
Thundercracker's face made it clear that he had not, in fact, known his trine leader had lied to police. Skywarp would not even look at Updraft, but at least he had the good graces to seem ashamed of himself.
The Enforcer, to his credit, appeared undeterred by high-castes and their whims. Updraft wondered how success on this planet correlated to that quality. "I understand your concern," he said patiently. "We will investigate this further—but I'm obligated by the Iacon Metropolitan Area to inform you that without immediate danger to the affected, or hold, legal or familial, over another mech, we cannot pursue arrest. You will have to this case up with my superiors, and I'll be forced to inform them of your failure to provide documentation-"
"I am the Air Commander of Vos!" Starscream snapped. "Who are you, some beat cop?! I could ruin your life, and I'll do so with pleasure!"
Her comm crackled to life, and she forced herself not to look at Smokescreen when she read it. What a charmer.
"Starscream," Thundercracker said, his voice holding a warning edge. "We don't have jurisdiction in this hemisphere."
"And our connection's off-planet," Skywarp said, still looking at the wall. "Some Primal visit."
"Shut up, Skywarp," Starscream hissed.
Another comm, one Updraft barely read. 'No jurisdiction' means they haven't bribed enough people. They're gonna lose.
No one was going to win, but it was satisfying to see Starscream flounder under such gentle pressure. This Enforcer was a brave mech, not to cow to her carrier's every whim...but maybe Starscream was not as important as she had always thought.
Vos was not Cybertron, after all.
Knock Out straightened up then, the wheels on his back stiffening. "Ah...is there anything else you need from us, officer?" he asked. He was behaving, for his sparklet's sakes. For her sake.
"Your documents appear to be in order," the Enforcer said. "As does your conduct. There's no evidence that this femme is being coerced." Knock Out seemed relieved—but moreso than any law-abiding citizen would be. Still, no one who repaired street racers was fully in the embrace of the law. The officer ignored it.
"Will that be all?" he asked. There was a ruffle of impatience in his voice now.
"Yes," Updraft said, before Starscream could say anything. He opened his big mouth, naturally, but Thundercracker's hand rested firmly on his shoulder. He shook his head firmly, and Starscream's wings slumped. In a moment, before Updraft had even noticed him doing it, the officer had thrust out an official-looking datapad, a red warning flashing brightly on the screen. Updraft made a mental note of the officer's name, embossed above the notice. Maybe Prowl of Petrex could be trusted.
"Your caste prevents a court date, naturally," He said. Knock Out's face said all that needed to be about that. "But that should be paid promptly."
"But—"
Updraft swore she heard the charging of a blaster, and saw Knock Out tense. It cut off abruptly, and she could almost feel their collective alarm tense. Whose weapon had that been? The officer seemed undeterred. She had never thought of her family carrying blasters, but they were, technically, military.
There was a long, terse silence, but no blasters were pulled. No shots were fired. The Iacon explosion, for one second, roared in Updraft's head.
She was dazed, watching Thundercracker speak quietly and furiously with the Enforcer. Finally he left, the doors on his back pricked up in annoyance, and she thought Starscream would stamp his heel on the ground.
"Let's go," he said petulantly. Updraft looked at him, in the optics, and shook her head.
"I told you no," she said, her wings flicking as she said it. "Not with you. Maybe not ever."
"Don't be silly," Thundercracker said, a worried edge to his voice. "You're starting school soon."
Updraft vented in deeply. She didn't dare spare a glance Uppercut's way, or Smokescreen's, in case this turned on them.
"I'll just have to go to school somewhere else," she said.
It could have been something out of one of Starscream's books—the wealthy, determined heir giving up everything. Being distinctly un-Vosian, just as her sire once had. Updraft wasn't doing it for more money, or romance, or both, as those storybook mechs always did.
Well...maybe she was leaving for love. Just not the sort of love Starscream read about.
"You can't," Thundercracker said. His optics had gone bright, desperate. "Why would you want to?"
Updraft took another deep vent in. Then one back out, trying to force her spark calm. Starscream and Skywarp's wild eyes—wild, she guessed, for different reasons—were entirely too distracting.
"I can't live in Vos," she said. "You might be okay with navigating that world, but I—I'm not. And—him," she said, pointing at Starscream. Her carrier's jaw dropped, and she ignored it. "You of all people ought to understand. Him."
"You can come live with us," Thundercracker said immediately, as if Updraft hadn't dreamed of that for years and had never once gotten close. His wings had dipped as low as the joints would allow. "And soon you'll be in the dorms, and then you'll be educated! Independent! Why would you want to live here?"
"To be away from Vos," she said again, her voice wavering. How could anyone so entwined with Starscream expect to be independent? "And from him! I can't live that life. I'll build one from here."
"Your condition—" Thundercracker started. Updraft held out her hand, feeling Uppercut's gaze turn curious.
"—Is probably in remission," she said. "The upgrade probably took care of it, or was I the only one listening to the doctor?"
"This is what I get," Starscream snarled, "for fragging a wing traitor."
"Yeah," Updraft said, rounding on him. Her spark pounded again, now with purpose. "It is. I didn't ask to be your daughter."
"Updraft—" Thundercracker started, and she rounded on him.
"Don't you dare! These people were good to me, and you came here and made their lives hell for the day as payment!" She could feel her biolights and eyes flickering with her anger, and it seemed possible that she would be a flashing, angry mess for the rest of her life. Thundercracker sighed.
"Maybe your carrier overreacted," he said. He should have known that from the start, but it do her no good now to protest. "We were worried about you. We…we've almost lost you before."
Updraft had a short history of running off, and each time had ended in a disaster. Maybe she shouldn't blame Thundercracker for that (but it certainly wouldn't absolve him of anything else).
And where were Dreadwing and Skyquake? Her lifelong, consistent saviours and defenders were nowhere in sight, and had turned off their long distance comma.. It occurred to her that Starscream had the clout in Vos to take care of them, and she shuddered.
She wasn't a child now, though. She was a steely eyed, full-grown Seeker, and she would not take this.
"You're not losing me," she said finally. "See? I'm right here, and I'm fine. And before a half hour ago I probably would have come home."
Skywarp opened his mouth to say something then, but Updraft simply turning his way was enough to silence him.
"Don't throw your life away," Thundercracker said, more desperately. "Don't throw us away."
"I—" Updraft paused, confused. "I'm not throwing you away."
Behind Thundercracker, Starscream's optics still burned—though he was peering over top of an official-looking datapad. His fine, courtesy of the Iacon Metropolitan Area. It did give her a twinge of satisfaction to see it.
"Then what else are you doing?" Skywarp asked weakly. When Updraft looked at him sharply, he gave his head a shake. "I don't understand."
"I'm only…moving out," she said after a moment. "And I think it was a longer time coming than I guessed."
Atta girl, Smokescreen commed. She wished she could thank him without losing her focus—or crying uncontrollably.
Now she looked at Knock Out. He was rooted to the same spot, but his optics were blazing. He gave her a firm, tiny nod. But her sister spoke first.
"High-castes can live wherever they like," she said. Updraft saw Breakdown's optics go wide, in what must have been a caregiver's universal "stop that this instant" stare. "And my sister is welcome to stay."
"You're not good enough to be her servant," Thundercracker snapped, and Updraft's spark broke. (Who was this mech in front of her?)
"TC!" she snapped back, at the same moment as Skywarp. She didn't acknowledge that, or even try to look thankful. She remembered, years ago in Iacon, how Skywarp had laughed about the Taxonomy and assured Updraft they were superior.
Knock Out looked behind him sharply, Uppercut's way. Updraft willed her to be careful.
"Well," Updraft said, "if they'll have me, no one's my servant. They're family."
"We are your family!" Starscream burst out. He gestured, wildly, to his trine. "Spark isn't everything!"
"No," Updraft shot back. "It's not, carrier."
That surprised him into silence. Skywarp opened his mouth, held it, but closed in the next moment. Fine. If he didn't have the bolts to stick up for her, she'd stick up for herself.
"I'm not going, Thundercracker." He might not be her family by spark, but Updraft knew who had raised her. She didn't so much as glance at Starscream. "I'll figure things out. Just trust me—"
"I can't!" Thundercracker's hands gripped her shoulders. His fingers had always been sharpened—but they had never scraped her paint. "I can't let you ruin your life. Okay? I love you too much to stand by and let you do this."
Skywarp stiffened. So did Updraft, and she looked away.
"Let me go."
He did, after a few seconds. Smokescreen's engine hummed—he looked ready to throw a punch. Thundercracker took a step back, his wingtips quivering. Behind him, Starscream's furious silence and Skywarp's despair mingled, choking the air in that small room.
Thundercracker opened his mouth once, twice. Each time he paused, and Updraft's spark thrummed desperately. The thrill of speaking her mind and the surge of protectiveness for her sire, for everything he'd worked for, was drowned out by this knife-edged, so very Vosian anger. Finally, he sighed.
"If you no longer want to be a Vosian," he said quietly, "then you won't be. But let me tell you, Updraft, that you're going to lose everything."
"Thundercracker—"
"Shut up, Skywarp." Thundercracker's voice was hard and grieving, all at once. Starscream's brows had shot up on his face. Skywarp's wings twitched. "We can't—associate, with the lower castes. With you, if you stay."
He was bluffing, surely. Trying to get her to let fear take over and back down.
He had learned to put her before Starscream. Hadn't he?
Starscream puffed up. "That'll be it, then." Starscream was an expert at hiding his emotions, as Seekers went, but Updraft saw his wings quiver, too. But of course, because how much money had he just sunk into her new frame, into tears of her education?
Updraft faced them, and waited for Skywarp to say something. The room, full of people, suddenly seemed too empty to stand. After a moment, she tipped her chin up, and prayed she looked proud.
"Then that's it," she said. "I'm not going back."
Thundercracker's optics went wide for half a second. Despairing, just like Skywarp's. Starscream's plating ruffled, as if he hadn't believed she'd really say no. Maybe he should have been paying better attention.
Still, in a moment he was the icy Air Commander. Now it was clear in his optics why Vosians bent to his will. Thundercracker slumped.
"Waste of time," Starscream said icily. "Worthless, fragging Enforcers. And you! A true waste of my life. My spark should have-"
"Starscream," Thundercracker said wearily. "Let's go, so you can pay your damn fine."
She wondered if Knock Out's parents had acted like he was dead when he left them. Or if he'd had other friends that he'd trust. Who he'd thought would understand.
Skywarp would no longer look her way. His wings drooped as far as they could go, but Thundercracker turned him around with a firm hand. She watched Skywarp's mouth open, then close, having not said anything in her defence, and Starscream stalk past Breakdown and out the mangled doorframe.
They all stood there a moment.
"Wow," Smokescreen said finally. Breakdown's optics flashed towards him.
"You're paying for that," he said, jerking his thumb towards the door. It had an impressive, Smokescreen-shaped hole through both the door and its frame.
"Yeah," Smokescreen said, without argument. That would have surprised her, on a better day. Smokescreen did like to ruffle plating. "Yeah, I've got it."
"Starscream should pay," Uppercut said harshly. "Smokey was just trying to help."
"Well, he won't," Smokescreen said grimly. Their voices sounded far away, fading off on the wings of her leaving Seekers. She shuddered, enough that Smokescreen turned to her in surprise.
"You okay?" he asked, gently. He sounded far away, too, and Updraft turned to the wall.
"What a stupid question," Breakdown said. Updraft's step stumbled, and in a moment Knock Out had reached out to steady her, too.
"Your biolights look pale," he said. "Sit down, I'll get some energon and—"
"I'm fine," she spat. She would have felt guilty pushing him back, if not for the ache threatening to snuff out her very spark. Before coolant could threaten to prickle her optics, or her biolights could dim any darker, she pushed past Uppercut's frame, up the rickety staircase to the next floor. Windjammer's voice was behind her now, too, rough with anger, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. His family would surely fill him in on the incident.
Updraft dropped down onto the roof, and sobbed.
Knock Out had had an idea of where he would find Updraft. To be fair, she couldn't go far in their building, and he hadn't heard the telltale sound of her thrusters taking off. Primus willing, she was still here, and they could talk.
Uppercut pointed, silently, to the roof, so Knock Out climbed up the narrow stairwell outside. Updraft had broken the window lock to reach it. He could fix it easily, and perhaps it would be best not to point it out. There would be no use piling on more guilt.
She had tucked herself into one corner behind the solvent tank, face turned up towards the stars. Knock Out was no longer a Seeker, but out of habit and coding he still found himself looking that way, too. Sometimes it helped.
He sat himself down gingerly next to her, mindful of the rough roofing metal against his finish. Updraft's wings were pulled in as close as she could get them, her arms around her knees. Her optics were dimmed low, but her biolights shone too bright.
"It's cold up here," Knock Out said gently. "Frost does form on our frames, you know. Not an urban legend."
"I'm fine," she said. Her voice was hard, with the edge of a growl. Covering her grief with anger. Knock Out had been there.
"You're welcome to stay as long as you like, you know," he said after a moment. "Until you've decided what you'd like to do, and after that."
Somehow, Updraft managed to curl herself smaller. "I want to go home," she said, her voice smaller. "I don't…it was stupid of me to come here. I threw everything away."
She was parroting who had raised her, of course. Perfectly natural, and it only pained Knock Out a little to hear it. It wasn't as if they didn't enjoy each other's company—even if Updraft hadn't been his (and, admittedly, that meant the most) he could have seen her as a favoured customer. Young, rich, in need of guidance…and not particularly fussed about caste. Surely that worthless trine hadn't taught her those values.
"No sparklet should face blame for wanting to meet their sire," Knock Out said. "Especially when they were such a secret."
He longed to put an arm around her shoulders—she was the only one if his children small enough to pull close—but spooking her into really flying off wasn't what he wanted. The rest of Rodion was not so safe as Knock Out's shop.
Updraft looked anguished. "I thought Skywarp and Thundercracker would understand," she said. Her voice had softened, and now it wobbled. "They…they know. They know how hard it was."
The anger rolled in again, from deep within Knock Out's spark and over the rest of his internals. Nothing should ever have been hard for a child of Knock Out's. He had planned for he and Breakdown to suffer enough for any of his children. Starscream didn't deserve what he'd been given.
"It's already quite a maze to navigate, growing up in Vos," Knock Out mused. "I can't imagine it multiplied by a factor of Starscream. I didn't finish my math requirements, you see, leaving Vos so young."
Updraft smiled faintly, and Knock Out considered it a victory. She turned her head upwards again, squinting those lovely red optics. (Just like Uppercut's—how funny, when Primus worked things out that way.)
"It's hard to see the stars here," she said. "Dust season just ended in Vos, so the skies were clear again."
Knock Out nodded. "It's the factories," he said. "The skies of the Vosian Heights are artificially cleared, you know, so bots can enjoy the view. The chemicals to do it are no better than what belches out of those smokestacks."
"It's artificially filtered, though," Updraft said. "When I was in Lower Vos I couldn't vent at all."
Lower Vos—Knock Out tried not to stare at her. Starscream and his pampered trine would never have allowed her down there. His daughter must have seen his face, and grinned.
"I ran away once," she said, optics all mischief. "Starscream had stopped letting his trine come by, so I decided I would shuttle across town. I got lost."
Knock Out's optics went wide. "Lost? You could have been killed!" he said, more sternly than he expected. "It seems like you've always been exploring, at any rate. No wonder you found your way to us."
Updraft's smile turned shy. Her wings had tipped upwards again, just a fraction. "It never bothered me that I didn't have a sire, not until I started dealing with Vos. The real Vos, with society and expectations." Her wings dipped again. "I hated it. But I was still going to go back."
An outside observer would have seen Updraft's earlier fire, and been certain she'd been waiting for her moment of escape. She had been, but Knock Out could see that she hadn't yet realized it. Better that she had realized it herself than have it pushed upon her, the way Knock Out had suffered.
His daughter looked at him again. "I guess this is that talk we were gonna have," she said finally. "It's not really going the way I thought."
"No," Knock Out agreed. "Not quite."
After a long moment, he decided to rest his hand over Updraft's nearest one. She flinched, and Knock Out almost pulled back, but he felt her fingers curl around his a moment later.
"Thanks," she said quietly. "For the place to stay."
Knock Out smiled. He got another good look at her lovely face, and those wide optics. The doctor who had built her had done a fine job. He doubted he cod gave done better.
"How good it is to know you," he said finally, and meant it. "I wish the circumstances were better, but I mean that. I'm pleased to have you with me."
Updraft smiled too. Knock Out looked up, trying to pick out constellations through the bluish smog.
Eventually his daughter eased herself up with a quiet "goodnight," stretching her wings, but Knock Out waited until she would be safely downstairs to follow.
Windjammer could rewrite their budget, with a fifth mech in the house. They would manage, like they always did, and soon that fifth mech would fit in easily. Updraft had that vital flicker of determination. The very same one that had gotten Knock Out out of the city of clouds, and certainly not learned. If she had learned anything from Vos, it was how to sit and do as she was told.
Clearly the lesson hadn't stuck, and thank Primus it hadn't.
And that was Knock Out's fault, for finding anything attractive about her carrier to begin with. If he had carried her…
…well, things would be different. It did no one any good to dwell on what could have been, especially when what could have been could very well have been Updraft hungry, or sick, clinging to his leg in worry while he tried to count out the rent.
Breakdown had narrowed his optics at a datapad, taking up the whole berth where he sprawled. A charming sight, if one didn't want a space to recharge. He moved aside only slightly, enough for Knock Out to ease himself in under his arm.
"A little light reading?" Knock Out murmured. Breakdown grinned.
"It's Towards Peace," he said. "Megatronus's book. Not quite on my reading level, to be honest. How's the kid?"
"Going to bed," Knock Out said. He had shuttered his optics. "She'll be subdued at first, I think. Be kind."
Breakdown lowered his book. "Like I'd be anything else?" When Knock Out cracked one optic open, Breakdown stared, then sighed. "Gotta keep your guard up, doc, that's all. But she seems okay."
"Who knew you'd be so right about Starscream?" Knock Out mused, shutting his optic again. "Actually... scratch that. I should have known, too. Poor sparklet."
Breakdown hmmphed, picking his datapad back up. His free hand stroked lazily at Knock Out's shoulder, familiar and comforting. "She would've just been sired by someone else, if that mech's so careless. Guess it's better she's here with you, than have some deadbeat waiting. And your girl's got no shortage of those."
"Be kind to her," Knock Out murmured, again. "You're from a different world, you know. She needs to adapt."
Breakdown snorted, but squeezed Knock Out's shoulder in the same moment. "She'd better do it fast. She's not street smart yet, not like ours."
"She'll learn. I did." The hard way, with a fresh alt mode to learn the ins and outs of and no shanix to his name. Any bot of his spark would have a better go of it than he had—not that there had been many other directions to go in than up.
"My girl does like her," Breakdown said after a moment. "So there's that."
"Mm. The ones you carry are the ones that tug at your spark," Knock Out mused. Warm and comfortable, despite their awful evening, he was beginning to drift off. "Unless you're Starscream, apparently."
Or his own carrier, a mech Knock Out normally refused to think about.
"Early morning tomorrow," Breakdown said, as if they weren't always. Knock Out heard him put his book aside. "I boarded up the door. Smokescreen left shanix."
That was a good young mech, too. More money than he knew what to do with, but a good spark. He would be good for Updraft, too, if their history meant anything.
He recharged poorly, and sometime in the night Knock Out found himself awake again. A short trip down the hall (leaving Breakdown snoring peacefully), and he found himself in the doorway of Uppercut's room. Updraft had curled herself against the wall, wings dipped low, but her vents were restful. Two large, red optics glowed out at him from the cot.
"Go to sleep," Knock Out murmured. Uppercut's optics went brighter.
"I can't," she whispered. "I'm too excited."
"It's not so exciting for Updraft," he said, though there was a smile in his voice. "Be kind. She has a hard road ahead." Or flight path. Whatever she'd want to call it.
"Don't worry," Uppercut said. He heard the sound of her shifting on her cot." I have a good feeling. We'll be okay."
Hard to believe, after the events of the day. Knock Out would have to trust in that.