It's been a long time, and I'm really sorry for such a long wait! I do hope, though, that there are people who still read and, perhaps, enjoy this story. :)
XI.
Blaster was waiting for him on the other side of the ground bridge.
Soundwave knew immediately he should have prepared himself for the onslaught of sensations; it still struck him like a strong wind when he stepped out on the Iaconian station. Iacon was Cybertron's capital, the planet's largest city state, its area covered the entire north pole - it had two colossal bridge nexuses, the one Soundwave used was on the eastern side of the metropolis. The air should have been cool, just like in Kaon, but it was much warmer with all the robots standing and moving around him, filling it with voices, smells of metal, energon and neural patterns swirling all over the gigantic station like an invisible tornado.
Blaster was the brightest among the light spots of the transformers' EM fields. Soundwave hurried over to him, pushing away most of the robots in the way and when he finally reached him and grabbed his arm, he tried to concentrate solely on him and use the strength of the other dual-spark's electromagnetic field to cover himself from the crowd's collective and individual voices.
He heard a quiet chuckle and felt a small pat on his hand, "Glad to see ya, too, but you're starting to bend."
Soundwave turned to Blaster and let go of his arm, "I apologize." a deeper, electronic tone of his voice met his audios, he hadn't noticed when his facemask snapped into place. He had been wearing his visor from when he stepped out of the arena, it always helped him focus. Now Blaster took hold of his arm, much more gently than he had, and started leading him outside the station.
"It's the crowd, huh?" he asked with an understanding look, "Do you have a headache? Dizzy?"
"Headache." Soundwave replied, but at least it was slowly fading as he managed to shut out all the other voices.
"Concentrate on me." Blaster told him and expanded his EM field, he pulled Soundwave closer as if to shield him. The telepath relaxed when he felt things return under control as they got further from the core of the crowd. Not even in the arena had so many robots gathered, that Soundwave could deal with, but this was sudden, he had been sunken too deep in his thoughts to realize what was awaiting him and ready himself.
"Better?" the journalist asked him with a smile.
Soundwave gave a curt nod, "Much." he retracted his mask, "Thank you."
"You're handling it really well." the other dual-spark grinned, "My sister still freaks out in crowds, and she had a specialist helping her. It's amazing you learnt so much control on your own."
That piqued his interest, and intent on distracting his attention, Soundwave asked, "How long did it take your creators to... realize she was a telepath?"
Blaster frowned slightly, "When she was about... a mega-cycle old. She was always crying except when she was alone. Even when only carrier was there, she was restless. Hardly recharged. They brought her to a clinic, docs scanned her systems and discovered strange neural connections in her central processor. A specialist came who had worked with dual-sparks before and he figured it out. He helped her calm down and get her abilities under control, he helped us handle her, too. She fits in quite normally now, has a job, creations and all."
Soundwave listened, feeling the throbbing in his cranial unit get dimmer and his curiosity stronger. He never talked to another dual-spark before meeting Blaster, let alone to another telepath. Blaster was close enough; he knew about the things Soundwave had to deal with, and though he had never experienced such a thing himself, he handled these situations with understanding that Soundwave had only received from his creations before. He didn't have to explain himself, didn't feel awkward - Blaster knew everything and just did what he had to.
Like distracting his attention with talking.
The young gladiator took a deep vent and let his optics wander over the tall, golden towers that were the first thing he saw of Iacon. The Celestial Spires, he remembered from all the holovids he saw of the capital, a wide road led into the city with the Spires as the first stop. To the east, where the borders of the city state ended, the mighty range of the Torus Heights rose to the heavens. The closest mountain to Iacon was the K'th Kinsere, and Soundwave knew there was, somewhere on the mountain, a huge station responsible for environmental stabilization, much like the one near Kaon. The Polar States were still cooler than the average temperature, but the stations - a simpler version of those that were used in cyberformation of alien planets - made sure the northern and southern polar areas did not freeze back up.
"Have you ever been to Iacon?" Soundwave heard Blaster ask cheerfully.
"Just virtually."
"It's buzzing for sure. But I know a quiet bar in Port Residua, a little driving away. And... well, my creations said they would like to meet you. If that's okay with you?"
Soundwave turned to meet the other's sparkling blue optics, thinking about whether he would be ready to do the same - if his creations would want to meet him at all after their argument with Rumble. He quickly stopped himself before his thoughts could have turned fully back to those agonizing moments.
"I would be glad to meet them."
He saw Blaster's grin before he transformed and Soundwave followed suit. He soon felt his internal comm. click to life with Blaster's voice, "And, ah, what about you? From what you told me, you never met a telepath... could you at least talk to a specialist?"
The question was careful, Soundwave could feel the other's hesitation and, at the same time, the longing to connect with somebody who had similar experiences - something that Soundwave wanted to as well. Blaster was safe.
"My creators were... different. They hardly knew anything about dual-sparks. This mutation has never occurred in the family's sparkline before." Soundwave started, "They didn't know how to handle me. I was also calm only when I was alone, and thus they left me alone most of the time. When I started asking them questions about... why they said something when they hadn't even spoken, or when I asked them why there were red and yellow clouds floating around them... that was when they had enough and brought me to a psychiatrist."
Soundwave stopped for a while. His memories were a bit dimmer than he would have liked about that period of his life, but in all honesty, it was a blur. Silence greeted him from the other end of the line, waiting for him to say as much more as he liked.
"He diagnosed me with synesthesia. When I told him that I can... hear the color of his feelings... I was just a youngling, and it was logical for him to think that. I saw it all in his mind. I told him about all the voices I hear and he told my creators to give me sedative nanites to dampen my receptors."
He felt a frightened wave from Blaster, "Your creators drugged you...?"
"No, they didn't." Soundwave replied, "They couldn't do it. But since I couldn't function properly among other robots, I was educated at home. The teacher was the first to realize I was a telepath. He helped me from then as much as he could. Enough that I wouldn't go crazy from all the voices. By the time I received my degree, I was able to work with other robots."
After a moment's pause, taking in the scenery of Iacon's landscape with his lateral and anterior optical sensors, he continued sending the words to the other dual-spark, "The sensitivity of my sensors are high, I can compute data at a much faster rate than normal robots. I taught myself how to apply neural shunts and then... the DataNet and the InfoCore became a second home to me."
"Yeah, that's familiar." he heard Blaster grin, "I'm also doing the shunts, though I guess you had much better equipment at the Core. Glad to hear ya weren't all alone."
"I... was." Blaster went silent at that, both surprised that Soundwave was willing to open up still and slightly anxious for what was to come, "After my creators were deactivated, I moved to a small apartment. Not long after that, my spark split for the first time. I gathered information on carrying and sparkling nurturance from DataNet sources. When the emergence started, my neighbour called ambulance for me. She stayed with me and helped a little until she moved away. I was all by myself with Ravage. I learnt not to depend on anybody, but had a little creature depending on me and that... helped focus. Then the twins came and Laserbeak and I got used to having to solve everything on my own. I always had a purpose before me, to ensure their wellbeing, I had to stay in control. And now you help, too."
"I help?"
"By sharing experiencing. With your knowledge about what we feel. By having such a strong field."
Blaster finally laughed, "That's not intentional."
"It is a part of you."
"Well..." Soundwave could feel Blaster's appreciation, "We have reached the level where you talk more than me. Should I start to worry?"
Soundwave sent him a slight mental push to which Blaster just chuckled. The reporter was humming a tune that Soundwave didn't recognize - he made a mental note to ask him what it was - before they transformed a few klicks later. They were just at the southmost district of Iacon, Soundwave immediately found the head of the wide and robust Interstate Bridge that led to Rodion. Advertisements flashed on the sides of the buildings that seemed much more rounded and shorter in height, standing more sparse than what could be seen of Iacon's inner districts. Soundwave took a klick to detect all radio frequencies that were used in the capital and memorized them each.
"There are exactly eight hundred and fifty-six encrypted frequencies between 150 and 3,6e+4 glixes." he said quietly, earning a wide-opticed stare from Blaster.
"Mech, you're good." then it turned into a smirk, "Next time, wanna go to my place and decode them?"
Soundwave rolled his optics in amusement when he saw the other wink and he looked up. The bar wasn't much larger than the Jump Joint in Kaon and didn't seem to have more traffic either. It did appear to be flashier, though; something that would satisfy Blaster's tastes.
A pair of mini-con twins waved to them from one of the tables and a mechanoid head rose above the seat. The blue and black mechs got up and were followed by two mechanoids, a heavy-built one and the lighter, more agile canine whom Soundwave saw the first time. Smiles on their faces and happy waves in their fields they walked up to them and Soundwave bent down on one knee to greet them.
"Hy!" the blue twin squeezed his hand with a huge grin that reminded Soundwave of the other dual-spark standing behind him, "I'm Eject, nice to meet you."
"Soundwave. Nice to meet you, too."
The other mini-mech tilted his head to the side, "Southern Stanisian accent, around the Scyk District." he raised up his hand, his smile much more subtle than his brother's, "I'm Rewind. I'm glad to meet you."
"He's a linguist." Blaster said, putting his hands on his hips, "He will analyze everyone he gets in his clutch."
"I see." Soundwave said with the tiniest mischievous glint in his optics, "But is your analysis correct?"
Rewind's small blue optics widened, "East Centurion, this side of the Carburisian Mountains." he marvelled, "I didn't think you can manipulate your accent so well."
"Now before you steal the show," the canine stepped forward and put a paw in Soundwave's greeting hand, "I'm Steeljaw, good to finally see you for ourselves."
"The pleasure is mine."
"Ramhorn." came forth the last of Blaster's creations. His voice and stance was rough, more serious than his older siblings, "Take care of each other, okay?"
"Understood." Soundwave nodded and stood up. He noted the tiny brightening in the latter two's EM fields; mechanoids were still considered inferior in many states, even those with enhanced processing capabilities. They weren't even part of the caste system and it was rare if someone employed them, usually as data couriers or bodyguards - as was the case with Steeljaw and Ramhorn. Very few 'bots approached them as equal and they appreciated Soundwave's respectful tone.
"My eldest, Flipsides couldn't come today." Blaster said as the four creations started to lead the way back to their table, "She's on the field now, having some digging done."
Sundwave gave a nod and leant a bit closer to the other dual-spark, he whispered, "The color of their faceplates... your creators had this color?"
Blaster ran his optics along the dark yellow faceplates of his twins and grinned sheepishly, "No, I have it. I jus'... like silver better, so I paint my face." they sat down and Blaster looked around them, "So, who wants what?"
After each of his creations listed what they wanted to drink, Blaster finally turned to Soundwave, still beaming, "And you, my mech?"
"I will order for myself, thank you."
Blaster's smile was gone and he sighed, "You know it's not a problem—"
Soundwave raised a hand to stop him, "Please." then, after a slight hesitation, he added, "There are... other ways you can patronize—"
"Soundwave!" Steeljaw spoke up, "How's life at the rings?"
"Yes," Rewind joined with sparkling optics, "I would be really interested in that subculture—"
"Guys!" Blaster hissed to them as he stood up to order their drinks, "Don't overwhelm him, okay?"
Before he left the table, he cast a long look at Soundwave, silently sending him that they would talk about the statement he never got to finish. Soundwave responded with a faint nod before turning back to the other's creations. While they talked, Soundwave gently brushed each of their minds for basic information; it turned out they weren't much older than his own, in fact, Ramhorn was even younger than Laserbeak. Ravage and Laserbeak had also been employed before as data carriers, just like Steeljaw now, but the twins were much more interested in history - Rewind worked as an archivist and paleolinguist at the nearby Kimia Facility while Eject was an archeologist of the Altihexian Central Museum and both studied at their home state's Drouhard University, just like Blaster. Interesting, Soundwave thought, how he and his twins were more on the mechanical side with Rumble in mechatronics and Frenzy in informatics...
The next Cycle would have been their last for their major degrees that they could never get now. Blaster's creations all had a chance to finish school, had jobs, a steady life. Upon the surface of their minds they appeared to be carefree and satisfied, they had everything they could ask for. Soundwave couldn't deny he felt a twinge of envy - he wanted to provide the same quality of life for his own creations, and he felt again, like numerous times during the past mega-cycles, that he had failed. With Frenzy's condition worsening, all he could do was escape imprisonment and the mnemosurgical altering he was sentenced to; he couldn't keep them schooled, lost their home, everything...
"Hey, my mech," Soundwave looked up at hearing Blaster's voice, "you're brooding. Everything's alright?"
"Yes." he nodded and took a sip from his energon. Mid-grade hinted with a bit of carbide - Blaster managed to talk him on to this one.
"Excuse me, buddies." Eject spoke up with a grin, his optics were glued to the entrance of the bar behind Soundwave as he stood up, "I'll be back in a klick."
Soundwave looked after him and saw another mech, a standard-height, sleek, agile grounder whose EM field flared up upon seeing the blue twin and he lowered himself to one knee as Eject sneaked a hand around his head to pull him into a kiss. Pure surprise ran along Soundwave's processor before he heard Steeljaw chuckle lightly and turned back to see Blaster shake his head with a smirk.
"Yeah..." he said, "That's Blueshift... Velocitronian. A physicist obsessed with acceleration. For the sake of variety, y'know."
"He and Eject met at the Torus Games." Rewind continued, "Blueshift wants to ask him to be Endurae."
Blaster's optical ridges shot up at the statement, "Really?" seeing that none of his creations were surprised, he asked, "And why exactly am I the last one to hear about it?"
"You're just his creator," Steeljaw smirked, "not his brother."
"Well, then, it's about time."
Soundwave could feel the amusement and pride in Blaster's words. He lowered his head and fixed his optics on the energon before him. Blaster seemingly didn't have any problems with letting one of his sons be in a relationship. He was so much more carefree with them, and they felt so... free. Soundwave thought back to their argument with Rumble just before he left for Iacon.
Maybe he was really overreacting? He had to admit to himself that it wasn't just the spark merge that unnerved him, but the thought of sharing Rumble with someone else. The problem wasn't with Crasher, she was a robot Soundwave respected for her strength and loyalty - it was not having his creation near him all the time, knowing he might choose to stay with the other, that he might not return.
He was overreacting. They were young adults now, but Soundwave was used to having to handle everything on his own - he wanted them close because then he could keep their lives under control. However, life had proven that he failed in keeping them safe. They could manage on their own, and that was what he perhaps refused to see. He wanted to regulate their lives too much. Take care of them too much.
"You're doing it again." a hand rested on his shoulder plate and squeezed slightly, Blaster was looking at him with a bemused expression, "Is that energon so bad you're tryin' to curse it?"
"Blaster..." Soundwave shook his head, failing to drown a smile. The journalist's hand travelled down to his elbow joint and a grin spread on his lips.
"Well, if you continue like this I'm buying ya some fine mood whiplash. You won't be driving for a deca-cycle."
Soundwave denied the offer and watched as Eject and Blueshift hurried to the dance floor to join the other robots when a heavier, rhythmic song began to play. He noticed a slight peak of worry in Blaster's mind that also shone through his optics, but he reassured him that everything was alright and he sincerely wanted it to be that way; to forget about his troubles and enjoy the time he could spend for himself.
"You mentioned something." Blaster spoke as they stood a bit further from the ground bridges where the crowd was still sparse, "About... patronizing. What was that exactly?"
"I don't know if I should ask this much from you." the other dual-spark replied, "There is a system I myself just recently discovered. A robot outside the arena can... patronize a chosen gladiator."
"Financially?" Blaster asked quietly, brushing a hand to his chin, "That was why you kept drifting away at the bar?"
"Partly." Soundwave replied, "I understand if you refuse—"
"Hey, hey," Blaster got hold of his arm, "I never said anything about refusing. I just have to think about it 's all. I want to help ya."
Soundwave nodded in gratitude, a small smile found its way onto his face. Blaster returned it with a much brighter one, his whole expression lighting up, almost pumping out emotions. Their EM fields met and Blaster grabbed his elbow gently, "Come, your bridge is activating."
He escorted the other to the gate and bid farewell with the promise of a next meeting. Kaon's familiar cool and heavy air greeted Soundwave on the other side of the ground bridge, the distant smell of factory fumes filled his olfactories. He transformed, feeling literally refreshed for the moment of being home. He didn't want to think about anything until he reached the arena.
He transformed back to robot mode when he arrived at the outskirts of the city state before the massive gate of the arena. He entered and turned towards the block where the gladiators' quarters were to see Megatron and another mech just breaking out of an embrace. The mech was almost as tall as Megatron but less robust, he sported blue and red colors and his frame was plain. He smiled, blue optics shining when he noticed Soundwave and stepped forward to greet him.
Introducing himself as Orion Pax, he gave Soundwave's hand a friendly squeeze before he drove out of the arena. Soundwave turned back to Megatron, feeling the content waves coming from him.
"Soundwave," they began walking back to their quarters, "have you accomplished what you wanted?"
"Not yet. I would like to get an acquaintance of mine to... be my patron."
Megatron hummed, "I see. I wish good luck to you. I am fortunate to have Orion as mine." he took a moment before he continued, "We first met when I arrived at the arena. I had been wandering for mega-cycles before that, since everyone believed that no one survived the collapse at the mine below the Nova Point. Orion worked as a cultural investigator back then. He taught me to read and brought me datapads. Novels, historical articles, war stories, anything I asked from him. And I could finally write down all the things that before I could only store in my memory banks."
Soundwave listened curiously. He knew Megatron hadn't told him everything - the gladiator came a long way before he ended up in Kaon -, but he was patient. He liked to listen to Megatron telling him about his life, about what had inspired him because that also strengthened his view and faith in what they had to do. He was glad the older gladiator confided in him.
"Another mech had come to us while you were away." Megatron spoke again, "We moved him to one of the new quarters."
"How far along are Scrapper and his team in building the underground quarters?"
"They are quickening the pace now that more and more robots are coming, thanks to your broadcast." Megatron tilted his head to the side, the corner of his lips moved upward in amusement, "Hydrau calls it "kolkular"."
Soundwave raised his optics to meet Megatron's, "He's from Burthov. In their dialect, that means refuge."
"Appropriate." Megatron nodded, "I am satisfied so far. I would like you to come to the hall, enter our new inhabitants' informations into the computer. Onslaught and I will decide which of them are capable of fight."
"At once." Soundwave replied quietly. And after that, he had one more thing to deal with...
Rumble was sitting on the ledge outside the window, knees hugged to his chest, optics staring out to the wilderness of the Glacier Zone. They had talked a bit with his siblings after Soundwave left and he managed to calm down by then. Now the aftermath of their argument was not the boiling inferno, but rather a dark, heavy presence engulfing his spark. He knew Soundwave would come home soon and he didn't want to meet him just yet; he expected to be glared daggers at, cold, silently angry waves and reprimanding tone...
He did not expect his creator to climb out of the window and sit down next to him.
Soundwave didn't return Rumble's surprised glance, he ran his optics over the landscape before them. Their view beheld just the border of the city state of Kaon. On the other side would be the factories - but their window looked out to the virgin land, the cold desert where the only natives were species of nanite-like extremophilic microorganisms. Soundwave took a deep vent from the cool air, more biting now as evening was falling over the area, and opened his mouth to talk, but Rumble beat him to it;
"I... want to apologize for my behavior." he mumbled and looked away, "'m sorry I... lashed out on you."
Soundwave watched him and brushed his EM field to Rumble's gently, "I owe an apology as well. I shouldn't have humiliated you like that." after a moment's pause, he continued, "Forgive me for being overprotective. You should have deserved... much better."
Now it was Rumble's turn to heave a great sigh, "Creator, we're through that. It wasn't your fault that we had to leave."
"You were right. Perhaps if I hadn't tried to take care of you so fitfully you wouldn't feel chained. You wouldn't have run into reckless things. A spark merge is not something to play with. You need to understand the risk and responsibility of such an affair."
Rumble lowered his head with a frown, "It really wasn't on purpose. You know I interfaced before, it never happened."
"Why do you think it happened now?"
Rumble shook his head slowly, "There was this... this huge charge and... everything was white and the next moment I felt something hot burst in my spark. Pictures started to flash in my processor... Crash's memories, I think... white again and it was over." the mini-mech shrugged, "I can't explain it. Never felt this before. But it was... awesome. The best thing I ever felt."
Rumble raised a hand hesitantly to his chest plates and looked up at his creator with big, bright optics, "My spark still feels a bit funny though. Warm and fluttering."
Soundwave refused the urge to bite his lower lip component. He knew the feeling all too well, "It may be a sparklet. It can result in both partners during a merge from the excess energy and CNA-transfer. Without a protoform it will dissipate in a cycle or two."
He could see Rumble tense up at the word sparklet, but his frame relaxed when Soundwave told him it would go away when it wasn't him carrying a protoform. It was perhaps enough that only Soundwave couldn't fully relax; after all, a viable protoform required both a protomass from the transmetal fluid and a newspark from a merge. Rumble, as the one who spiked, would only have a sparklet, but his systems wouldn't register the presence of transmetal in his gestational chamber. With Crasher, however...
Soundwave needed to talk to her. But for now, he did his best to swallow his anxiety and opened his sub-space.
"Blaster showed me a kind of engex that I've never seen before." he held up two medium-sized cubes and watched in amusement as Rumble's optics grew enormous in shock, "Do you want to test it with me?"
"Slag, yeah!"
That was the first time Soundwave got overcharged with his son. The first time in stellar cycles that he laughed freely, and, for the moment, felt free as well. Rumble's smaller frame was almost buried into his as they swallowed the last sips of their engex. They were giving names to the stars above Cybertron and were making up stories about them - Rumble started onto a new story when during a sip he started laughing so hard he managed to spit it all out. They both thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.
When Hoist called him down, Ratchet seriously considered telling him to shove his request up as much as he could. Only the magic word "Wheelie" made him rise and eventually go to meet the medical engineer.
He had just bridged back from the Central Infirmary in Iacon. They called him in for a surgery - a perforated energon converter, a routine procedure that the Infirmary's worst surgeon could have easily dealt with, but the rich afthole wanted him to operate. Ratchet snorted as he walked out to the elevator and did his best to drown away his irritation. He had real patients to attend to.
Hoist was calling him from the pediatric care unit and although Ratchet didn't like to leave his office empty - First Aid was away at the traumatology department - the fate of the sparkling that homeless mech gave up to him was still one of his weak spots. Two floors below he got out and found his colleague at the unit, he was holding the tiny mechling to his chassis in an isolated room and was trying to soothe him.
Wheelie's systems, after a mega-cycle's intensive treatment, had been completely cleared of the Corrodia Gravis. He had been fed properly and received all the nutrition his body lacked - he would always remain small, but physically, he was developing quite well and he was ready to be released from the medical facility. However, so far no one had come to adopt the mechling. Another problem was that it was still early for him to be separated from his creators, he would have needed the field of his carrier's spark for a few more mega-cycles to regulate his and gain a stable magnetic field.
He would survive without it now, but emotionally, without his creators the sparkling was a wreck - Wheelie was always crying whenever he was awake, nothing would calm him down, no matter what the doctors and nurses did. He refused to eat now that he had the strength to refuse and one time even his vocalizer glitched from the forced crying, he was in constant danger of overheating. He needed a stable family, someone he could bond with.
Ratchet felt his spark stiffen in his chest at the sight of the screaming, restless sparkling in Hoist's hands. The other was murmuring some soothing nonsense to Wheelie and looked up in concern when he saw Ratchet approach them.
"It's still not better." he said quietly. Ratchet touched two digits to the sparkling's back, feeling the tremors shake the small frame.
"I thought you're at the radiology now."
Hoist shook his head, his voice never went above the quiet, low volume, "I've been coming here for a while. This little guy's growing on me. I've been thinking about..."
Ratchet raised an optical ridge, "About...?"
"Adopting him. I mean, not adopting, but... taking him home, temporarily, until we can find a family that will adopt him. He can't stay here all the time, he needs attention—"
"Hoist, stop." Ratchet raised up a hand, his voice gained a stricter tone, "Think about it. You work ten joors a cycle, nine cycles in a deca. Wheelie needs a stable caretaker who can constantly be with him. How do you want to do that? Bring him in while you work? While your fixing robots? I know you mean well, but you're busy enough without a mentally unstable sparkling, and you can't afford to be on leave now."
"My brother is working from home." Hoist looked back down on Wheelie and stroked circles on his back. The sparkling ceased his squirming, but was still crying, "I already talked to him, he's perfectly okay with the idea. I could be Wheelie's legal guardian, we have everything to provide for a sparkling. And I told you, it's just temporary. Ratchet, you can see that he won't get better here."
Ratchet pinched the bridge of his nasal plate, "You have already decided, haven't you? Why did you need me then to come here?"
"I need your opinion. I need you to give your okay."
The older medic let his hand linger on the quietly whimpering Wheelie's head and stroked it with tender digits, "It's not me who needs to say okay. Legal guardianship can get really complicated."
"Medically, do you think I could take him home?"
"Medically," Ratchet pressed on the word, "he's ready to go, and I don't find any objection against you taking him home, if there really is someone there with him all cycle long. But you have to prove it lawfully. And anyway, it's our esteemed director who will give the all clear."
Ratchet shook his head. Just the previous cycle he got into another argument with the Deltaran's director over some rich mech. The complaint was that Ratchet released him sooner than the mech wanted - he was an experienced medic, he could tell where and how much a patient hurt. That overgrown sparkling with the dislocated shoulder joint didn't receive anything more or less than what he needed and Ratchet always made sure someone was in perfect health before being released from the hospital. The space and his attention were needed elsewhere, to the femme who let a scraplet infection grow too severe because she didn't have the financial support for the medication, to the carrier who was brought in starved and dehydrated because he rather gave his rations to his younglings, to the mech who was handicapped by a simple cy-virus because he didn't have access to firewall and immune system upgrades.
The director did not approve of his method of bringing in all these mechs and femmes who would otherwise only be able to afford the poorer, public hospitals or clinics owned by the state's government where they couldn't always get a special treatment they needed. He said they needed robots who paid and it would scare away these robots if they saw they had to share with "homeless scrapheaps" - it wasn't good for the Deltaran Medical Facility's reputation, and the director again needed to draw it from Ratchet's salary. They had to remain in good terms with the higher class because they were the ones who ran the place, who made sure Ratchet and the others still had their fine jobs and equipment to work with - the reason the medic took on that routine surgery now in Iacon.
But he was getting enough of this overwhelming regulation...
Hoist's optics held a sympathetic look, "Yeah, I heard what happened... But Ratch, you know that... we're behind you."
"I just wish I could do more, Hoist. Be on my own, get a... at least a small clinic where medical reason would see to a patient's treatment, not how much they pay. I'm seriously thinking about leaving and opening a place somewhere..." Ratchet fought down a shiver, the heightened charge in his system slowly dissipating, and put on a smirk as he looked down on Wheelie in the other's lap, "But at least one of us has managed to reach wonderland."
Hoist also looked down to see the sparkling finally in a peaceful recharge as his little hands were left grasping onto the engineer's frame, his spark, for once, devoid of the demons of loneliness.
He found Crasher in the underground hall with Megatron above a wide digital map.
Soundwave hesitated for only a moment to approach them. It was not the first time he found the two of them in deep conversation over a map of Cybertron, the southern hemisphere, Kaon - the dual-spark knew Crasher had a passion for cartography and her knowledge would be put to good use once they began their advance. One of the reasons the femme gladiator spent so much time absorbed in her datapads. Now both of them looked up curiously when Soundwave stopped by their seats.
"Yes, Soundwave?"
"Excuse me." the telepath said, "I would like to talk to Crasher. Would you share a cube with me?"
Crasher turned to Megatron who just gave a nod, she then rose hesitantly from her seat and followed the other to the common room.
It had been two cycles and Soundwave silently observed Crasher from afar, searching in her EM field and body language, brushing her thoughts sometimes. They hadn't met with Rumble during these cycles, Soundwave made sure to keep his creation busy - he wanted to talk to her first. He could feel now that Crasher suspected what he wanted to say, but neither spoke a word until they reached the common place and fetched the cubes for themselves.
"I guess..." Crasher began, rolling the cube between her hands, "Rumble told you, didn't he?"
"He didn't need to." Soundwave replied, "We all felt it."
Crasher's optical ridges ran up in surprise, "Oh... I didn't know your bond was that strong."
"It is."
"Then... what are we going to talk about? You won't allow him to see me from now on or what...?"
"No. Rumble is free to do as he pleases." Soundwave took a sip from his energon and leaned forward on the table slighty, visor down to follow the other robot's every reaction, "How is the newspark?"
He could see an explosion of white around Crasher as her expression froze and optics paled in shock. She looked around the few robots who had been drinking at other tables before he turned back to Soundwave, hushing her voice, "What... How do you know...?"
"Crasher, I carried four sparklings to term, I know the signs. You are tired, your core temperature is higher than normal and your EM field is vibrating with a higher frequency because of the additional energy of the newspark. It's Rumble's, isn't it?"
Crasher bit her lips and rubbed her forehead, venting deeply, "It... it doesn't matter. It happens to 'bots here sometimes... I already talked to Flatline, I'll have a match tomorrow and it will extinguish naturally."
"Rumble doesn't even know."
"He doesn't need to know, I told you it'll be over by tomorrow afternoon. I'm not the first who got sparked here. Robots mess up with each other all the time, it doesn't mean anything. And it always ends like this. I'll get a little beating and that should take care of the spark and the protoform."
Seeing Soundwave's expression, she interrupted him before he could have spoken, "No, Soundwave, I won't change my decision. It's my body, and I can do whatever the frag I want with it!"
"My son loves you, Crasher, and he should have a chance to voice his opinion."
The mini-con's EM field flared up in a livid, angry wave, voice still hushed, "Why, he will take care of it? You will take care of it? Wanna use me as a host to this parasite? None of us can raise it here, when we want to break out a rebellion! We have work to do, and a sparkling doesn't have a place in our plans."
Soundwave leant back in his seat. He could see the huge resentment, but also some logic in the other gladiator's words. However, there was also something else in that field that Soundwave never really noticed until then; a sense of loneliness, buried deep within the young femme's mind, yet there was reflexive rejection if someone wanted to get close or help. She had been living on the streets for much longer than Soundwave had with his creations, and after all those stellar cycles spent alone Crasher was used to having to stand up on her own. She thought she didn't need anybody, she didn't want to lose her independence, and it was rare when she trusted someone as much as Megatron.
Soundwave could see that the walls she built up around herself were now thinning towards Rumble, too, but she still refused the thought of giving it all to him - she was unable to believe that someone would accept her so fully, and despite her refusal, that inner loneliness peaked through at the edge of her mind.
She thought she wanted to be alone, that she was better off on her own and closed herself away, and the prospect of having friends or a family ever again seemed impossible, too good to be true. Soundwave grasped onto that as he formed the words to speak, hoping to break some of her stubborn defenses,
"When I carried my first creation, no one was there with me. No one to tell me what I was feeling, why I was feeling that way... If what I felt was good or not. No one helped me when I was there with a sparkling crying for me, no one to tell me what to do." he paused for a moment, studying Crasher's features before he went on, "You don't have to do this alone. We are all here for you."
Crasher frowned and turned her head away, she crossed her arms over her chest and her voice was but a murmur when she finally spoke again, "Is that all? Megatron is waiting for me."
Soundwave took a deep vent and gave a nod, watching as Crasher almost jumped up from her seat as if it burnt her and hurried out of the room. The dual-spark remained in his seat for a little while, staring at the two full energon cubes and thinking about what he should have done differently with the things that, hopefully, still hadn't slipped away from his control and care.
Thank you for reading!
I know it's slow-going, but I want not only to write the beginning of the war, but also how life was just before it broke out, how the characters lived, society, science, individual fates, so expect slower chapters from me. I love world-building much more than action, but it IS going forward. I'm trying to insert the process, through thoughts and conversations, that it is moving forward when it's not that explicit.
Also, in regards of places, I'm trying to use as much canon as I can here, too (what you can't find on TFwiki is probably mine). Map of Cybertron is not a constant thing and I'll try to build it logically, as later the Decepticon advance would dictate it and based on the relationships the states have with each other. If there are any questions, don't be afraid of me. :)
Oh, and if you wanna see an overcharged Soundwave and Rumble... and Megatron, and Starscream and Thundercracker (best of them all), watch the G1 episode 'Microbots'. Soundwave can get drunk even through his mask. Yes, he's that good.