Mrfph. I suppose that I should warn that this will introduce an aspect of "slash" into this 'verse. It's really not something I'm focusing on in this 'verse at all, but in this one particular case, I need to have that kind of relationship between the characters involved, for future evil purposes, the poor dears. So, yeah. Warned. But at least in this case there's what I think is a good reason for the relationship, so maybe that will have a mitigating effect if "slash" makes you ooky or just makes you roll your eyes. And hey, at least there's no "sex" in this story at all, so you can take comfort in that. :)
Anyway, onward.
It wasn't hard to find Thundercracker. Once he'd recovered from the damage that had been inflicted upon him after he and Swoop had been caught together by Megatron, he'd been given guest quarters. He'd more or less stayed there since, only occasionally escorted to a conference room to be debriefed. Other than that, he was left more or less alone. Of course, there were guards posted outside, and they were there partly to keep an eye on Thundercracker, but mostly they were there to protect him, if necessary. Some of the Autobots had vindictive streaks a mile wide, and they held on to grudges as if they were priceless treasures.
Prowl visited Thundercracker on occasion. Swoop knew this because he'd been there a few times when she had arrived, and sometimes he'd stayed for a while after she'd arrived, talking with Thundercracker about old times while Swoop had listened quietly, avidly absorbing the information that their conversation revealed. Thundercracker had told her that Wheeljack had also made an awkward attempt or two to talk to him, which surprised Swoop to no end. Still, she was glad that Wheeljack was making the effort, and she knew that it wasn't easy for him.
Everyone else, quite understandably, didn't know quite what to make of Thundercracker. They'd been told about his relationship to Swoop, and because of that relationship they'd been ordered to consider him a guest and to treat him accordingly. They generally didn't know what to make of the former piece of information, just as many of them still didn't know what to make of Swoop herself. To date, Thundercracker had not left the quarters unless his presence had been requested somewhere, and when that had happened he'd been escorted to wherever he'd been summoned, so the Autobots in general had not had much of a chance to treat him like anything. Swoop suspected that many of them, especially those who were narrowly focused on work like the scientists or those with notably short attention spans and no discernible vindictive streak, had entirely forgotten that he was there.
Of course, Swoop visited at least once a day. Partly, her visits were in her capacity as a medic, but mostly she visited simply because she wanted to visit. They'd share some of the high quality energon that was a perk of her condition, and they'd talk, sometimes for hours. Things had been awkward between them at first, neither knowing exactly what to make of the other at all, but as the days had passed they had quickly become strangely comfortable with each other. This was partly because Swoop had a way of talking to people that put them at ease, but it was mostly because Thundercracker had been hoping to have the opportunity to know her for thousands of years, and that quickly overcame the awkwardness. On top of that, her avid curiosity, about everything, both delighted him and painfully reminded him of her mother.
Swoop asked Thundercracker dozens of questions about him and about his life and about her family, and Thundercracker had found himself all too happy to answer all of them that he could answer. He'd told her all sorts of things about her family, about her mother and her siblings. Funny things. Mundane, boring, daily-life things. Happy things, and even some very sad things. They were the kinds of things that Mirage wasn't comfortable talking to her about because, even after thousands of years, it angered and saddened him even to think about them, much less to express them in words. Swoop had quickly come to realize that Mirage was clinging so desperately to the past that it was almost as if it was the present to him, as if he was still living it and how it had ended every day. It was all immediate and real and still very hurtful to him, a wound that gaped and wouldn't stop bleeding. Thundercracker had no such problem. So now, thanks to him, Swoop knew many odd little things, small and sometimes silly details about her long-dead family that made them seem far more real to her than they had seemed before, almost alive.
Swoop knew what her mother's favorite color had been. ("Blue, strangely enough," Thundercracker had told her with a fond, reminiscent chuckle and a small and almost affectionate smile.) She knew that her mother had been very fond of dancing and that she had often been observed dancing in a very undignified manner down the corridors. She had acquired a decent amount of very embarrassing blackmail material to use against Mirage, should she ever find herself needing some. She knew that her sister who had been closest to her in age had liked to pretend that she was her mother, that she had carefully tended to her, that she had imperiously insisted that Swoop be housed in her own suite, and that she had lovingly carried her around everywhere. She knew that one of her brothers had been a notorious prankster and that he had found a kindred spirit in one Sideswipe, who was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble but who was far more often his unabashed partner in crime. And Swoop knew that her eldest sister had had a galaxy-sized crush on Starscream, which Swoop thought was wickedly funny.
And Swoop was now fairly certain that, for all that he often spoke very bitterly of her now, Thundercracker had cared for her mother very deeply. Perhaps, he had even been in love with her, even if only reluctantly. Swoop imagined that it would be difficult to be that bitter about someone for whom one hadn't once felt very strongly.
And as a result of all of it, of everything that Thundercracker had told her, Swoop felt far more connected to her family, all of them, than she had felt before. She felt so connected to them that she had found herself, just a few days before, mourning them terribly, all of them. It was almost as if she had really known them and that they'd been killed that day rather than thousands of years before, and as odd as it had seemed to others when she had told them about it, Swoop considered the mourning to be a good thing.
Swoop, in turn, had caught Thundercracker up on her life. Given that her life so far had been very brief, doing so wouldn't have taken very long except that Thundercracker seemed interested in everything about her, down to the tiniest mundane details of her daily life.
So, Swoop had come to look forward to their daily visits. And now they might be ending, at least for a little while. As much as she didn't want him to leave, Swoop was determined that if leaving, that if patching up whatever the problem was with his wingmate was the best thing for Thundercracker, then that was exactly what she was going to encourage him to do.
Now, she approached the door to Thundercracker's quarters, nodded absently at the two guards, and then pressed the chime. She heard Thundercracker tell her to come in, and then she pressed the button that opened the door and stepped inside. Thundercracker was sprawled across a chair, datapad that he had been reading in hand, but his attention was immediately on her.
"So," she said to him without preamble. "Are you interested in getting the hell out of here for a while?"
Thundercracker just continued to look at her, frowning at the unexpected question she'd asked.
"I'm feeling antsy," Swoop further explained when he continued to frown silently and quizzically at her. "And I don't know how much longer I'll want to fly. And if I'm going to go out, I need a bodyguard or else certain individuals around here will pitch a hissy-fit. And…I want to show you something. It's not too far away, at least not as the pterosaur flies," she added with a shrug.
Thundercracker smiled at her, put the datapad aside, and then said, "Sure."
Thundercracker had to admit that the sight, for all that it was organic and alien, was absolutely breathtaking. He and Swoop were standing on a precipice, on a rather narrow outcropping of rock halfway up a cliff somewhere in the wilds of Venezuela. Across the way, close enough to see it in some detail, but far enough away that the sound of it was a ceaseless but low rumble rather than a deafening roar, was a very tall waterfall. It erupted violently through a rather narrow fissure in the rock on the edge of the opposite cliff and then fell in a thick veil of frothy white, its downward path clothed in verdant vegetation that greedily fed on the heavy localized humidity that the waterfall generated. The waterfall was tall enough that some of the water feathered to a thick vapor as it fell, and it was catching the evening light and creating intense prismatic streaks of color.
"Pretty, huh?" Swoop, standing next to Thundercracker, remarked quietly.
"That's…an understatement," Thundercracker answered. "Especially because it's just water."
Swoop chuckled and said, "Water is pretty amazing stuff when it wants to be, you know. When it's falling like that, I find the sight and the sound quite absorbing, so I like to come here to think. I thought you might appreciate that aspect," she added.
Thundercracker smiled at her faintly.
"Thanks for pointing it out to me," he said. "I'll remember it." He hesitated for a moment, watching her as she fidgeted slightly, knowing that something was on her mind, and then he added, "But I get the feeling that you didn't bring me here just to look at the pretty."
Swoop sighed.
"I'm that obvious?" she asked, disappointed.
"Well, it's not necessarily a bad trait to have, you know," Thundercracker pointed out. "Think of it as…facilitating clear communication."
"Mmmm," Swoop murmured ruefully. "Too clear. But now that you mention it, 'communication' is why I wanted to talk to you in a place that was guaranteed to be private." At Thundercracker's quizzical frown, she explained, "I talked to Starscream just before I came to see you."
"Oh," Thundercracker murmured. "And how are things going over there?" he asked.
Swoop shrugged and answered, "About as well as can be expected."
"That bad?" Thundercracker archly surmised.
Swoop chuckled and said, "Well, at least no one has died."
"Yet," Thundercracker added pessimistically, and Swoop turned toward him to punch him lightly in the arm.
"Have a little faith!" she protested.
"In Starscream?" Thundercracker scoffed with a snort. "Hah! I'll leave that to you."
"Thanks," she answered sourly. "But in any case…Starscream asked me to relay a message to you. One from Skywarp, that is, not from him."
And Thundercracker winced.
"He just wants you to talk to him," Swoop said quietly. "That's all."
"Mmmm," Thundercracker answered. "That's all." He walked a few paces away, along the edge of the outcropping, before he turned back to Swoop. "It's…not as easy as that."
"I don't understand why not," Swoop confessed truthfully.
Thundercracker gave her an indecipherable look for a long moment. And then his shoulders slumped and he heaved a long and weary sigh. And suddenly, Swoop found herself experiencing a flash of insight, putting together what had been said when she and Thundercracker had been caught by Megatron, what Starscream had said to her when they'd just talked, and what she was witnessing now, watching Thundercracker's body language.
"You're…close, aren't you?" Swoop asked quietly. Thundercracker gave her another uncertain look but remained silent, so she continued, "It's not that hard to see, you know. You wouldn't leave Decepticon Headquarters because of him when I offered you asylum. When Megatron was trying to convince you to talk about me, he threatened him, specifically. And Skywarp's upset because you haven't contacted him since you went off to see me, upset enough to ask a favor of Starscream, and I know from Starscream that they don't get along all that well. Yet it didn't seem as if Skywarp was upset when Starscream himself left, so I know it's not a trine thing, and—"
Thundercracker snorted at that, interrupting her reasoning, and he corrected her bitterly, "Oh, it's very much a 'trine thing,' Swoop," At the confused look that she gave him, he amended, "But…probably not in the way that you're thinking. I mean, I don't even know what you know about trines."
"I know that you're linked," Swoop answered with a shrug. "I understand how it's done, in a clinical sense. I know that the link allows you to, among other things, communicate more efficiently, in order to be more coordinated and effective in combat and such, and I'm rather intimately familiar with the advantage that that gives you." Thundercracker smiled slightly sheepishly at that as Swoop continued, "And I know…Well, that is, I imagine that it's inevitable that it would create a certain level of…intimacy, too. In a sense, I have a link to Starscream, so I can understand that aspect in particular."
"Mmmm," Thundercracker murmured. "And that, my dear daughter, is ironic, indeed."
"It's ironic that I can understand?" Swoop asked, frowning quizzically.
"No," Thundercracker clarified, shaking his head slightly. "No, it's ironic that you have such a link to Starscream."
Swoop was still frowning.
"I don't see the irony," she announced after a moment's thought. "I mean, you and Skywarp have a link to him, too, so why…?"
Thundercracker snorted again as Swoop's voice trailed off. He paced a few strides away from Swoop again, thinking as he went, and then he turned back to her. He folded his arms across his chest, watching her appraisingly for a moment, taking in her befuddled expression.
"Yes, we do have a link to him," he said quietly but bitterly, "but you'd hardly know it. And that's because that's how Starscream wants it." In response, Swoop only shook her head at him uncertainly, so he explained, "Seekers crave the link. We tend to feel…incomplete without one."
Swoop nodded. This, she knew and understood.
"But Starscream," Thundercracker continued, "is an anomaly, as he is in many other ways, in that he doesn't crave a link and never has. At all. He would have been very happy to remain alone his entire life. That was, in fact, his plan. The rest of us always saw him as a bit bizarre because of that."
"But he is linked," Swoop pointed out as Thundercracker's voice trailed off, still not understanding.
Thundercracker smiled faintly and said, "Yes, but that's a relatively recent development."
Swoop stared at him.
"I…didn't know that," she said.
"Skywarp and I have been linked for a very long time," Thundercracker said with a shrug. "Longer than I want to think about, really. But for the vast majority of that time, our third was not Starscream."
"Oh," Swoop said, nonplussed and blinking. "I…I guess I just always assumed that you and Starscream and Skywarp had been a trine forever."
Thundercracker grimaced, and answered, "That's not surprising. We do work very well together. In combat, that is. We're good at that. It's 'only' in every other possible aspect of existence that we're a complete mess. I suppose it's because we were thrown together. Abruptly."
"And not by choice," Swoop surmised.
"No, not by choice," Thundercracker answered quietly. "Not really, anyway."
Swoop leaned back against the rock behind her for a few moments, staring at the waterfall and thinking.
"You and Skywarp lost your original third," she eventually said.
"Yes," Thundercracker murmured. "And as you might imagine, it's a…traumatic experience. It's as if a piece of your being is suddenly gone, and all that's left in that place where he used to be is this black hole that wants to suck you in, too. It makes the survivors rather…useless. Before the uprising, when we had a means of replenishing the population, such individuals were usually disposed of if they didn't more or less immediately find a replacement or just go ahead and immediately dispose of themselves. Often… Well, often your mother made use of them as gladiators. It killed two birds with one stone, you see, getting rid of useless Seekers while also providing amusement."
Swoop winced.
"But this was after the uprising," she interpreted as she tried to put aside that rather disappointing nugget of information about her mother.
"Yes," Thundercracker confirmed. "It was not long after Prowl defected, actually…which I suppose is significant."
Swoop narrowed her eyes at that additional nugget of information, but she said nothing, and Thundercracker didn't offer any details.
"Skywarp and I were in a state of uselessness," he was saying instead, "which was a dangerous proposition even after the uprising because resources were scarce and were not to be wasted on the useless. Yet, Megatron was also in a position where he needed as many warriors as he could get because the uprising had taken its toll both in terms of casualties and because not every warrior had chosen to follow him in the long term, once the uprising was over. So, he didn't necessarily want to dispose of us, either. The obvious solution to the problem at hand, then…was to find us a third."
"Starscream," Swoop said flatly.
"Yes," Thundercracker answered. "Megatron had until then always respected his preference to remain alone. But things were rapidly destabilizing between them, and the situation worsened quickly once Prowl was gone and…Well, ultimately, Starscream was given a choice: Link with Skywarp and me, or all three of us would be destroyed."
Swoop gaped at him.
"But that's no choice at all!" she protested indignantly.
Thundercracker shrugged.
"Like I said, not really," he said. "But Starscream naturally chose the course of action that saved his own hide, and he's regretted it ever since. So, he tries to pretend that we don't exist, and I don't know how he manages it, but aside from combat situations, it's like he isn't there. It's like not having a third at all, yet without the black hole and the uselessness. The link is there, but it's like being linked to a rock. But now… Well, now Starscream's had a link imposed on him that he can't possibly ignore. I'd almost consider it poetic justice," Thundercracker finished, "if you weren't the one that he was linked to."
Swoop smiled slightly and said, "I know you don't want to hear this, but…it's not so bad, really." Thundercracker snorted explosively as she added, "Well, at least I see the irony now. And…I can also understand now why you didn't want to leave Decepticon Headquarters."
Thundercracker nodded.
"Yes," he said, almost morosely. "Starscream isn't pulling his weight, so to speak. He flatly refuses to do so. So there is imbalance in the link, a very strong skew. The link between Skywarp and me is not counterbalanced, and so over the years it has become…very strong. Stronger than it's supposed to be, if you know what I mean."
"And now he's alone," Swoop said quietly but pointedly. Thundercracker winced at her words, and Swoop added. "And you were lying when you told Megatron that he meant nothing to you."
Thundercracker smiled faintly and confessed, "Through my teeth. It's perhaps the one occasionally useful skill I've learned from Starscream. But yes, Skywarp means much to me. Everything, really, outside of what you mean to me."
Swoop regarded him seriously, sympathetically, and then she quietly observed, "Then…I really don't understand why you're avoiding him now."
Thundercracker sighed. He sat down on the lip of the precipice, staring at the waterfall, almost mesmerized by it. Swoop watched him, saying nothing.
"For a long time," Thundercracker eventually said, very quietly, "but especially so since our revival here on Earth, Skywarp's wanted to just go ahead, chuck tradition and quite possibly common sense and maybe even sanity, and bond. I've always had to refuse him."
Swoop was puzzled for a moment, but then she realized, "Because of the situation surrounding me. If you'd bonded, he would've been able to find out about it."
"Exactly," Thundercracker answered with a nod. "And he would not have reacted well, especially not if he'd found out about it that way. But now, aside from the fact that he might be furious with me if I were to tell him the truth, there's really no barrier in our way. Megatron's gone. I've found you, and you're public knowledge. I don't have to hide what I did anymore."
"But those are all good things," Swoop pointed out. She moved toward him then, sat down next to him, and then looked anxiously up at his face. "Aren't they?" she added hesitantly, uncertainly.
"Of course!" Thundercracker reassured her, reaching over to pat her leg. "Of course they are, my dear. But…it also means that Skywarp will discover that I've been lying to him for a very long time. He'll find out that, even though we've been linked and very close for so long, he really doesn't know me at all, at least not like he thinks he does."
"And you're afraid that he'll reject you," Swoop interpreted quietly, "once he knows the truth."
"Yes," Thundercracker answered even more quietly. "On the other hand, I'm also afraid that he won't reject me once he knows the truth."
Swoop's brow furrowed and she said, "I don't understand."
"He wants to bond. I'm…not so sure that I do."
"But I thought that—?"
"That he means everything to me," Thundercracker finished. "Yes, he does. Absolutely. But…I've already experienced losing someone to whom I was linked, and it very nearly destroyed me. If I were to lose someone to whom I was bonded…" He shuddered. "Always before, I had an excuse. But now, if he doesn't simply want nothing to do with me due to all the lies…I'll have no excuse to offer him. And then…"
Silence stretched between them for a while after Thundercracker's voice trailed off.
"I guess," Swoop quietly, eventually, said, "that if it comes to that, you'll just have to decide whether or not the potential benefits outweigh that one risk. But first things first. Either way," she pointed out, "Skywarp deserves to know the truth. You can't leave him in limbo like this."
"I know, I know," Thundercracker murmured. "But I don't want to hurt him."
"You're already hurting him. And yourself," Swoop relentlessly pointed out. Thundercracker whipped his head around to stare wide-eyed at her while she elaborated evenly, "Avoiding him is quite obviously hurting him. And frankly, I don't know about Skywarp, but I'd rather be hurt because someone told me the truth rather than be hurt for some unknowable reason. If I knew the truth, sure it'd hurt, but I'd be able to deal with it, and more importantly I'd know that there'd be an end to the hurt at some point in time. But in the other case, the hurt would just go on and on, possibly forever, and that would be far more devastating."
Thundercracker frowned thoughtfully at Swoop for a few long moments blinking at her.
"How did you get to be so wise?" he eventually asked of her.
Swoop shrugged.
"Must be something I inherited," she said with a lop-sided smile.
Thundercracker snorted.
"Not from me, you didn't," he said. "And it's safe to say that your mother wasn't the wisest individual in the universe, so…"
"So that leaves random mutation," Swoop concluded with a nod. "And that means that there's hope for the little one here," she said as she fondly patted herself, "since Primus knows his father wasn't among the universe's wisest individuals, either."
"That's an understatement, too," Thundercracker muttered.
"I'm very good at them," Swoop said with a shrug and a smile. For a moment, she just watched Thundercracker, watched him meditatively watching the waterfall. And then she said, quietly, "Talk to him. Face-to-face, not over the comm. Sit down with him and settle things, for better or worse. Otherwise, this is going to drive you both crazy." When Thundercracker didn't say anything for a long while, she added, "You know I'm right."
Thundercracker heaved a heavy and very weary sigh.
"Yes, you are," he said quietly, simply, resignedly. "I'll leave in the morning."
Swoop smiled. Impulsively, she turned toward him, leaned into him, and then kissed his cheek affectionately.
"It'll all work out," she assured him confidently, as Thundercracker, surprised at the kiss, sharply turned his head toward her. "You'll see."
Thundercracker offered up a quick prayer that she was right in that, and then he and Swoop settled in to silently and contemplatively watch the waterfall until full, moonless night fell and there was nothing left to see.