A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you to my wonderful beta/best beloved/plot wall for listening to my complaining about this chapter. Without you, I'd still be whining to no one in particular :D
Also, thank you to my wonderful readers for sticking with this. You are all fantastic!
You could just take off.
The thought popped up every few minutes like clockwork, nagging at the corners of his processors and making it increasingly difficult to stay still and not give in to the constant temptation of pacing restlessly. The sky was there, endless and inviting, and there was nothing but worthless, annoying ground-pounders on the base; pathetic, wingless creatures that didn't understand their place in the universe, mates who had yet to learn to worship him the way a Seeker should be-
- And Will forced that train of thought aside, unnerved by the strength of the emotions he got from the Seeker. His short temper was something he had gotten used to by necessity but the arrogance and anger had come out in full force, too, and dealing with that was a lot harder. Seekers had egos, Seekers had pride, and the longer he listened to that part of his processors, the more he understood why Megatron had them all. No normal Seeker would put up with humans or Autobots for long. Not when they weren't allowed to prove their superiority and dominance.
You could just take off.
It was still cloudy outside, still grey and warm and humid, and the view from the hangar door where he waited was less than inspiring. Not that he really noticed it much as it was. The clouds were there but they were nothing more than an annoyance to his sensors, tiny drops of Pit-spawned water between him and the endless reaches of sky, and he got the sudden, mad urge to shoot at the slagging worthless scrap this planet called weather-
- And then the urge was gone again, pushed aside by the human part of him before it could turn into anything more than just a stray thought.
In any other case, Will might have been amused by the very alien worldview of someone from a planet with little to no water and who saw it as nothing more than an inconvenience at best and a potentially fatal danger at worst. It wasn't any other case, though. It was his own processors, his own mind, and the Seeker's annoyance with it all only intensified the desire to simply take off and never, ever land again, high above clouds and rain and oceans and sand and-
You could just take off.
He squished the thought again and focused on Ironhide's presence somewhere behind him. He had made a point of carefully shielding that bond with the mech – not because Ironhide had used it against him once to take down the Seeker, but because it was all he currently could do to keep his sort-of, tentative, would-be bond-mate safe... or whatever the heck it was going to turn out to be, because however confusing human relationships could be sometimes, they had nothing on Cybertronians – and whatever the hell was going on with him, he wasn't going to take Ironhide down with him. He didn't imagine that having to shoot someone you had a bond with, however new and weak it might be, would be something that was nice for any sort of mech, much less having to do it while the bond was actually open-
- And he was rambling and he knew it, and he suppressed a sigh and kept the bond firmly shielded. Like Pit he was going to take Ironhide down with him just because he'd fragged up, and there was no reason to make it worse for either of them by giving the mech the added effects of the full, nasty range of emotions from the Seeker through that bond.
He heard the sound of metal against metal somewhere behind him as Ironhide moved and a few moments later the mech appeared at his side, staring at the grey sky and the runways and the ocean and probably not really seeing any of it. A glance at the darker mech, then back to staring into the distance as he managed to force aside the Seeker for long enough to keep his voice even and normal and keep the worst of their united issues from showing.
"Thank you."
For not firing, for being willing to but not doing it, for trusting him, for not keeping that cannon aimed at him even now... he didn't say it but he suspected that Ironhide knew, anyway, and that suspicion was confirmed in the long silence and the slight nod he got in response. He almost lowered his shields a little to see if he could feel anything from Ironhide but he dismissed the idea as soon it appeared in his processors. He didn't doubt that his sort-of-maybe bond-mate had plenty to deal with already and getting an accidental dose of Will's emotions for added fun when his control of the bond slipped was not something Ironhide needed.
The sky was hidden behind clouds, his own restlessness and nagging anger growing increasingly urgent with every passing second, with every endless minute that dragged on as he could do nothing but wait and trust in Ratchet and their Prime, and dull grey wings shuddered slightly.
"I could just take off." He wasn't aware that he had spoken out loud until he saw Ironhide shift in the corner of his optic, and that ever-present feeling of dread in his fuel tanks intensified with the realisation.
Slag.
They had enough to deal with, enough stupid frag-ups to handle, and he was supposed to be a trained soldier and slagging well able to show just a minimum of self-control, and his hands flexed restlessly as he tried to figure out a way to do damage control.
Lucky for him, he didn't have to.
"But you won't," Ironhide said and there was no question at all in his voice. "That's the Seeker talking, Lennox. Starscream's a cowardly glitch but he's not exactly unusual for the breed. It comes with the ego. Either they turn and run the moment they're outnumbered or they're so sure they're above the rest of us that they stay and fight no matter what. The first option are the survivors. Corner them on the ground and they'll be off, comrades in arms be fragged. In the sky..." A soft snort. "You've seen them. They have those egos for a reason. Why fight in the dirt with the rest of us when they've got wings and missiles and they're too fast for us to get a proper target lock on them half the time?"
Why play by the rules when you're on top of the food chain, Will realised, translating the sudden surge of annoyance and arrogance and smug pride from the Seeker into something he could actually work with. Seekers own the sky. They have frontliners for the rest.
And wasn't that just comforting to know, too. Another thing on the long list of issues he planned to bring up with Primus in painful, graphic details at the first possible chance he got. Which, on second thought, hopefully wouldn't be that soon, considering that Ironhide would have his aft if he got himself killed or had to turn that cannon on him.
"So you're telling me that if Prime's still willing to let me fight after this, dumping me in the middle of a battle is likely to end up with me pulling a Starscream at the first sign of trouble," Will said flatly and ignored the sudden, conspicuous silence from the Seeker and its vague feeling of disgust at ground-pounders who didn't understand their place in life.
"Maybe." Ironhide sounded thoughtful and Will wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. At least it meant the mech was giving the answer some serious thought, whatever said answer might end up being. "I doubt it, though. Be honest, Lennox. You pulled a weapon on a fellow Autobot and between the two of us, I'm guessing that bird-brain there in your processors intended to take the shot, too." Silence followed as Will didn't object and Ironhide continued a moment later. "What do you think the consequences are going to be?"
Good question. What would he have done in Prime's situation? He had been a leader himself but this was something else entirely. He'd had superiors and endless lists of rules and regulations to lean on if it had ever been needed. Optimus...
… Should recognise the importance of a Seeker and put that waste of metal of a frontliner in his place before someone less merciful decides to do it for him, that presence in his mind snarled, temper flaring and then forcibly pushed aside again by Will.
He sighed mentally and ignored the silent hiss from the Seeker before it curled up in the back of his mind and plotted bloody vengeance on the world around it as it nursed its wounded pride. The Seeker would have fired on Sideswipe, Will had realised that soon after it had recovered from its shock and let its anger out in full force. It would have torn the mech to pieces if given half the chance and there would have been no regret at all, and that scared Will more than anything. Autobot or not, it was a Seeker above anything else, with a Seeker's ego and instincts, and every one of said instincts in Will's processors told him that Sideswipe would have had it coming for daring to challenge him in the first place, training session or not.
The sound of intakes venting by his side reminded him that Ironhide was waiting for an answer, and Will pushed aside the anger and fury as much as he could to clear his mind. He was stalling and they both knew it.
What would he have done in Prime's place? Easy.
"Best case scenario? No weapons and grounded until sometime after the end of the world," Will said quietly and kept watching a depressingly grey sky that suddenly looked a lot more appealing than it had a moment before. "Worst case? Treason. In reality, probably some middle ground. Lock me in the brig and throw away the key until something can be done to fix this slag. We were both to blame. It wasn't just the Seeker, and even if it was... you can't really punish one without targeting the other, too."
"And still, you're here," Ironhide agreed in the same quiet voice. "You could take off but you're not going to. If you were, you'd have been off the moment I turned my cannon away from you. Yeah, the Seeker's there and it's telling you to get the frag out of here but if you're not listening now, I don't think battle is going to be a problem."
Unless we have a run-in with Starscream, or Megatron, or any other 'Con the thing might be interested in, Will didn't correct because they had enough to deal with as it was and it wasn't a thought he wanted to linger on. He still had the memories of graphic fantasies in his processors and he really didn't want to get a rerun of them any time soon. Or ever.
"I'm a fragging schizophrenic nympho with the brains and common sense of a teenager," Will bit out. "Are you sure Primus isn't a Decepticon sympathizer? Because at this rate, I'll be more of a danger to you than the slagging 'Cons are."
The Seeker snarled in the back of his mind even as Ironhide snorted. "You're a Seeker. They've always had issues. You were brought back with blue optics and Autobot insignias, Lennox. You're one of us. Yeah, you're a bad-tempered pain in the aft and a danger to your surroundings, but so are Sideswipe and the twins most days. Nobody sane and stable got through the War in one piece. You're a Seeker now but it's still better than being dead."
Point. Even if Will had his doubts some mornings when the Seeker had been at its worst and today hadn't helped on it at all. He could deal with the temper and the general annoyance with the world but the violence and the near-constant, snarled insults in the back of his mind about worthless, wingless piles of scrap... the Seeker might be mentally young but that didn't make it any less dangerous than a proper one, and Ratchet's words about the effects of not interfacing rang in his mind. Unpleasant to be around, his aft. The thing was nothing short of a danger to its surroundings and if that was what Megatron was dealing with in keeping Starscream around, Big and Ugly had a lot bigger balls than Will had given him credit for.
You could just take off.
That voice in the back of his mind again and this time Will snapped back.
We'd be leaving the others behind. Is that what you want? Sarah, Ironhide, Ratchet... he didn't need to add the names as flickers of images from the Seeker told him that it knew perfectly well what he was talking about and a bit of the restless, angry annoyance was replaced by uncertainty.
If we take off now, they're going to shoot us out of the sky and lock us up the first time we show up again, he continued, mingling his own images of windowless cells and pain and claustrophobia to the images from his winged partner.
He knew what buttons to hit and it obviously worked as his wings shuddered instinctively and the walls started to close in until the Seeker got its response back under control – and if he had been less focused on trying to avert a disaster in the making, he would have been surprised at the fact that it was actually learning and capable of more than just going with whatever emotion took it.
The anger faded for a moment, was gone and replaced by images of Ironhide; strong and relentless and dominant; of the soft feeling of warmth in his hand when Sarah had rested there and the alien feeling of organic life, and the Seeker went through a rapid series of emotions – guilt-grief-loss-possessiveness-pride-anger – and then it settled for one with a fierceness that made every mental alarm in Will's mind go off.
Mine.
Not if you leave. Like frag Ironhide would pack up and leave the Prime he had served since before the War because of one Seeker, however attached he might be to it, and there was no way he was going to tear Sarah away from everything she had ever known because he'd had to go play hero and ended up more than a bit mental.
Anger coursed through his processors from the Seeker; disgust and distrust and decisiveness and beneath it all, a bone-deep song of battle and rage and sheer lust for violence that made Will's mind reel, and the images that followed were a chaotic mess of torn armour and bleeding Energon and the lust of victory, blue and red yielding under claws, and-
Then we will claim them. If he is too weak to rein in his frontliners, he does not deserve to rule. Worthless ground-pounder, that familiar voice snarled even as Will's mind flinched away. We are a Seeker. We will claim what is ours and we will rule if he is too weak to keep what is his.
He is a Prime, Will bit back.
A Prime, a friend, a commanding officer, and what the Seeker was suggesting was way past acceptable programming quirks and well into the realm of flat-out treason and Will clenched his hands and tried to force the images aside, familiar blue and red and bleeding Energon, Megatron kneeling and Starscream at his side, and-
He is weak. They are all weak. We will claim and we will rule and we will end this war that the wingless bits of scrap are too weak to finish.
Anger-fury-rage, red-hot and burning and all-consuming as it made its way through his mind, and Will did the only thing he could do.
"'Hide..." Low, desperate, barely reined-in panic behind it, and then the feeling of something calming against their bond, chasing away the worst of that initial, instinctive desperation as rage fought to take over and his hands flexed subconsciously, a silent threat of barely-contained violence.
Help.
"Ratchet is on his way," the darker mech responded quietly, firmly, and maybe it was general information, maybe Ironhide had summoned him, but whatever the case, all Will could do was nod mutely and push against the overwhelming desire to tear through the skies, prove his dominance, and claim his mates for all to see.
Ratchet knew something was wrong before he ever set foot in the hangar. A wordless demand to get his aft there faster than his current speed, that uncharacteristic annoyance from the would-be bond tainted by faint panic that he had no doubt came from the human, and even the less-than-a-minute it took him to get there was too long for him.
That was a Seeker in there – a short-tempered, angry, armed Seeker – and William Lennox had never been the type to panic about anything, and that was all Ratchet needed to know that something had gone very, very wrong.
He took a brief look around as he transformed just outside the hangar – Will, Ironhide, hangar, no one else around – and then took in the body language of his patient, and that brief look was all it took to make his decision.
Find something to do, he told Ironhide over their bond. Now.
His voice left no room for arguments and while Ratchet had no doubts that the weapon specialist was unhappy with the order to say the least, he only paused for a moment before he nodded sharply and stalked off in the direction of the training grounds, the hum of a charging cannon leaving no doubt about what he intended to do once he got there.
One problem handled, Ratchet took a look at the second one. Clawed fingers, raised wings, blazing optics, and he took a moment to consider his approach before he decided on one.
"Lennox." A sharp order more than anything – because slag it, Ratchet hadn't been made CMO because he had a pretty aft – and the way the Seeker startled slightly and narrowed its optics in obvious annoyance didn't improve Ratchet's mood at all.
This time he didn't even try to pretend to be harmless. His EMP generator might have been made for medical purposes but at short range it could still stun a mech, and the Seeker didn't even have time to defend itself before it was on the ground as its body gave out, metal hitting concrete with a hard sound.
One, two steps and he was next to it, kneeling and grabbing one wing-joint hard, and he was rewarded by the slight widening of optics as the Seeker half, at least, understood the seriousness of the threat.
"Would you like to tell me what that was about, Lennox?" Still sharp, still proving his dominance, and the figure under his hand shuddered slightly as optics flickered and the glow returned to a more normal level.
"Try treason," Will whispered harshly – and there was no doubt at all in Ratchet that this was the human in charge for the moment – and then optics shuttered and the tension in his frame eased as the human stopped fighting. "Should have let him take the shot."
Treason – against them, against the humans, against Ironhide or their Prime, Ratchet had no way to know for sure. The would-be bond was still there, temptingly close and so easy to reach out and strengthen, every answer he wanted easily within reach without having to deal with the stubbornness of the Seeker and the human both, and Ratchet gave a still Seeker-like mental snarl at the thought to chase it away.
"More details than that would make my task easier," he said instead, and while his voice wasn't as hard as Will's had been, the hand on the wing didn't relent.
"Treason," Will repeated, less harshly and more tired this time, and the still-weak body under Ratchet's hand gave up its last bit of resistance against his grip as Will yielded. "It's pissed at Sideswipe for challenging it, it's pissed at all of you for not letting it get even with him, and it's pissed at Prime for not teaching Sides respect for it in the first place. You and Hide have both put that thing in its place before. It respects you. Optimus..."
Optimus hasn't, Ratchet finished the sentence and felt an uncomfortably familiar feeling of dread settle in his processors, images of Starscream against Megatron, and he forced aside those thoughts before they could get any more detailed.
Core programming, not the kind that made up the Seeker's personality, and even if he could tear out that Seeker influence completely, that core programming would still be there, still demand its rightful place and respect, still demand to be worshipped and treated like its pride demanded. That pride and anger was core programming. Mating instincts could be fought. That ego couldn't.
"You can't get rid of it, can you?" Will asked quietly. "You'd already have torn that thing a new one if you thought it would've helped."
"It is core programming," Ratchet agreed and settled for honesty. "Even if I banished that Seeker to the deepest, darkest parts of your processors, it would still appear when its pride was threatened. It would not be able to help it."
Silence. A whisper of fear through that weak, weak bond, optics darkening for a moment, and then Will shuddered.
"So I'm turning into Starscream and there's nothing you can do about it? All this because I didn't..." he trailed off and didn't even seem willing to say the word for the moment, so Ratchet did it for him.
"Interface? No," he responded quietly. "Your temper is a result of that and it makes your... less charming lines of codes more obvious but it would have been there, anyway. Starscream is a unique case. I don't think his programming ever worked quite as it should. You are a Seeker, Will. For what it is worth, this is not uncommon in your build. Seekers respect strength. Sometimes, they simply have to be reminded that mere ground-pounders can be something to be respected, too."
Will's mind obviously knew where that line of reasoning was going because he snorted softly a moment later – tired, weary, but not entirely ready to give up completely. "I don't think Optimus is going to like that much."
"A good thing, then, that I am not asking him to like it," Ratchet said quietly. "It has been too long since he has last commanded Seekers. He's gotten out of practice."
"So beat the slag out of the Seeker, then," Will concluded and sighed. "Frag it. 'Hide is bad enough as it is."
"A training lesson" Ratchet corrected and was satisfied to notice not just the bit of humour in Will's words but the distinct lack of panic coming from that weak bond as well.
"Potato, potahto," Will muttered and Ratchet made a point of snorting as he turned his attention to his comm link to contact his Prime. The bond could wait. They had more important things to handle first.