Optimus marched into the cool evening air, peds crunching in the twigs and leaf litter beneath. He was plunged into darkness as the Ground Bridge portal disappeared, but recognised the outline of the cave opening up ahead. Just as well the bridge co-ordinates were unchanged since his warp last night. He approached unarmed, not wanting to incite another hostile response from Airachnid, and switched on his chest headlights to illuminate the cave as he knelt down at a window-like gap in the stone. Her back was turned away from him, resting on a mound of rocks against the wall. Optimus recognised the purring sound of sleep that came from her. With a rumble of his engines, he waited patiently for her to wake. Airachnid's helm rose slowly, shaking slightly and turning towards him. Her optics narrowed against the sharp glare of his headlights, but he swore her lips bore a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. She thought he couldn't see it.
"Apologies for waking you, Airachnid," Optimus began, dimming his lights as she shifted herself into a sitting position. "Are you well?"
"I'm...better..." Her reply was quiet, edged with caution. With his strange kindness the previous night she couldn't bring herself to drop her guard; even former Decepticons still suffered from the viral distrust of Primes. Optimus nodded despite the ice in her answer, still kneeling at the cave opening.
"May I enter?" he requested, drawing a look of confusion from Airachnid. He was...asking permission? She nodded before she could fully consider it, a seemingly automatic action. Slowly Optimus lowered himself into the dip of the cave, which levelled out into a spacious room. He approached her from the side, noting how she turned herself away from him the closer he came. Her servos were held against her, fiercely shielding their cargo from prying blue optics.
"Took you long enough," she muttered, regaining some shadow of her long lost impudence. She braced herself for a cutting reply, but all that came was a voice so sincere that it almost sickened her.
"I would have visited sooner, but I had to deflect suspicions," Optimus explained, a genuine apology in his tone. Airachnid couldn't face the endearing smile that he dared to show to her- for her.
"They'll find out," she said, rearranging herself to face away from Optimus again. An optic ridge raised at her words. "Autobots don't know how to lie. And they sure as the Pit can't accept a lie. Especially not one from you, Prime. How will you stop them from hunting me down when it happens?" It was a long moment before he answered.
"I know more of the art of deception than I'd care to ever admit, Airachnid." Now it was her turn to raise a ridge skeptically. So the Prime wasn't as pure-sparked as she always thought... that made him just a tad less insufferable. "And I made my choice to aid you and your child. That will not change whether or not my comrades accept my decision..." His optics wandered off as he thought of how Airachnid's prediction was already coming true; he had pledged to Ratchet an explanation and Arcee was already asking questions. His teammates knew him too well. At the very least, Ratchet would understand why. Arcee wouldn't even give him the chance to explain.
"Are you going to stand there all night staring at me?" Optimus didn't notice his optics centering on the half-hidden mass in Airachnid's servos. He averted them, but caught a glimpse of her softer expression. Somewhere in his spark, he felt a need to see the sparkling for himself. Curiosity wasn't enough to describe it.
"If I may ask about your sparkling-"
"She's fine," she snapped back, faceplates sharp as steel again and scowl returning. "Just fine..." Her optics flitted down to the child in question, turning it in her arms as Optimus contemplated how she reacted to his request. He expected it as well as a human expected dark clouds to bring rain. But this dark cloud had a spark that he promised to protect.
Reaching into his subspace compartment, he drew out another two cubes of energon and stretched his servo out towards her. With a weighing look she snatched them as if they were going to disappear into thin air. Optimus watched as she stared forlornly at the cubes in her hand, helm dipped down. She didn't drink the energon.
"Your weaponry systems should have repaired themselves by now," he told her, letting his gaze fall gently on her. The encroaching light of the moon was spreading up her frame from the small opening of the cave, highlighting her ragged features. Her armour was scratched and dull, paint chipped and faceplate marred with contempt.
"Nothing stopping me from attacking you then, is there?" Optimus recognised Airachnid's probing questions, a subtle attempt to have a glimpse into his mind. Decepticons were adept at the manipulation of words, a craft that Megatron himself mastered in his gladiatorial days.
"Only your own morals," he replied, not attempting to hide any information from her, but deciding to use her own art against her. "But in that case, there would also be nothing stopping me from retaliating." His optics went back to her sparkling, and her eyes widened in the sudden horror of realisation.
"You wouldn't," she whispered in disbelief.
"I do not leave orphans, Airachnid," he repeated with a careful edge, frown giving off a neutral warning. The morbid message was clear; drop the attitude. Their stand-off was tense and silent, sharp optics measuring every minute movement of the bot before them. Airachnid's stiff shoulders fell in defeat under Optimus' intense stare, her servos following suit. He hated himself for having to resort to such diabolical, underhand tactics, but if it would sand her rough edge down enough so that she opened up to him, then it was necessary.
"Your sparkling?" he asked again, expecting a proper answer this time.
"...Sleeping. Quiet. But...healthy." He noticed the venomous regret in her reply; her previous attitude to her child so far hadn't changed. Or if it had, she wasn't showing it.
"May I see her?" Under other circumstances it would have been insane to hand something over to the very bot that mere klicks ago had threatened to teminate it, but Optimus knew that Airachnid's reasoning processes would be cloudy over the lingering haze of relief that her submission would have brought on. She didn't look up as she outstretched her servos, sparkling held in her talons. Optimus shifted himself closer and gently retrieved the bundle of life from her, hands as still as the night around them. He held the sparkling in the cradle of his servos, optics scanning the tiny form. He didn't know what he was expecting- a miniature version of her father most likely. But looking at her, taking in every developing detail with whirring optics... if he didn't know it already, he would never have guessed that Megatron had anything to do with her. She was... delicate. A soft faceplate with sweeping rather than striking crowns, and thin primary armour over her grey protoform. Not a trace of Decepticon taint that he could visibly see. Her optics were still closed over, black lines that matched her mother's curving down. A tiny servo was curled over her violet lips, twitching irregularly. There was always an innocent beauty within every sparkling, but to see it coming from a damned Decepticon union was a jolt to Optimus' systems. Not an unpleasant one, rather it awoke something in his processor... something that he thought he recognised from millenias ago.
"She's beautiful," he said, content to simply watch her in his arms. Airachnid scoffed at his comment, letting her helm hit off the rock behind her as she slumped back. Typical Autobot sympathy. His next remark though caught her off guard. "Just like her mother." Her optics flashed open, trying to meet his own to see if he was serious. But something made them avoid him, dancing around the gloom of the cave yet refusing to go near the blue lights that regarded her with returning sincerity.
"Then why do I feel so ugly?" Optimus froze at the pure bitterness in her confession, optics angling up towards her. Something in his spark wrenched at the sight of her folded and broken, without the strength to even keep her helm up. He didn't see any ugliness in her, like he always saw within Decepticons. The ugly face of evil. She didn't have it... or he couldn't see it. Or a combination of the two. No, when his optics settled onto her, he saw only one painfully familiar thing.
'Dammit Elita...'
Both victims of Megatron's atrocity. Both fallen prey to Archa Seven. The only break in the monotony was that Airachnid survived. An extraordinary coincidence.
But Prime had learnt to never believe in coincidences.
He couldn't ask her about Archa Seven though...not yet. A sudden chirp from his arms pulled him from that particular ravine of thought, and his optics flicked down again. Two squinting, icy blue lights looked back. They took in the angles of metal and the pulse of the spark nearby.
"Airachnid..." Optimus called to her, optics still locked with the sparkling's curious gaze. The femme lazily swung her head towards Optimus, and her limp neck instantly went taut as she realised that there were two more lights in the darkness. Numb with... some feeling she didn't recognise, she slowly drifted towards them and gratefully took in the light blue shade in the tiny lights before her.
'Anything but red...' She felt herself sigh with relief and something like wonder at the sight of the new, innocent eyes finally opened for the very first time. They didn't frantically dart all around though like curious mosquitos, as most sparklings did- eager to explore every inch of their home and world. If her whole world was but a dark and damp cave, then perhaps that was why she stared so intently at Optimus.
Perhaps...
xx
"Prime often go off on these walks?" Wheeljack asked as Ratchet welded blue sparks down a scar in his shoulder, who tutted every time he flinched away from the stinging flame.
"Depends," Arcee answered, servos crossed as she stood with the rest of Team Prime gathered around the new arrival. "He likes his border patrols."
"Less work for us though!" Bulkhead chuckled as Ratchet finished up with Wheeljack's repairs, much to his dwindling complaints ("Take it easy, Doc, I need that arm"). "Hey, speakin' a'work, how come you're back on earth, Jackie?"
"Along with that other bot?" Arcee added. Wheeljack let out a growl before he answered.
"That... would be Dreadwing," he all but spat in reply, optics narrowing dangerously. "Tracked his sorry aft across millions'a light years when he finally touched down back here." As he explained how Dreadwing killed Seaspray and attempted to terminate him as well, Ratchet couldn't stop his optics glancing towards the Ground Bridge controls and comm screens. A nervous twitch triggered from the unease that currently saturated his spark. Ratchet had no idea what Optimus was out doing, nor did he know if it really was as necessary as he insisted it was. And when Optimus did decide to tell him, he certainly wasn't sure if he'd be happy with the answer.
He wasn't able to mull over the situation any further as he felt Wheeljack suddenly jerk his shoulder, all but toppling the unsuspecting medic as the Wrecker marched with a grim determination.
"Look, Wheeljack, just wait 'til Optimus comes back-" Bulkhead first began, then was cut off by a cynical scoff.
"And how long'll that take? Two klicks or two breems? Every second I waste here I could be spending pounding Dreadwing back into the ground where he came from!" His glare at Bulkhead was heavy with accusation, and all the Wrecker could do was sigh.
"Jackie, I know you're upset- Seaspray was a brother to me like every other Wrecker. But you caused some serious damage out there-"
"I'll say!" a seething Agent Fowler cut in as he entered through the base elevator, turning a stare very similar to Wheeljack's own towards the white mech. "Your little 'cowboy antics' nearly blew our cover!"
"Cover?" Wheeljack asked with a raised optic ridge. Bulkhead explained how they disguised themselves among the unsuspecting humans, and Ratchet couldn't help but wonder when Optimus' cover was going to be blown sky high.
xx
"Lord Megatron, I live to serve," Dreadwing recited as he knelt on the Command Centre bridge before the warlord.
"Rise, Dreadwing," Megatron commanded with a thoughtful glint in his optics. "Loyalty such as your's is a rare commodity." 'And Primus knows we need loyalty around here...' His ranks were dropping like flies- first simple Eradicons and Vehicons and now competent officers. Still, at least they wouldn't be too missed...
"Mine runs deep and true. Yet it is not loyalty alone that brought me here," Dreadwing confessed. "I seek confirmation of the demise of one whom I considered a brother." Scratch that- two of them wouldn't be too missed. Megatron had only learnt of Skyquake's residence on earth after Starscream's departure from the Decepticons- a pity considering it would have given him another excuse to throw the Seeker off the Nemesis flight deck for not disclosing the location of a Sleeper to him.
"How did you learn of his passing?"
"My twin and I shared a split spark- two halves of the same life force..." Megatron's interest piqued at the mention of split sparks- considering what had recently happened considering such strong familial bonds. "Even across the galaxy I sensed when he emerged from stasis on this planet, and when his spark was no more." It was all he could do to stop himself from grinning at this new information. 'So that's why she was in such pain...' Megatron was wondering why Airachnid had clutched her spark chamber so tightly in apparent agony when she made her escape from the Nemesis just days ago. As for her reaction to his termination of that tiny, Scraplet-sized protoform that was crawling all over his floors, it only confirmed his previous suspicions.
'Such a shame to not be able to see the full results of my dominance,' he thought with sick regret. 'But at least the effects are certain to be long lasting..."