Wheeljack may have greeted the two with a smirk, but Airachnid was far less welcoming.
At the sound of her furious hiss and the look of two pink orbs glowing in the middle of her outstretched palms, Optimus barely stopped himself from lunging towards her. "Stand down, Airachnid!"
"What is he doing here?!" she snarled over his command, optics firing threats into Ratchet as his own scalpel weapons slid out. Optimus threw a look back at him as he dropped into a battle stance, and whispered to wide-eyed Wheeljack, "Keep Scorpia safe."
"You got it, chief," he muttered as he retreated into the safety of the shadows, a servo held over Scorpia and his helm bent to hush her confused cries of fear. Optimus didn't question his readiness to protect her, nor why he was even here just yet, he had more important things to deal with now.
Like keeping these two from killing each other.
They hadn't budged from their defensive positions, but Airachnid's blasters were burning ever brighter into the growing evening gloom.
"Optimus, you are helping Airachnid?!" Ratchet spoke her name like it was poison on his glossa, and her optics narrowed at the scorn in his voice.
"I will explain, Ratchet, when you stand down!" Optimus ordered, attempting to gain his slipping control over the situation.
"What, so she can burn me into the rocks?!" the medic barked back, only flicking his optics off of Airachnid over to Optimus for a klick. With a growl Optimus turned his attention from his stalwart teammate to the source of his aggression, his tone dropping from commanding to beseeching.
"Airachnid, Ratchet will not harm you, nor your sparkling. And you will not lay a hand on him. Do you understand?" From the fury in her grimace, she didn't want to understand. But eventually her scowl shifted into a set line of displeasure, and she closed her palms again. Optimus gave a small nod to her before turning back to Ratchet, putting all his authority into his stare. His expression stayed angry, but finally his weapons retracted.
Optimus heaved a deep sigh of relief and shuttered his optics, letting the fire in them cool down before opening them again.
"I understand you do not trust my medic." He addressed the femme first, eager to calm her suspicions before anything else- the wrath of a mother was never something he desired to face. "But I have good reason for bringing him here."
"As good a reason for aiding her in the first place?" Ratchet asked, unwilling to relinquish his bitterness, but Optimus dismissed his growl.
"Be honest, Airachnid, would you expect your child to survive past her first year without any medical help?" Again he ignored Ratchet outcry of "CHILD?!"
The femme veered her optics downwards as she contemplated his words. True, she'd never really thought about the future for her offspring, but she doubted that any sparkling had never needed aid from a trained medic. She had noway of knowing exactly whatmight befall Scorpia as she grew- rust, cablewarp, protoform tears- and no way of treating her. And she'd be lying if she wasn't hoping for some first aid herself...
While Airachnid thought it over, Optimus now spoke to Ratchet. "Yes, she is mother to a sparkling." 'Formally two.' "Would you have expected to let them both die out here?" Ratchet was still reeling from shock, optics flickering and apertures zooming erratically.
"H-how could... she- she-" He broke off into a series of stutters, starting words and never finishing them, before again crying "A sparkling?!"
Optimus looked to where he saw the faint glint of Wheeljack's armour, and jerked his helm to summon him out of the dark. He still cradled Scorpia, shielded from the confrontation, and thankfully she'd quieted down.
"Hey, Doc," he quipped to Ratchet, who formed his dropped jawplate into a distasteful frown at the insufferable Wrecker. To Optimus he only offered a lopsided smile, and a view of Scorpia's tiny servos stretching towards him, and even tinier optics blinking up at him.
"She likes you, chief," Wheeljack muttered, gently shifting her so that Optmus could lift her into his own arms. He was still wary of Wheeljack's presence, as well as his lack of Decepticon hatred (though very much welcomed in the recent midst of such), so Optimus only nodded at that. But as he looked down at Scorpia and picked out her gleeful grin, he felt his own mouthplates moving to match hers. She chirped as she nuzzled her helm against his spark, and Optimus almost forgot the still-scowling medic behind him until he felt the tap of his digit against a shoulder plate.
Webbing shot down between the two mechs as Ratchet moved closer to the sparking and snatched her out of Optimus arms. Above, Airachnid hissed venom at them as she held her cocooned offspring, two back legs raised in defense.
"Carrier protocols..." Ratchet murmured, recognising some of the display as one femmes would use whenever they felt a danger to their children. "So she is a mother." Disgust had replaced disdain in his tone.
"Airachnid, please. Ratchet only wishes to see Scorpia," Optimus pleaded to her, only to be met with a sneering growl.
"I've already lost one child to Decepticons," she reminded him, pressing her daughter even closer to her chest. "I won't lose another to Autobots."
Another sigh filled Optimus' vents. "You just have to trust me." Something changed in Airachnid's faceplate then, but she was quick to hide it before Optimus could decipher what it was.
"Air." He was surprised to hear Wheeljack speaking, in a soft voice that had no business coming from a Wrecker vocaliser. "I know you're worried, maybe even a lil' scared right now. And I know Ratchet is... not the most 'compassionate' Autobot around. But he knows what he's doing. And he ain't gonna hurt a single fibre optic on that lil' darlin's body." Wheeljack looked to Ratchet, motioning for him to make some damn effort in reassuring her. An air intake sailed through his olfactories, and he tried to erase all contempt from his systems.
"I have been a medic ever since I came out of the well," Ratchet revealed, not about to have his skill doubted. "I have cared for young and old bots, mothers and fathers alike. And I would never harm a sparkling, Airachnid, Autobot or Decepticon born. You have a medic's oath on that." Optimus doubted how much faith she would have in an oath from an Autobot, but her scowl had melted away and servos had lowered. Her optics swept over the three mechs below her, and lingered long on her daughter's faceplate before she relented. Lowering herself from a web string, she dug her heels into the dirt as she touched down, and tried to keep her gaze on Ratchet. Her steps were slow but sure towards him, and she held Scorpia in her palms, claws carefully avoiding her protoform, as she offered the youngling to him.
Ratchet hesitantly reached towards the web wrap, only allowing his own digits to brush against hers for a second before pulling back, now holding the squirming sparkling. It had been a long year since Ratchet had ever had one in his arms, but he had enough experience with them to keep this one calm in a stranger's grasp.
Now that her servos were empty, Airachnid didn't seem to know what to do with them. Her talons wrung and curled and flexed, her servos wrapped around her torso only to drop to her sides again as she watched the Autobot handle her child. She didn't want to go too near him, but her spark ached whenever she moved away. A large hand on her shoulder stilled her twitches, and Optimus gently led her aside with a backwards nod to Ratchet. He returned it before settling down on a rock with the sparkling, all Decepticon prejudice gone as he gently examined her.
Only when Airachnid saw Wheeljack leaning on part of the ravine wall did she spare the smallest of smiles, sitting opposite him as Optimus lowered himself next to her.
"Care to explain. Wheeljack?" he asked after a long moment of silence spent gauging how Wheeljack and Airachnid glanced at each other. Optimus had never seen the femme so... at ease, and he'd never known Wreckers for their levels of 'sympathy'- or whatever it was that stopped Wheeljack from killing her on sight. To say the whole thing unnerved him would be a severe understatement.
"We have a history," Wheeljack said, only expanding his explanation with a sly wink. With what he knew of the Wrecker, Optimus wasn't sure he wanted to know what that history entailed. All that mattered was that, as far as he could see, Jackie intended no harm towards the Decepticon refugees.
"And Airachnid, you're... comfortable with Wheeljack around you and Scorpia?"
"Better him than that brute you call a medic," she scoffed, her servos starting to drift over her frame with nothing to occupy them now. She still wasn't happy with Ratchet having current custody of her daughter, and Optimus suspected it wasn't just because of her techno-organic instincts putting her on edge.
"I understand that you-"
"Do you really, Prime?" Airachnid retorted, turning on him with a flash of a frown. "Do you really understand having to give up your life, possibly your own survival for something that you never wanted in the first place... and then having it just taken from you like that?" Optimus tried to imagine it, tried to think of anything like that... he never wanted the Matrix of Leadership, but it had never endangered his life. And Elita... Megatron had taken both her and the Matrix from him. The only difference was that he always wanted her, and in the end he'd never get her back.
Airachnid carried on as Optimus screened his thoughts. "This may be just the carrier protocols talking, but... dammit, I want this all to be worth something. I want to see Scorpia grow and flourish and... have a chance at something better than I ever had."
"And you will, darlin'," Wheeljack reassured her, letting a servo gently pat her knee. "I know Ratch'. He ain't gonna hurt her, and if he does try anything with ya'-"
"Then you will let me deal with it, Wheeljack," Optimus interrupted sternly. There was some danger in his apparent closeness to Airachnid, the Prime realized- if he was a Decepticon symphasiser, what did that mean for the Autobots? He'd spent a long time in the stars... long enough for his loyalties to blur.
An eyeridge quirked at Optimus' glare, followed with a shrug. "'Course, chief. I just want ta' keep 'em both safe, is all."
Optimus nodded slowly. "And how did you happen to come across Airachnid?"
"After I scanned my alt-mode, I went scoutin' with Bulk. Ended up goin' off on my own while he drove back to base, and ran into Air here," Wheeljack explained, softly squeezing the spike of her knee. Airachnid didn't respond, her optics locked behind her onto Ratchet, back turned to her.
"Airachnid?" Her helm snapped around to the sound of Optimus' voice, her mouth hanging open. "Are you sure you're alright?" Her quick nod was unconvincing.
"I'm just... this feeling of... caring." Her faceplate curled and her lips drew back in a hiss. "I've never... felt it before. I... I'm scared, Optimus. I don't like it." Optimus had seen many a scared Decepticon before; in the face of death, they were all the same. But what Airachnid spoke of, the prickling in her EM field and the flicker of her optics, was something else entirely.
"Optimus!" Ratchet's call from behind broke Optimus' train of thought off, and he had to abandon Airachnid to her fears as he walked to where Ratchet stood cradling Scorpia with a gentleness he hadn't seen for many a year.
"I've detected a... problem with the sparkling," Ratchet said, keeping his voice low and his tone as neutral as possible.
"Such as?" It took all of Optimus' effort to stave off the tremors in his vocaliser.
"At first glance she seems perfectly healthy- steady armour growth rate, no birth defects, systems functional. But her structure and biology... I've never seen anything like it." As he spoke Ratchet stroked a digit along one of Scorpia's helm crowns, a soothing sensation that made her purr softly.
"What do you mean?"
"While her armour is growing in normally, the layer currently covering her is abnormally... brittle." Usually a sparkling's armour was soft and pliable, to allow for easy molting and movement. It only started to harden after their first stellar cycle, and even then it was tough enough to withstand a battle, not brittle. "Furthermore, I scanned her energon and..." Ratchet inhaled a large gulp of breath. "I don't know how to tell you this, Optimus, but... I picked up readings of Dark Energon radiation in her veins."
'From Megatron,' was Optimus' first thought, and the implications came raining down on him. There was no telling what even the smallest amount of Dark Energon could do to something so frail as a sparkling, or the complications it could cause as she matured.
"But she seems... healthy, otherwise?"
"As far as I can see," Ratchet sighed. "I suspect Airachnid's techno-organic mutations affected her while she was still in her spark chamber, and if so then her problems will be genetic. Nothing much I can do in that case, other than keeping an eye on her."
"Which you will do?" Optimus asked hopefully.
"Well, I can't just let the only sparkling I've seen in over ten decacycles just die out here, Optimus!" the medic burst out, jolting Scorpia from her lull and causing her to wail quietly. Airachnid's helm shot in their direction, optics cold with a mother's rising fury, but Optimus held her back with a motion of his servo. She reluctantly turned her glare away as Rathet tried to calm Scorpia down.
"I see why you did this now," he muttered as he cradled the sparkling close to his chest, letting her paw at the pulse of his spark through the metal. "Even though I don't see the wisdom in leaving a femme like Airachnid to care for a spark-"
"She is the last bot I would ever have called 'motherly'," Optimus agreed. "But over the past few days I have seen she is more than capable of keeping her daughter safe."
"So why does she need our help?" Ratchet protested.
"She has nowhere else to go. Megatron is the reason she is in this situation, and I doubt she'd ever willingly return to him. Furthermore, Megatron has no knowledge of there being a sparkling on Earth. We can hide them, help them without the Decepticons even knowing Airachnid is still alive-"
"And turn her into an Autobot?" Ratchet's tone had an edge sharpened with years of cynicsm, and his scoff almost tore into Optimus' audios."Optimus, you've tried to make Decepticons turn to our side before, but it just doesn't work. You think you can save her. You think you can... change her. But the fact is that she made the choice of where her loyalties lie back on Cybertron, and no sparkling is going to change that." The medic's optics were coldly final even as his hands were gentle on the sparkling. "Once a Decepticon, always a Decepticon."
Optimus had to search for words to refute him, and there was silence between them for long seconds. "She never had the choice of her loyalty in the first place." The medic's optic apertures whirred in confusion at Optimus' revelation.
"How?"
"The same how as to her being techno-organic." The Prime glanced back to make sure the femme wasn't focusing on them. "During the war, I know not when exactly, she was a normal Cybertronian, left stranded on a planet far from our home. Those planet's inhabitants changed her somehow, and when the Decepticons found her down there she was something else entirely. She owed them for her rescue, and I'd wager that her debt has been long since paid. It was circumstantial loyalty, Ratchet, nothing more." Rather than looking understanding though, Ratchet's gaze was suspicious.
"And what was this planet called, Optimus?" It was another long, tense moment before he answered.
"Archa Seven." The sigh that shuddered through Ratchet made him regret ever bringing up Airachnid's history. The medic summoned Wheeljack over, handing Scorpia over to him while he pulled Optimus further into the tangle of tree branches and rock walls.
"Optimus, I know what you're doing," he said gently when they were out of sight. "You think... you can see Elita somewhere in Airachnid. Don't deny it. And I know you miss her, we all do, but... there's nothing we can do to bring her back. The only thing that would be best for the rest of the team would be for you to let her go. Let her rest in peace."
Optimus took a long time to pick his words before supplying them in his reply. "I know their histories are very similar, Ratchet, but any relation never crossed my mind for a klick. I have let her go, Ratchet. I know she is gone, and I accept it. The simple fact is that Airachnid needs my help. And I give it to her." Now Ratchet's sigh brimmed with exhasperation.
"Primus dammit, Optimus!" He threw his servos up in his anger. "How do you know she isn't... manipulating you?! Elita's... disappearance on Archa was no mystery on Cybertron, even to the latest arrival to the war. How easy would it have been to look up your name in the Decepticon database and see just one line about Elita? If anything, I'd be surprised if she wasn't tricking you in some way." Trust Ratchet to always see the worst in a situation, even if it was... startlingly logical. Optimus hissed his own sigh through his vents, closing his optics and having to force them open again when he spoke.
"I will not deny that she wouldn't do such a thing if she had the chance to do so- but I can't believe it. I just can't, Ratchet. I must believe that there are some Decepticons worthy of redemption, of change. If not... then this war will have no true winners." When Ratchet looked up again at the Prime, he saw more of his leader than he did of his old friend. It was obvious Optimus was blinded by his own self-righteousness, and nothing he or anyone else said would budge him. Ratchet clenched his fists, the same hands that held Airachnid's daughter like she was his own.
"...Just be careful, Optimus. That's all else I'll say on the matter." He shoved himself out of the makeshift crevice before any argument could be offered.