I feel like I should place a bit of a warning here, since this chapter involves Airachnid going into a bit more detail involving her spark-rape at the hands of Megatron. Nothing worse than you see in most fanfic, but if anyone's sensitive to that subject matter they might want to skip over some of her dialogue later on.

Still not sure if I'm happy with how this one came out... but I didn't want to put off posting it any longer. Please let me know if any parts seem 'off', though.

xx

"Sorry we missed the shower, Raf."

"Are you kidding, Bee? This is way better than some flying space rocks!"

Scorpia was hesitant to go near Rafael at first, wary of the heat he radiated and the softness of his skin, but with Bumblebee cupping her helm the sparkling eventually let his small arms cover her. Other than a mutter of 'human germs', Airachnid didn't protest much about her child being passed around like a show-and-tell object. Optimus suspected she was secretly grateful for the reprieve in constantly caring for her.

Even so, he kept himself glued to her side as they watched from a slight rise in the ground. The cobwebs and strings woven through the tree at their back told him she'd made a home out of the spot. Grimlock was only short walk away from them both, but his sleep seemed deeper than the Pit.

"That scout seems quite skilled with sparklings," Airachnid noted with as neutral a tone as she could manage. She hadn't said anything about Rafael's presence. Optimus still couldn't decide if that was good or bad.

"In many ways, he still is one," he said, meant as much as a sad confession as an attempt at humour. A sparkling who'd killed enough 'Cons to fill up a wall with their names. If he'd come from the well just a few centuries ago, his only worry in the universe would have been academy grades and impressing femmes. And if Airachnid had only landed a few parsecs away, fate may have treated her much more kindly.

She picked at a sheen of grime on her talons, studying the undergrowth carpeting their seat. "How long until all your other teammates are out to kill me?" she asked. Her tone was hollow, but her fangs started to bead over with acid that corroded the edges of her words.

"I did not intend for anyone to find you-" Optimus began, almost prepared for her interruption.

"You didn't intend to, yet they managed to anyway." Airachnid blew a long belt of air from her vents, gears grinding faintly in her internals. "Pretty convenient, don't you think?"

Optimus stretched his digits over his kneeplate as his own vents started to labour. She had every right to be suspicious, but it was difficult to keep himself shackled together under so much scrutiny in one day. "Airachnid, do you honestly think I would allow a human child to stumble across your territory?"

She clicked her legs together, noticing Rafael for the first time as he tried to get Scorpia's weight off his shoulder. Optimus was still thanking Primus that it wasn't Arcee and Jack who had to stumble upon his secret. Of course, he would have preferred if no-one had to, but he had to take the small blessings when they presented themselves.

Airachnid betrayed a ghost of a smile as both human and Cybertronian child fell to the ground laughing. "I take it back, then," she said quietly, tracing the armour seams of her leg. "I don't know if I'd rather it was one of your Autobots or a Decepticon hiding out there... my claws have been feeling itchy recently." She scraped them together on one hand and twitched a smirk in Optimus' direction. "Even you wouldn't stop me from carving a 'Con's spark out."

The more Prime stared, the more he found Airachnid's sadistic glint hard to believe. "Even Decepticons are capable of redemption," he said. "Are you not proof of that?"
Either his sincerity or the question itself made her optics roll as she wearily pushed herself up. "There you go again, assuming I ever was a Decepticon." She sighed, digging her heels into the dirt and facing him with servos crossed over her chest. The shadows of the evening made her back legs look as if they'd grown back with tenfold length and malice. "Are you seriously telling me you wouldn't remove Megatron's helm from his shoulders given the chance?"

Optimus had been given the chance many times before- and each decision to spare Megatron's life haunted him more than the last. Every time he hoped the mech he once called a friend would see reason and stand down, his endless list of victims only multiplied. Killing him from the very start would have made Optimus just as much a murderer as him, but it would have meant Cybertron's survival. It would have meant Elita's spark being spared most of all.

"As much as it pains my spark to say it... the universe would be better off with Megatron in the Allspark," he admitted. Airachnid quirked an eyeridge in surprise, but didn't interrupt Optimus' musing. "Brother or not, his crimes have earned him execution. There is no justification for the centuries of slaughter- I doubt he even believes in his own cause anymore. All that concerns him is proving superiority over all others. He will not stop until all sparks under my protection are extinguished."

"Especially mine," Airachnid muttered, the acid on her teeth starting to drip over her lips. Optimus watched her carefully as he nodded, making his optics to look away as his glossa started to stick to the bottom of his mouth.

"I cannot imagine..." His vocaliser started to fill with something that felt like rust, chopping his words into pieces before he could get them out. "What... he must have forced you through," he eventually forced out. His optics did all they could to avoid looking at her, gazing past to where Scorpia curled herself against Bumblebee- the slumbering evidence of Megatron's evil. "You may not believe me, Airachnid, but... I wish I could have aided you earlier."

The sarcastic laugh he'd braced himself for never came. In it's place was only a quiet mutter slipping past burned lips. "...He never forced me."

Optimus made himself look at her again, but all he found in her place was stirring, empty air. She'd returned to his side, collapsing on the ground like a rock hitting water.

"Not at first, at least," she continued, starting to blink rapidly as her optics stared at a chewed leaf precariously perched on a branch ahead of them. With no wind to stir it, all it could do was cling lifelessly. "I... I encouraged his attention when he first showed it," she admitted. "I thought it might protect me from all that the lesser soldiers suffered. And it did. The more I pleased him, the more I was promoted. But then there was the Exodus. And any loyalty I might have felt towards the Decepticons was long gone." Her optics closed over for a long moment, air hissing sharply through her vents. "I saw a chance to get out, and I took it. I was never meant to land on Earth. But the Harbinger engines failed during transit, and the emergency landing system stranded me here. I might have been long gone by now... if it wasn't for your humans."

Hostility crept into her tone like a predator crouching in shadow as her gaze sharpened to pierce into Rafael, and Optimus couldn't stop himself replying in kind."Long gone with some native heads in your collection."

Airachnid just shrugged as her optics softened again. "Call it a souvenir." Her voice was devoid of even a macabre hint of humour, only a shell of sound. "The fact is, Optimus... things have changed even more than I'd anticipated. Knockout has gone from a lowly lab assistant to the commanding medical officer. Everywhere I look, drones replace any names I could recognise. Breakdown practically pines for me like a turbopuppy. The only things that have stayed the same are Starscream's stupidity, thank Primus, and... Megatron's infatuation."

If Airachnid had been holding herself together, now the cracks in her composure were starting to split open. "I knew he'd expect me to join him the night that I returned, and I was prepared for the usual evening. But... this time he wanted my spark." Almost automatically her digits started to fan out over the center of her chest, digging into the plating as if to tear them off. "It was always just interface before, a meaningless exchange of fluids. That wasn't enough for him now. That... that was when he forced himself on me." She still refused to look at Optimus, sparing herself from the horror on his faceplate. "His spark was filled with Dark Energon, practically glowing with it. I hope you never see something like it, Optimus. The sight alone burns you. Having to fuse yourself with it... it's like..."

"Your spark tearing in half, with one side lost forever?" Optimus suggested, voice heavy with static. Airachnid was slow to turn her helm, optics wide but dim as they studied him.

"Exactly like that," she confirmed.

"In that case, it sounds much like losing a sparkmate," he said numbly, not noticing the pain in his digit joints as they weaved together in a crushing grip, hands practically fusing together.

"You really loved Elita," Airachnid stated, if only to stop Optimus from subconsciously mangling himself.

"More than I could ever love anyone else," he whispered, finally relaxing his hands as his whole frame went limp and his servos fell aside.

Airachnid shifted along slightly, feeling the frantic mess of his EM field. "The Archa Seven incident... how long ago was it?" she asked.

"I've lost track of the time since." If Optimus thought too much about the timeline of events, his spark often felt like it would implode.

"I read that you launched the Allspark into space shortly after it, so... seven centuries ago, at least," Airachnid guessed. "You've been feeling that same pain all this time, haven't you?"

"...It started to fade after the first six centuries." Optimus thought he could feel her warm palm against the back of his hand if he concentrated, losing himself in the safe memories of her... only to notice it was Airachnid's own talons holding him, sharp enough to wrench him back to reality but with Elita's same aura of warmth. Maybe it was a femme trait.

She jumped slightly when she noticed him staring, but her hand remained on his, as if melted to the metal. The ache in his joints ebbed away, tendrils of gentleness spreading out from where her claws brushed against. Optimus' frame was so low he was practically optic level with her, and sinking closer still into the deceptive calm of her EM field. It prickled and washed back against him, as if welcoming his presence against her.

Optic glows hovering in the darkness, both beams trapped together, Optimus didn't notice how close their lips were together until she wrenched hers away from him.

"I'm going to sleep," she declared, pushing herself up with one servo and firing out a string of web towards Scorpia, snatching the sparkling out of Bumblebee's servos and padding her in her usual cocoon. "If there's any Autobots lurking around here when I wake up, they die." She said so with a particularly bright glare at Bee before she escaped into the tree, the rustling leaves and faint sparkling giggles being the only sign of her presence in the canopy.

"The apple fell a mile away from the tree, I see," Bumblebee buzzed in annoyance, servos still locked up from surprise at the sudden sparkling-grab. "But... she didn't try to murder anyone, at least." He rubbed at his shoulder with a glance at Optimus. "I guess you have been changing her a little."

The Prime managed to uproot himself from the ground even as Airachnid still crawled in the forefront of his mind. "How did you find yourselves here?"
Bumblebee threw his servos up. "Beats me. I was gonna take Raf meteor watching, we went through the base Ground Bridge and... here we were on your own little Mercy Island."

Scorpia had only proved a temporary distraction for the scout's boiling rage. Optimus shuttered his optics before launching into excuses.

"I am sorry if you view my actions as a betrayal of the Autobots. It was never my intention to place my team in danger. But I must ask that you both keep this between yourselves for the foreseeable future."

Bumblebee's optic reticules warred with each other, zooming as his eyeridges lowered. "Who else knows?" he blipped.
"Ratchet and Wheeljack," Optimus said. "I will allow the others to know in time."

"Even Jack and Arcee?" He hadn't been expecting Rafael to weigh in, but the human was looking up at him with questions glittering in his tiny optics. Optimus was hesitant to answer.
"...Yes. I do not expect them to be content with my decision. I can only hope they share my belief that all bots deserve the chance for redemption."

Bumblebee chirped a scoff as he turned his fluttering door-wings on Optimus. "Doubt it." The scout went off towards a curious web strung between two tree trunks on the outskirts of the glade, peering at the twinkling dew drops on the strings. Optimus took the time to kneel down towards Rafael. The human deserved more than a plea for secrecy, at least.

"Rafael... please accept my deepest apologies for this. I never wished to place you or any humans in harm's way."

The human's eyes were still curious even as he blinked, but Optimus couldn't have anticipated his reply from such a young being. "I get it, Optimus, really. It happens a lot with Earth wars, y'know. Hardly anything is just... good or evil. There's a lot of grey morality. And maybe that's where Airachnid fits in."

It took some soldiers centuries to learn there was even such thing as a blur between black and white, yet this fragile creature figured it out in just a tenth of the time. Optimus couldn't fight the temptation of a smile. "My Autobots could learn much from you, Rafael."

The human's face went red and he looked down at his shoes even though he was smiling as well.

Bumblebee finally stopped himself nature-watching with a check of his chronometer. "Jeesh, we're about a breem late for Ratchet's curfew. I'm almost tempted to spend the night here if it meant avoiding hi-" Then Bumblebee finally noticed Grimlock sleeping like a very uncomfortable log, and exploded into bleeps that roughly translated into "HOW LONG HAS THAT FRAGGING THING BEEN THERE?"