As Optimus called for a Ground Bridge, he heard a distant sigh of relief over the comm line.
"I hesitate to ask Optimus, but... did you come across-"
"Bumblebee and Rafael are safe with me, Ratchet," he relayed, with a cautious look at Bumblebee prodding Grimlock's thick hide with a stick. "It seems they... found themselves deposited on Airachnid's island."
"Well... as long as they're safe." Ratchet's clipped words betrayed the forced calm of his voice. "I can't imagine Bumblebee took the discovery very well..."
"He was within reason to feel upset," Optimus said. "But I believe he will keep this to himself. Rafael as well."
"Let's hope so... or at this rate, even Unicron will know about her."
Optimus huffed a heavy vent. 'She has already felt his influence...' He decided to keep that though to himself though, waiting for the Ground Bridge to pop up in the usual area. He was the first to enter it, Bumblebee and Rafael following behind, and the scout seemed to think the Prime's back being turned meant that his audios were out of service.
"Hey, Ratchet, didn't know you had a bugcatching hobby." The seeds of a smirk uprooted themselves from Bumblebee's faceplate when Optimus turned a weary glare on him.
"Bumblebee, take Rafael home and retire for the evening," he ordered, and even with all the signs of rebellion in his stance the scout knew better than to try disobeying. Rafael gave a small wave of farewell before climbing into Bee's alt mode, and in a few nanoklicks the Prime and the medic were alone in the foyer.
"I don't know why, but I'm starting to doubt his ability to keep his mouth bolted..." Ratchet muttered with thick layers of sarcasm.
"Bumblebee is willful, but he has no reason to let the others know. We have to trust him," Optimus said, emphasising how little control either of them had left at this point. Wheeljack had at least proven a non-threat with how little time he spent near the Autobots in the first place, but with a young mech as volatile as Bumblebee... well, all it would take was a bad mood for him to start blurting out whatever happened to be floating in his processor.
Ratchet's skepticism mirrored that which Optimus struggled to keep hidden. Even so, he put it to one side for now. "Well... as per your orders and Bulkhead's insistence, I allowed him to pursue one of the co-ordinates you sent over." The medic brought up a visual of Bulkhead's vital signs and tracker location.
"Has he found anything?" Optimus asked, grateful for some less clandestine business to distract him.
"Not yet," Ratchet replied. "I told him to conserve his energy and only comm in if necessary." He scanned over his friend, taking in the slight sag of his stance and the off-colour of his plating. "You should recharge as well, Optimus. You've had enough excitement to last a decacycle, let alone one day."
Even if he had the strength to argue, Optimus knew he was right. He nodded goodnight and set off for his quarters, hearing Arcee's faint engine snores as he walked past her door. He was so exhausted, he had his first night without dreams in a long while.
xx
"Agent Fowler, I apologise for my absence yesterday," Optimus said, kneeling down to the human's eye-level. Despite the bandages he looked signifigantly better- that is to say, he was actually conscious now. It seemed he wanted to give thanks in person, now that Silas was locked away properly this time.
"I'm just glad you haven't gone loco like I thought," Fowler said, scratching absently at a gauze over his arm. "And that M.E.C.H's finally been swept under the rug. Sector Seven's staff's been all but gutted now, and anyone who worked with Silas is now sharing a much smaller cell with him."
"And I must thank your army for taking care of Silas' equipment before it could do much more damage," Optimus said.
Confusion flitted across Fowler's face, and he started scratching instead at the slight covering of stubble on his chin. "Uh... actually, my team came in on Silas trying to get his... robot doo-hickey working. We thought it was you who shut off the signal."
Optimus blinked twice, setting back slightly on his bent legs. "No... we had assumed an outside source had interrupted it."
Fowler frowned, looking away before shaking his head. "... Strange. Well, whatever happened, it's over now. You can keep your focus on the Decepticons from now on."
"And we shall," Optimus promised. "Currently we are attempting to stop them recovering Cybertronian relics hidden on Earth."
Fowler didn't seem reassured by the news- his eyes had rolled up to the ceiling before he'd finished turning towards the elevator. "Oh, of course, cause it seems we're a regular gift shop for ancient alien relics. Buy one, get one and a laser to the face free!" He sighed as he entered the elevator, giving a weary look to Optimus. "Good luck in any case, Prime. We're counting on you." Optimus only had enough time to nod before the doors slid shut.
"Ratchet- any news from Bulkhead?"
The medic shook his head from his computer station, limbs moving slowly from the few breems of recharge he allowed himself. "He's been checking in with brief progress reports, but he's yet to find anything..." His digits tapped against his keyboard for no purpose other than to keep them occupied. "Maybe the co-ordinates were off?" he suggested, which is exactly what Optimus was fearing all along.
"Perhaps..." Before Prime could let too many possibilties of relic-empowered Decepticons enter his processor, Arcee and Bumblebee drove into the foyer and, before Jack had even taken his helmet off, Miko was storming out of Bee's backseat and up towards Optimus' ped.
"Yo, Optimus, where the heck's my big metal buddy?" she demanded, with a surly pout even the most angsty of teenagers would have been jealous of.
"Bulkhead is currently undertaking an important mission, Miko," he explained, stepping back slightly so she wouldn't injure herself trying to punch his plating.
Miko groaned up at him, before she spotted Bulkhead's picture on Ratchet's monitor along with his vitals. "Can I talk to him?" she asked, pointing over at the medic's station.
"I wouldn't advise it," Ratchet said. "You'll only distract him."
"Boo." Miko crossed her arms over and stubbornly plopped on the couch. "What's so important that he left me behind for, anyway?"
"The Iacon Relics," Ratchet casually replied, making Miko sit right back up again. Even Jack and Raf were looking over in curiosity- though Raf less so, since he'd overheard the entire process of their locations finally being found.
"I thought you said we didn't have the full database for them!" Miko pointed out.
"Well, we do now," Ratchet said, tempting a smile at the human's spluttering confusion. Eventually Miko stopped trying to figure out at what point she must have blacked out and missed an entire day of exposition and settled for a cry of, "You guys need to stop doing things when we're not around!"
She went right back to sulking as Arcee went to stand beside Ratchet.
"Primus, how long's the big guy been out there for?" the femme asked.
"At least five breems now," Ratchet answered. "We're starting to suspect there's no relic there to find. That... the co-ordinates may be wrong." He seemed to struggle to admit it, using another screen to pull up the supposed relic locations and frowning at it. Arcee twitched her digits, thinking to herself before turning to her Prime.
"Optimus, with your permission, I'd still like to go after one of them," she said. "At least then we'll know for sure if the co-ordinates are right or not."
Ratchet had something to say before Optimus could decide. "Actually, now that I look twice at it... there's one location in particular that's had faint Decepticon signals very recently near it. If there is a relic there, they may be heading towards it now."
Optimus made his decision with a heavy vent. "Very well, Arcee. You and Bumblebee may set out after one of the relics." There was an entirely seperate danger in letting the scout unsupervised near any team members now, but he wasn't about to let only one of his Autobots face off against a whole squad of Decepticons. At least the whole team would be kept busy today.
As Ratchet pulled up the location and started prepping the Ground Bridge, Miko snapped out of her sulk and squinted up at the screen.
"Hey, I recognise that!" She pointed up at the co-ordinate code, with a string of three numbers somewhere in the middle. "646... that's the area code for Manhattan!"
Jack raised an eyebrow in the near distance. "And how the heck do you know that, Miko?"
"Me and my dad- real one, that is- lived in New York for a few months," she said with no small amount of smugness. "You gotta learn new phone numbers quick when you're on the move." Swinging her legs around the armrest of the couch, Miko waltzed over to Arcee with a new spark of mischief in her eyes. "Not only that, but I happen to know just about everything about subway tunnels, which is probably how any 'Cons in New York haven't been spotted yet."
Arcee copied her partner with a raised eyeridge down at Miko. "Pretty convincing argument for making us let you tag along."
Miko shrugged. "With Bulkhead, usually all I'd have to say is 'please'."
"Uh, hey, I need to come too!" Jack protested, running up to take over Miko's place in Arcee's centre of attention. "I mean... how are you gonna stay incognito with all the millions of people in New York, even if you are using the tunnels." Miko stuck her tongue out behind him as Arcee failed to think of reasons for them to stay behind. Even Bumblebee just shrugged when she looked over at him.
"Let's go, then," she said, reverting to alt mode and letting Jack climb aboard while Miko took her place in Bumblebee's front seat.
"You not comin', Raf?" she asked, from the open window.
The younger boy shook his head. "I... think I've had enough excitement for the week. Look after him, Miko!"
The girl gave a thumbs up just before Bee zoomed off towards the Bridge vortex after Arcee, leaving tire treads in his wake. The Bridge closed after a few empty seconds, and just as a peaceful silence was about to settle in there was a rapid beep from Ratchet's console, and a flash of red on the main screen.
"Bulkhead?" Optimus asked, marching over to his friend's side as he started frantically typing.
"Something's wrong... his vitals are dropping," Ratchet said, tone growing hollow with fear. "Bulkhead, come in! Can you hear me?!"
Not even a crackle of static answered him. Raf was frozen with his laptop, watching the two wisest beings he knew reduced to panic by nothing more than a few sounds.
"Open the Bridge at his location." Ratchet rushed to obey before Optimus even finished giving the order. Another vortex spawned, with wafts of smoke blowing through it before Bulkhead's mass fell through and collapsed on the floor. Energon pooled underneath him, deadly black plumes rising from his engines and limbs motionless as if his joints were crusted over with rust.
"S... Starscream..." He groaned through a gurgle of energon in his vocaliser before stasis lock took hold. The silence that followed was anything but peaceful.