Even when he expected it, the silence at the base was a dagger through Optimus' nerves. Everyone avoided his gaze, even Ratchet at his monitor. The only sound was the thud of his peds, and a very faint sobbing from behind the med-bay's screen.
He dampened his vocaliser as he approached Bumblebee and Arcee sitting astride each other, casting glances at where Bulkhead was curtained off even as they tried to keep their helms firmly down. "Mission report," he said, barely managing to keep cracks out of his voice.
"We ran into Knockout with a squad of Vehicons, but the relic was successfully retrieved," Arcee stated, with a confirming beep from Bumblebee. The admittance of the victory didn't seem to help their moods- if anything, Arcee only seemed to break more. "When did Bulkhead get back, Optimus?" she asked, lifting her neck cables to turn a coolant-streaked faceplate up at him. It was only through extreme willpower that he managed to meet her damp optics.
"...Shortly after you departed," he answered quietly.
"He's been here this whole time and you never told us?!" Even with the pained snarl in her voice, it was clear Arcee was restraining the true force of her anger. Optimus would have admired it more if he wasn't the deserving target of it.
"Uh, Arcee, calm down-" Jack attempted to approach her peds but she was already stamping them towards Optimus, craning her neck up to glare at him as if they were equal size. Rafael, the one who'd predicted instantly how she would react, had the sense to stay back behind the safety of his laptop.
"I understand your outrage, Arcee," Optimus said slowly, handpicking each word. With the loss of two teammates already plagueing her consciousness, there was no telling what the possibility of losing a third would do to her. "But the mission must come first. I knew you would want to return upon hearing news of his condition, but you were needed more urgently in New York."
Arcee only flared her olfactories at his sorry, soft gaze. "And where does Miko factor into all that?" she snapped, voice dropping only so the human wouldn't hear her name mentioned.
"...If I had alerted her to his condition, you would have known as well, and the same problem would have occurred," Optimus tried to explain. All it earned him was a snort of what he could only describe as disgust.
"You're really no different from every other commander, aren't you?" Arcee accused, spitting on a tide of static tickling her vocaliser and staining her voice. "You don't care how a mission is done, who gets hurt during or after it, all you care about is-"
Optimus never heard the end of her damnation- somehow a thin voice managed to cut through her anger.
"It's alright, Arcee," Miko said quietly from the medbay, only half of her body showing from behind the screen towering over her. She shuffled out of its cover, towards Optimus with a glance at Jack and the simmering femme at his side. Arcee's scowl lifted, but only slightly as the young girl stopped between her and Optimus, staring at the floor to hide the tear stains under her eyes. "I... I get why you didn't say anything, Optimus. Beating the 'Cons is more important than..." Whatever she was about to say was dismissed with a light shrug. "I'm here now, at least. And I'm gonna be here until Bulk is all better," she said, trying to show a smile as she lifted her head up.
Optimus shuttered his optics, exailing as he knelt to properly address the human. "Even so, you have my deepest apologies, Miko," he intoned, with a hand hovering over the painfully throbbing core of his spark. "I'm sure Bulkhead will recover quickly with someone like you to support-"
He was interrupted by a thud of tonnes of metal hitting rock, and settling above them with grit and dust trickling down from the stony ceiling.
"What in the Pit...?" Ratchet cursed, resisting the urge to follow the other Autobots and stare upwards at the source of the commotion as he checked the base's proximity sensor grid. "There's... a starship on the roof..." he revealed in confusion, as everyone else was already making for the elevator.
xx
"How come everytime I visit I end up gettin' a welcomin' committee?" Wheeljack asked as the Jackhammer's boarding ramp retracted, looking over each face staring at him outlined against Nevada's sunset. To Miko he gave a wink, followed by a frown when she didn't return it.
"What're you doing here?" Arcee asked, more roughly than she might have meant to with the remnants of rage still boiling in her systems. Wheeljack raised an eyeridge, hands on hips and fidgeting with the grenade hanging at his left.
"Well, while ya'll are out blowin' up half the planet, I did the nice thing and went to pick one up for ya'," he said, only slightly offended at the less-than-warm greeting. "I mean ya' made it pretty easy to find them, leavin' the co-ordinates out plain as a Vosian day."
Now that Ratchet finally caught up with the rest of the team gathered on the plateau, it was his turn to snap. "You hacked our system?!"
"Now 'hacked' is a pretty negative term, I prefer 'infiltrated'," Wheeljack corrected with a habitual cocky grin. "I mean, I've had the Jackhammer's computer linked up with the base's network since the first day I landed- for future reference, get a stronger password than just 'password', Prime. And when I saw that number gibberish, I figured I'd try huntin' down one close to my location."
"If it was that easy for him to get into our database, then it's no wonder Starscream knew where to find one," Ratchet muttered to Optimus with a disapproving huff. Prime gave his own hum as he stepped forward, forcing Wheeljack's attention away from everyone's solemn expressions. The Wrecker deserved to know about his friend's condition more than anyone else gathered there, but it would have to wait until Optimus knew the details of his own relic quest.
"Wheeljack, how do you know of our attempts to retrieve the Iacon relics?"
The Wrecker looked at him like he was trying to explain the entire history of the Primacy to him. "I don't know 'bout no relics, but you watch any news channel on Earth and there's some kind of 'Bot-caused catastrophe on it," he said with a shrug. "I just figure anywhere with 'Cons to kick the scrap outta is worth goin' to. Whatever it was I was goin' after, Soundwave wouldn't let me near it-"
"Soundwave?" Bumblebee cut in with a few more nervous beeps.
"Yeah, creepy fragger was waitin' for me," Wheeljack confirmed. "Lost the relic, or whatever it was he was holdin', but I did take a lil' souvenir for myself." With a renewed grin he pulled something sparking from behind his back. Dangling from a broken wing was a very quiet Laserbeak.
Ratchet's reaction was less than grateful. "Wheeljack, are you fragging glitching?! Soundwave could easily track our location through his drone!"
"Will ya' loosen your bolts, 'Ratch?" The Wrecker groaned, rolling his optics as the downed drone spun on its loose joint. "I ain't as dumb as I look, I made sure he's deactivated before bringin' him in. Tell ya' what, take his lasers out and he'd make a pretty good mascot." Still holding him by the wing tip, Wheeljack dropped Laserbeak into Optimus' hands, which closed around the chassis in case he suddenly tried to fly off, and rubbed the cracked metal chips off his hands.
"Anyway, who died 'round here?" the Wrecker said with a very out-of-place chuckle. "Feels like I just walked into a fraggin' memorial service-"
"Wheeljack..." Arcee stopped him before he set Miko off into tears all over again. "It's Bulkhead."
Like a veil falling from his faceplate, Wheeljack went blank. "...What about him?" he asked through a suddenly struggling vocaliser, with another accusing look at Optimus.
"...You should see for yourself," the Prime advised.
xx
Three chapters without Airachnid now... I'm starting to miss her as well, so I promise she and Scorpia (and Grimlock) will be returning in the next one, now that I've got canon stuff out of the way.