Airachnid never told Optimus about her run-in with Arcee, no matter how much he asked about the coolant trails on her faceplate or the raw throb of her spark. She just wanted to forget it, pretend for just one more night that everything was fine. Optimus was at least willing to grant that blessing, picking up from where they'd left off in the hot spring and sending her off to another very blissful recharge in his servos.
"I don't think I ever want to leave this berth," she told him, melting against his frame with the rest of her mind lost in the softness underneath hers, softness she hadn't realised she'd been missing until she felt it sink all around her.
"That makes two of us..." Optimus liked to stroke the edges of her crown, soothing any throbbing aches in her helm with just light touches and warm air from his vents. He used to do the same to the thinner pipes of her helm... Elita's helm. She was still getting used to separating the memories out, and Optimus treating her like no time at all passed between them didn't help with them all blending together. Though maybe that was exactly what he was trying to do, convincing her that Airachnid and Elita were just different names for the same bot.
In some ways, it was like how after the Matrix transformed him, Primus' light bleeding through the seams of his armour and lancing from his optics. Orion became Optimus, and she was still just a dancing femme shot up further than she deserved to be. No matter what he said to her, it took her a long time to accept that Optimus was still Orion past the glamour of the Primes.
And now he'd become someone else again, that beautifully awkward mech she knew all but eroded away by the years, the war like sandpaper on his spark. "You've changed so much, Optimus…" She mumbled it, half out of a hope that he wouldn't hear, but his audios were always tuned to her voice.
"Am I still the mech you fell in love with?" he asked, rumbling against her helm.
"You always will be," she breathed.
They gave each other one last kiss before finally allowing themselves to return to reality; donning armour, straightening cables and heading out into the uncertain wild awaiting them in the foyer. As Airachnid stubbornly kept herself from looking at which Autobots were awake, Optimus only realised he'd neglected to inform the children of their new visitor when he saw them crowded together around their television, freezing in place with long glances at Airachnid; ones that she tried her best to ignore for now as Optimus approached Ratchet.
"Where is Arcee?" he asked, with relief hitting Airachnid hard on top of a strange sort of regret.
"Still in her room," the medic answered. "Can't say I blame her…"
Optimus let out a low grunt that she tried not to think as accusatory. "Airachnid, will you be comfortable here without me? Just for a little while?"
"Of course, Optimus," she lied, watching him return to the block of rooms they'd just entered from, still watching when he turned a corner just to avoid the awkwardness of facing Ratchet with past hostility still hanging over them. But she couldn't keep staring into empty space, and when she turned around the medic only glanced at her in that cautious way as he watched his monitor.
"Did you rest well?" he asked after some silence.
"Yes... very well." Airachnid looked over the rest of the space, catching Smokescreen's optic while he sat with Wheeljack, seeing him flash a grin with a thumbs up at her (which made her slightly suspicious about whatever that Wrecker slagger was telling him). She didn't see Ratchet's face, but he seemed to smile past the huff of his vents.
"Are you… considering bringing Scorpia here?"
"If I believe she'll be safer here, then yes..." She looked over Bumblebee trying so hard not to stare at her, then Bulkhead squinting skeptically at her. "I don't think Grimlock would fit through the Bridge, though," she quipped.
That managed to get a laugh out of Ratchet, his usual scoffing bark that tried to be sarcastic but didn't quite succeed. "Well, the humans are keeping him on a leash for now... more or less." That was the only thing stopping Airachnid from sending herself back to the island, the human 'Fowler's' agreement to keep watch over her second family and Optimus' assurance that they'd be safe.
"Though, speaking of humans..." Ratchet trailed off in a mutter as he cast his optics over at the children, who were still examining Airachnid closely with those sharp and beady eyes. Jack especially forced a glare on her, though she thought it was a wasted effort on his part.
"Why do they stare at me?" she asked.
"They know who you are now," Ratchet said. "Who you really are. Though in the case of one of them... he may need extra convincing."
Just what Airachnid wanted, yet another confrontation with someone who hated her. "Is that really wise?"
"Jack is the eldest, and even then older in mind than in body. There's no guarantee he'll forgive you, but... it would at least tell him you're not out to hurt him."
Airachnid knew she'd need to pave some peace with the human at some point, and the Elita in her was trying to tell her it wouldn't be as difficult as she thought. Then again, he was Arcee's partner. And Optimus was most likely having a very similar conversation with the bitter femme... if he could do it, the least she could do was try.
"I don't need forgiveness anyway," she said, not knowing exactly what she did need. If she knew, would she be here among bots who just a vorn ago would have torn her apart? She sighed as she forced herself towards the humans, and the closer she got the further the other two drifted away from their friend as he kept glaring up at her.
"Jack," she said quietly with the slightest nod.
"What do you want?" She was almost impressed at how closely he managed to replicate Arcee's hatred in just one snapping sentence, especially without a vocaliser. Bending her legs, she tried to copy what she often saw Optimus do when speaking with those so much smaller. Up close, she could see how much Jack struggled not to flinch with his tiny body trembling.
"I know our last encounter was under... unfortunate circumstances," she said on the current of another sigh. "But looking back on it, I didn't understand why you were so desperate to save your carrier. Not until quite recently. I... severely underestimated how powerful that kind of bond is."
Jack's eyebrows wrestled with each other over rapidly blinking eyes. Whatever he was expecting, she hadn't delivered it. "So... what are you saying?" he asked.
"That in hindsight, I shouldn't have been so surprised at the lengths you went to to rescue her. And if I'd known what I know now, I likely wouldn't have even taken her." The whole situation, even looking at it as Airachnid, reminded her painfully of M.E.C.H taking her and Scorpia captive. She didn't want to even remember it.
Whether or not Jack was able to sense that, with his inferior human scanners, he seemed to accept what she said even if he wasn't in a position to believe it just yet. So he moved onto that question Elita had been trying to avoid. "Why did you want to hurt Arcee so much?"
Why did she? Even as Airachnid, she never saw her as a nemesis. Every Autobot back then was equal to her, they all begged and died the same way even if some took longer than others. She could have ran into any other Autobot she'd left sparkbroken and her need to torture wouldn't have changed.
"...She was the easiest of the Autobots to hunt," she said, the only conclusion she could come to. "And the easiest to torment. That was what my instincts told me. I don't have much love for hunting anymore nowadays, so your carrier need not hide herself from me."
She must have been right about humans having such weaker senses, from how Jack's eyes went wide and inevitably glanced over to where his mother had been shielding herself behind a stairwell. Airachnid watched her slowly inch out, as suspicious as her son, grateful at least that she didn't need to repeat her plea to her. But just as June reached Jack's side, there was another appearance in the foyer that interrupted anything Airachnid might have said.
"Jack!" The spider moved aside just as Arcee lunged for the human, kneeling and pulling him close even as he tried to escape her servos when the surprise wore off.
"It's okay, 'Cee! I'm fine, let go!"
Arcee was probably staring daggers across at her regardless, but Airachnid paid her no heed (partly because Optimus was watching). June had migrated closer to the Prime, away from Arcee's over-protectiveness, and Airachnid went close to the ground again to speak with the human. Surprisingly, June actually looked more scared than her son, but when Airachnid made no move to abduct her again she seemed to calm down.
"So... you're the reason Optimus was asking me about single parents," she said, betraying her nerves with a frequent rub of her elbow.
"Was he, now?" Airachnid looked up at Optimus, but he had his optics pointed sideways to avoid the guilt of gossip.
"Jack told me that you had a child now... a sparkling, I think they're called?"
"Correct." Airachnid felt herself easing as much as the human, motherly pride starting to bloom inside her, but again they were interrupted; this time by the hyperactive human sidling between them with big eyes.
"So... can I see the robot baby now?" Miko asked, and though Optimus looked down at her with disapproval Airachnid couldn't help but laugh. She nodded to Optimus, who put aside the steel glint on his expression as he relayed the agreement to Ratchet. The medic then finally completed the chain by bringing up the link to Scorpia's current babysitter.
"Agent Fowler, do you have the sparkling with you?" Optimus asked.
"Damn thing won't stop following me around and trying to bite my pant legs, so that's a yes," the human replied, batting away something off screen. "Just how the hell do you guys have kids, anyway?"
"Same way humans do, bud," Wheeljack called out. "Mostly by accident."
"Gross. Anyway, please tell me you'll be taking her back, cause I..." Fowler trailed off as he looked down, seeing something no-one else could. "...I think she just smiled at me! Aw, what a sweetie!"
Airachnid let her fangs pop out over a proud smirk. "Not even humans resist the sparkling charm." Scorpia giggled somewhere in Fowler's presence, and it took another few moments for the human to remember he was supposed to be talking as he quickly straightened himself again.
"Uh, you still wanting her, Prime?"
"If you don't mind, Agent Fowler."
"Aw, fine... we'll be over ASAP." The video link disappeared, with Miko going off squealing in excitement, but just as the screen went clear something else popped up.
"Incoming message from... Dreadwing?" Ratchet voiced everyone else's confusion as he read out the Neocybex, and Airachnid especially felt fear snap out in her spark. Even on Cybertron, Dreadwing had been one of Megatron's most trusted soldiers.
"What does it say?" Optimus asked, drawn behind Airachnid by the pit that suddenly yawned open in her chamber.
"Only that he wants to meet with us." Which in reality could have said anything, especially from a Decepticon. But Optimus only thought it over for a few moments before he made his decision.
"Everyone, take defensive formation," he called out, though he pointed to Wheeljack as the Wrecker stood up. "Wheeljack, you remain here."
In one nanoklick his expression went from 'mech in a weapon cache' to 'Seeker forced to walk on the ground'. "Like slag I will! I got more right than anyone else to jam that fragger's wings right up his-"
"And what if this is a trap to leave the base defenseless?" Optimus cut in, leaving the implications of Airachnid's fate unspoken.
Wheeljack still looked sour, bless him, but he sat back down like his aft was made of lead. "...Fair enough."
Airachnid watched the Autobots leave, noting that whatever Optimus had said to Arcee it stopped her throwing a poison glare over her shoulder at the spider.
xx
The fact that Dreadwing's choice of a meeting spot was so shrouded in mist, ambush spots stretching out in every direction, was enough to have Optimus' weapons already on full charge as he lead the way out of the Ground Bridge (he considered bringing the Star Sabre, but he thought it best to be saved for facing Megatron). Smokescreen and Arcee aimed diagonally while Bulkhead and Bumblebee covered behind them. When Dreadwing eventually did show, alone with something braced over his shoulders, he didn't seem surprised at the welcome party arranged for him.
"I am not here to fight you, Autobots," he called, hauling the mighty tool off his shoulders and slamming it into the ground between them. "I am here to give you this." The mist lingered around the golden handle, the silver face and the glowing blue highlights wreathed around it, but the artifact still shone like a white dwarf set into the earth.
"The Forge of Solus Prime?" Arcee asked quietly.
Bulkhead was more cynical than confused. "Could be rigged to blow..."
Optimus was still trying to believe that the Decepticon's latest advantage over them was now being offered to him like a scrap of energon. "What do you ask for in return?"
"...Only that you use it wisely," Dreadwing said, wings shrugged low enough that his grim tone could only be telling the truth. Even if it was a truth Optimus didn't comprehend, despite all the proof he had of Decepticons being more than their master's deeds.
"What has prompted this, Dreadwing?" the Prime asked.
"A shadow of disgrace has fallen upon the Decepticons... one made of Dark Energon," the Seeker confessed. "Anything with Unicron's taint running so deep within it is not something I wish to be part of. I give you this in the hope that Solus Prime might somehow purge the evil... and because I know I cannot make Megatron see reason on my own."
"If you can't go back to the Cons, where will you go?" Smokescreen asked, drawing a perplexed look from Dreadwing as if he hadn't noticed him standing there. Or maybe because he wasn't expecting having to answer that question.
"Cybertron, ruined colonies, anywhere far from here, where I can hide from vengeance. Both my own, and Megatron's," he answered, closing his optics over before turning around and starting to disappear back into the mist rapidly creeping in.
Smokescreen nudged Optimus' side with his blaster, rough whispers almost made loud from his excitement. "Optimus, let's get him on our side! We've already got Airachnid, and this one can fly!"
Optimus would have never considered any bot like Dreadwing as a potential traitor, but... if he'd already gone this far, he might as well have branded himself with the Autobot emblem. And there was no telling how useful he would be, with so much knowledge of the Nemesis and Megatron's plans, knowledge even Airachnid didn't have. He looked to his other teammates for approval, Arcee especially, but even she gave no argument. Maybe their conversation had exhausted her too much to give any.
"Or you could join us, Dreadwing," Optimus called to him, pulling him back from the edge of the mist. "Help us to avenge fallen mechs like your brother."
Wings still suppressed, Dreadwing did not turn as he thought over the offer. "...You would have an enemy, a traitor in your ranks?" he asked quietly, as if the haze was growing thick in his vents.
"You would not be the first to change where his spark lies," Optimus said, waiting patiently for Dreadwing to make his decision. Whether he'd slip away or trudge back, the Prime couldn't say... but he was glad when the latter happened and Dreadwing crossed the distance between them.
"...Until I see my home restored, placed in better hands, and my brother given justice, I shall work with you, Optimus," he decreed, optics somehow brighter in the fog. "After that, I make no promises."
It was as much Optimus could hope for, and perhaps what would be best in the long run. "Very well, Dreadwing."