Merry late christmas everyone, here's some gift wrapped angst.
xx
Optimus had to fight against every instinct as a sparkmate, as a sire and even as a Prime to stop himself running to Scorpia as well. He had to let the Matrix drown out the pull towards Airachnid and the wailing sparkling, force his peds to meld with the concrete floor and his spark to shield itself against the pining he felt from his wife as she cradled her daughter.
"Don't cry, don't cry, sweetspark... please…" She whispered the plea against Scorpia with lips pressed tight to her forehelm, so manic and desperate that it might have been more for her own sake than anyone else's. Her hushes faded along with Scorpia's whimpers, though there was a moment of false peace before she turned on Optimus again. Both her servos held Scorpia in a vice grip against the safety of her chest while one of her legs clutched the datapad at a distance, as if it was as infective as what it described.
"Did you know about this, Optimus?" She slammed it against his chest as she hissed, forcing him to take it from her. Optimus didn't need to look at the datapad to know what it was, but he had know how much she'd seen of it. When he saw that she'd scoured the entire thing, he knew he couldn't lie to her.
"I did," he said, silently wondering how long Primus had been waiting before deciding to spring this on them all. Airachnid still held the edge of a razor close to his chest, so close she could have punctured his spark chamber before he would even realise it. Only now with them so close to killing him did Optimus realise that all her legs had finally grown back, just as Ratchet predicted. That didn't bode well at all for Scorpia.
"...And when were you going to tell me?" Airachnid asked, each of those knives twitching impatiently a they hovered on their stalks.
"Air-"
"When were you going to tell me that my daughter is tainted by Unicron?" The only reason she didn't scream was because Scorpia was so close. Optimus could tell from how her voice grated itself to pieces on her fangs, each hiss full of acid that sizzled in the silent air that followed it. Neither Optimus or Ratchet had anything to answer it with, and Airachnid quickly realised that.
"Just as I thought," she spat, pulling her legs back. "You weren't going to."
Optimus didn't even know if she was right or not, couldn't convince himself that he would have told her at some point. Between Megatron, the relics and the Dinobots, he was just grateful for surviving until now. "How could I have possibly found the right opportunity to, with all that has happened?"
Airachnid scoffed as she took a step backwards, scraping the air with her razors. "I'm not as fragile as you might think, Optimus."
"I don't think that, Airachnid."
"Then you were worried I'd get angry? That I'd snap and go right back to the Decepticon everyone knows I am?"
Optimus blinked, caught off guard for the first time. He'd known that something was wrong with her as soon as he'd heard the humans' account of why she'd left, only came in time to see her snarling at Ratchet. That was exactly what he'd feared had happened, as much as he hated to admit it. He wanted so badly to believe that Elita and Airachnid were one and the same, but the evidence was against him.
"What else would you call threatening an Autobot just for being in your way?" he asked, moving out of the med-bay's entrance towards Airachnid and meeting her glare stoically while Ratchet hesitantly placed himself behind her. The medic still shook from his encounter with her, but as Airachnid turned her glare on him he did not budge. As she looked for an understanding she couldn't see, she found herself unable to face them for much longer. At last her anger had died, leaving behind hissing cinders that stung Optimus' spark as she shoved past him.
"If I ever get upset, Optimus, it's not because of who I am," she told him over her cold shoulder. "It's because I have a damn good reason to be. Don't you dare keep secrets like this from me ever again."
She was almost gone, storming out of the med-bay with sharp claws around Scorpia and thankfully no blood on them; but in a centuries old tradition that defied his common sense, Optimus never could just let her have the last word.
"I did not ask if you knew why Soundwave let you live, Airachnid. I'd expect you to have the same trust in me."
Airachnid stopped in her tracks, hard enough to dent the concrete with her heels, but rather than slash at the nearest throat she just pushed herself onwards until she was out of sight. She didn't even hiss a curse at Optimus. That's how he always knew if Elita was truly in pain, as much as she'd usually try to hide it.
Against that aching instinct in the pit of his spark, he did not follow her. Instead he turned on heavy peds, handing the damned datapad to Ratchet's more capable hands. "What did you find that upset her so, Ratchet?"
The medic held the pad in one hand before throwing it aside, leaving it clatter on a table. "Scorpia's condition is getting worse," he said bluntly. "Slowly, but the deterioration is obvious. She doesn't seem in pain, but it's only a matter of time before..." Ratchet didn't even know how to say it, other than to just sigh against his hand as he rubbed his face, trying to scrub the weariness away.
Optimus felt as bad as he looked, going so long on just a few breems of recharge even without his own team clashing with itself. "What can we do?" he asked, though he didn't quite know why he bothered.
"Wait and see," was all Ratchet could say. "There's nothing that can be done for Scorpia just now."
"And what of Airachnid?"
"Again... wait and see. She has every right to be angry, and she needs to calm herself down. In this state, she's still unpredictable." Ratchet settled a hand on his old friend's shoulder, and how heavy it seemed to Optimus told him just how exhausted he was. "For now, for the love of Primus, go get some rest. I'm not about to carry you if you collapse."
Optimus didn't have the energy to argue, only managing one last question as he was nudged to the doorway. "You don't want to know why I was gone?"
Ratchet scoffed as if it was a bad joke. "At this point I figure the less I know, the better for everyone."
xx
For a while now Knockout had finally gotten used to having Soundwave as a resident of the med-bay, so that he didn't almost lose his spark out of his mouth whenever he walked in and noticed him strapped down on the operating table. The fact that he was still as terrifying in stasis as he was awake was testament to Megatron's poor choice in officers (as if having three of his inner circle betray him by now wasn't enough proof of that).
But it wasn't Soundwave that gave him the fright of his life as he entered. That honour went to Breakdown, looming over the sleeping mech with wide hands firmly planted on his chest. Once Knockout recovered in silence from the shock, grateful that Breakdown was too oblivious as ever to notice, he realised that Soundwave's chest wasn't as empty as it was nowadays- now Laserbeak was integrated with the plating, with Breakdown helping him nestle into the dead cavity. The drone was practically glued to Soundwave, yet the mech remained dead to the world no matter how Breakdown tried to force a reaction from him.
Only a Wrecker would be stupid enough to think that slapping around a bot's spark would shake them from stasis, but Knockout didn't really care enough to stop him.
"You know Megatron is on his way back," was all he said, knowing his liege failed when he heard Starscream panicking from the other side of the ship. "Won't be much longer until he notices that thing is missing." He nodded towards Laserbeak and his feeble twitches against Soundwave, but Breakdown didn't listen. He gave one last shove to Soundwave's chest, one wilting glance at the mech's faceless face, before letting his helm hang limp.
"...Why can't you just wake him up?" Breakdown asked, feeble and whining like a child.
Knockout shrugged from a safe distance, turning his back to the whole futile spectacle. "It's not my job to."
"Bullslag!" Breakdown bellowed, with a creak of something being crushed in his hands. "You never gave a frag about your job before, as long as there was someone for you to cut up! You think I'm just gonna sit back like you and watch as Megatron gets us all killed for... for a slagger like Unicron?!"
As much as Knockout wanted to ignore the tantrum, the flurry of scalpels that flew through the air and embedded themselves in the wall next to him forced him to pay attention, if only to avoid any more near-misses to his finish.
"No, I don't think that," he said in a weary sigh, a complete contrast to Breakdown's thunderous anger. "I think you're not smart enough to know when to stay out of things that don't concern you."
"This ain't about how smart someone is!" Breakdown went on, broken metal falling from his fingers. "It's about doing what's right!"
If he wasn't in immediate danger of being reduced to scrap, Knockout would have laughed himself out of the room. But here he had to settle for a smirk. "How noble. Then why don't you go crawling to the Autobots along with Dreadwing and Airachnid-?"
Breakdown's hammer smashed a dent into where Knockout's helm was just a nanoklick before. "DON'T TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!" The ex-Wrecker heaved through gritted denta, his only optic almost bursting from its socket and leaving him literally blind with rage. Knockout sat crouching under the hammer still caught in the wall, knowing it was entirely his fault that he was left cowering there. Breakdown was angry enough without being reminded of the femme he'd never have.
"Airachnid didn't deserve what she got when she came here," Breakdown said quietly, low vents taking away the last of his fury as he freed his hammer with a mighty pull. "Even you have to admit that, Knockout..."
As he picked himself back up, Knockout held back a quip about being the only reason Airachnid escaped detection before her defection. Sometimes being alive was preferable over being the better mech. "Only if you admit that the only reason you're upset about Soundwave is because he's your only link to her."
As Knockout expected, Breakdown was left paralysed in shock. "How... how did you-?!"
"Soundwave is the only one who could have known she was alive before Megatron, and the only way you could have known was from him. If I can work that out in under a day, then Megatron will have you strung overboard in even less time." Knockout informed him while he was still rapidly blinking his one optic. Even if he hadn't eavesdropped, he would have easily deduced it eventually.
Breakdown lowered his hammer slowly, not quite willing to shift it away as he studied the floor. "I'm upset for a lot of reasons... she's just one of them."
Knockout didn't bother deciding if he was telling the truth or not. He wasn't about to waste what little time he had left by now. "Kick and scream about it as much as you want, Breakdown, but I am only concerned with leaving this Primus-forsaken rock alive. And if that means keeping Soundwave in limbo, then I'm not about to throw that away."
He turned his back, hoping Breakdown would just take the hint and leave before he dug his grave even deeper. Alas, even that was assuming too much of him.
"This isn't just about survival, Knockout. This is you being a coward. You don't want to die for anything bigger than yourself, cause yourself is all you give a slag about." He didn't quite sound angry, more disappointed than anything else. But that was his own fragging fault for expecting anything better from Decepticons than what he'd gotten in so many centuries.
"You figure that out all by yourself?" Knockout scoffed, busying himself with prying the scalpels out of the wall and rolling his optics in relief when he finally heard the hiss of a door opening.
"...You know, if I'd known mechs like you back on Cybertron were wearing Decepticon badges, I would've went to the Autobots instead in a sparkbeat." The floor shook as Breakdown finally fragged off, taking his last words with him. Knockout had only been lumped together with him since he landed on Earth, but he knew right away that was the smartest thing he'd ever hear him say. He wondered at that for a klick, a limp hand on the scalpel grip, before shaking his helm and muttering to himself.
"You were wrong, Megatron, there is a sparkling on board..."
Behind him the door hissed again, and he groaned at the thought of another sparring match with a doomed mech who just didn't know when to give up- only to find Megatron standing at the entrance instead. The warlord had no injuries; only half-healed wounds and fading bruises, dents and chips in his armour that he refused to fix. Both servos, his own and the stolen Prime's, hung heavy by his sides, not even able to clench their claws into fists. His face didn't show fury for once; if it did, Knockout wouldn't have been nearly so unsettled. Apart from the dull red glow of his optics, he looked as lifeless as Soundwave.
"...Lord Megatron?" Knockout approached cautiously. "Are you feeling alright?"
Megatron blinked, a slow shuttering that saw his optics flicker from red to purple, such a subtle flash that Knockout doubted if he even saw it. With those optics he looked down at Soundwave, a blank stare that didn't seem to recognise Laserbeak amidst the dull and dusty navy plates.
"Are you absolutely certain there's no way to see Soundwave's memories?" he asked in a rust-coated voice.
Knockout took a moment to answer, once he was certain Megatron wasn't close enough to simply slice him in two. "Not while he's in stasis, my liege," he eventually lied.
In contrast to what the medic expected, Megatron only nodded once. "Very well. Kill him."
Knockout now emphathised with Breakdown in being paralysed by shock. "That... seems rather drastic, are you su-?" Megatron was leaving before he could finish the question, his back turned to Soundwave as if he was already certain he was dead.
Knockout called after him, "Where are you going now, Lord Megatron?"
"Home," the warlord answered from down the corridor. "If Starscream attempts a coup while I'm gone, kill him as well."
Finally, something to make Knockout smile that day. "Gladly, my liege."
"You know, Soundwave, for a dead mech you know how to make my life far more difficult than it should be..."