Deadlock snaps; Skids is sorry; Ambulon listens; Whirl prays, gives advice, and gets a date; Tarn agrees to Black Shadow's proposition; the Lost Light celebrates an old festival; Rung helps; Bob isn't what other people think; Sixshot goes to the zoo; Megatron shows restraint.

Title: Candy From Strangers, Pt. 34

Warning: Aaaaaaangst. Whirl being Whirl. Bondage, finger noms, surgery/torture. Spoilers for MTMTE.

Rating: R

Continuity: IDW, G1

Characters: Deadlock/Drift, Skids, Ambulon, Whirl, Ratchet, Cyclonus, Black Shadow, the D.J.D., Ultra Magnus, Rung, Bob, Sunstreaker, Sixshot, Megatron, Necrobot.

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): Various Tumblr things.

[* * * * *]

"welding"

[* * * * *]

Long after Drift became Deadlock, he remembered the medic. Of all the things the corrupt government of the Senate had done to him - the abuse from police and the pain of starvation, the grief and rage of losing people he called friends - it was the medic who made the Autobots a personal offense to him. Deadlock was already a fearsome fighter in the rebel movement, but the day he recognized Ratchet among the Autobots was when the switch was thrown. Deadlock fell beyond loyalty, surpassed fighting, and skidded out to the fringes where he saw every single Autobot as a moving target. He became the Decepticons' most notorious killer because of the compassion of a medic operating a charity clinic down in the Dead End.

Megatron had put the need for revolution into words. Megatron's speeches finally put into words the injustices Drift had suffered but had been unable to see for what they were. In the Dead End, people lived or died without thinking there was something fundamentally wrong with how they just accepted their treatment. 'The way things are' wasn't an adequate excuse. Megatron taught them, taught Drift, to recognize the privileged few as abusers. Megatron turned the logic games on their heads, showing his followers the sense of entitlement. Nobody inherently deserved to be treated better or worse. The system was so rigged it had to be destroyed. Their oppressors had to be overthrown.

Drift became Deadlock as a Decepticon, and as a Decepticon, he could sneer at his oppressors, but then there was Ratchet. It was the contrast. The contrast made the betrayal more painful. It twisted the knife into his spark. He'd understood how the Prime and his Autobots had to be brought down, but seeing Ratchet as one of them snapped his mind.

Ratchet had welded him. Hundreds of medics had worked on him since, welding him after thousands of skirmishes and battles, but it was Ratchet he thought of. Ratchet hadn't hurt him. He remembered that, and it fragged with his mind. It physically hurt trying to reconcile the cold cruelty of the Senate's corruption with the gentle hands that had repaired him. How could someone so kind belong to that system? Support it?

Drift used to think of Ratchet as pure and good. The medic's hands had put him back together. He remembered the smoky smell of welding, the freshness of an open flame paired with the tarry black bitterness of old, grubby, rusted metal melting. The impurities burnt away in the blue flame of the welder. He'd watched it purify him. The filth of his natural metal heated to orange, then white, and Ratchet had bent close as he worked. The metal had bubbled, pure white, and the welding torch's blue-white flame had sheeted off the dabs of added, built-up filler metal in spurts of orange. The weld pool had glowed red-hot as it cooled, the bubbles subsiding, or they'd suddenly burst, hissing and spitting. Ratchet had moved along Drift's side, sparks spraying from the welding in stark, straight lines that spat frayed stars of light at the ends, and it had been beautiful. Painless and beautiful. Drift had been half delirious with withdrawal, but he remembered that. He'd loved the firework glitter of sprayed sparks. He'd been mesmerized by the liquid white of his own metal, melted to raw boiling that Ratchet guided along with a stick of filler, dabbing white onto melted white in the midst of the welding torch's blue fire.

Ratchet had repaired him, and his kindness broke Deadlock. Realizing that Ratchet was one of the abusers, the users, the dead weight elitists…that hurt. He either was one or supported them. Deadlock had jointed the Decepticons believing that there could be black and white. Ratchet, however. Ratchet, his pure white idol of encouraging words and the scent of welding, turned out to be black with stains of gray.

Bad people were still capable of being nice to their victims. The niceness made it more difficult to accept the rest. It made their victims ready to turn a blind optic. Deadlock refused to be one of those victims. He wouldn't make excuses. He wouldn't cling to the image in his memories, bright and kind.

Some day, he vowed, he would confront the medic. He would point his gun at the Autobot symbol next to the medical insignia, and he would demand an answer. He would demand a resolution to the painful confusion, and Ratchet would show him. Ratchet would reveal himself as one of the Senate supporters who'd done so much to Drift. Deadlock would finally be able to file a concrete moment of despicable behavior beside the memory of shooting star-sparks, and side-by-side compare them. He would finally be able to see the abuse and the kindness as one person. He would shoot Ratchet like any other piece of Autobot scum, and feel no regret for pulling the trigger.

And after that, he would forget.

[* * * * *]

"A mournful song no one else was supposed to hear."

[* * * * *]

Skids sank back against the wall, hand over his face, and shook. How? How could he have neglected his friend for so long? Could he even call himself Swerve's friend? He'd never offered the mech more than a pat on the shoulder in passing, a grin as he sailed past, a wave as he left the bar. He couldn't even remember where Swerve lived. He'd never gone over. He'd been invited. Everybody had been invited, one after another but never more than once, desperation masquerading as a search, but nobody had ever accepted.

Nobody had been supposed to notice how much Swerve needed company. Nobody else ever asked for it like he did. Asking wasn't necessary for anyone else. Anybody who needed support had friends to haul them out of their habsuites to the bar, or the oil reserve, or out onto the hull of the ship. Skids felt like a heel of the first degree for not sparing a thought for the one person who never left the bar and was always in company without an actual companion.

His thumb rubbed over the empty spot where he used to show his faith. Skids dropped his hand and looked up at the ceiling, feeling the empty spot like it had hollowed him out. Whatever faith he'd once had, he felt unworthy of belief in a higher power. He hadn't been the one to save Swerve. That had been luck, or guidance from an exasperated higher being tired of a pathetic excuse for a friend missing all the hints.

Swerve hadn't meant anyone to find him. Skids felt guilt that it'd taken him so long to figure it out.

[* * * * *]

" Sleepy Cybertronians"

[* * * * *]

Pharma ran a tight ship.

Clinic, Ambulon reminded himself. He was in a clinic, now. Eight years since his defection, five since his transfer out to Delphi, and he still felt the thrum of starship engines through his feet sometimes. The world around him felt like a metal shell pushed through space, and he was one Decepticon among hundreds on board. It was difficult to remember he wasn't on a starship anyway, especially when he was tired, which he was now. When he stood pulling racks out of the autoclave, the floor seemed to throb against his heels, the massive pulse of a moving fortress where he'd worked.

Different work by location, but the same by occupation. No, not the same. Similar. Ambulon grimly put the rack in his hands down, taking a moment to shut off his optics and turn his audios up all the way, stretching to listen to the sounds of Delphi. There. No engines. A murmur that was probably First Aid at the nurse's station down the hall, keeping watch for the night shift on their few patients. The beep of equipment, similar but not the same to equipment Ambulon had used years ago. He listened for the differences, holding tight to them. Clinging to the differences became more important when he was tired. It was too easy to turn a corner and stare into memory when he was this tired.

There were no screams. He was tense, ingrained habit holding him ready to wince at the first shrill shriek, but it never came. There were no desolate sobs echoing in the halls, and none of the small, unnamed noises associated with people pushed past endurance by war, pain, and terror. He knew those sounds far too well.

Far in the distance, the lonely, cold sough of wind outside announced another blizzard sealing the clinic shut in winter isolation until the miners broke out the shovels to plow the road clear again. It soothed his nerves. The ready wince waiting in his joints relaxed the more he tuned his audios to the far-away sound. It was a peaceful, natural background sound, as distant from mechanical noise as a planet differed from a starship.

He wasn't on a starship, Ambulon reminded himself as he picked up the first of the trays to be autoclaved overnight. He was in a clinic, safely cocooned by snow and ice. His patients wanted to be there. The ward was lined with repair slabs, not locked doors. The other doctors didn't moonlight as mad scientists. His boss was renowned as a top-notch surgeon instead of a torturer. Pharma ran a tight ship - clinic. A well-run clinic. His boss the famous surgeon ran a real medical facility that rendered actual emergency services, not wartime atrocities in the name of a Cause he didn't believe in.

This was what Ambulon wanted.

He reminded himself of that when the shift went long. There were endless trays to load into the autoclave; heave and lift, drop and slide, heave and lift, drop and slide. After that, all the sterilized equipment from the previous load had to be sorted and put away. That was forty trays to organize before he could finally retire for the night. The floor thrummed, but only in his mind. This was a clinic, it was Delphi, and his hands moved, putting things away by rote. He'd done this job so many times in the past five years that he knew the routine by spark. He could probably do it while recharging.

A tight ship. He had to finish this last task, he told himself, swaying on feet that felt solid floor beneath them. It didn't move. Pharma expected him to pull his weight.

The wind sloughed, distant sighing so different than the sounds of an active starship. He focused on it, dwelled on the softness of snow in his imagination, the cold comfort of ground-bound winter isolation locked into a building with people he sort of liked instead of actively defended himself again. Soft sounds, small sounds. First Aid talking to a patient, somewhere. Snow falling, quiet pitter-patter noises half in his head, half-heard as the wind picked up. Little noises comforting him, bringing him down from a state of perpetual alert he'd been in every day of his life as a Decepticon.

The wind sounded achingly lonely, but it almost called him. His thoughts drifted with it, vast white static waves outside the clinic, swept along by the relentless weather. The shocking warmth of a hand on his shoulder broke a gasping sigh from him, lips parting to intake air as chill as the wind he still heard, always heard, but the floor wasn't moving. The pulse of a starship was silent but huge, and Delphi stood still.

He was moving, however, feet staggering along and his side pressed to a great warmth supporting him. The sharp edge of a wing flicked him, and he smiled, half-aware of amused, exasperated words lost in the wind. He listened, ready to flinch away, but the sounds he expected to hear were a lifetime away. Maybe he'd been working too hard. Maybe the storm had mesmerized his tired mind. The sound of wind and snow hypnotized him, and he fell onto his recharge slab reminding himself that he wasn't where he'd been for far too long.

[* * * * *]

"Someone who's normally not religious saying a prayer."

[* * * * *]

Pincers were far more useful than mechs with hands assumed. Whirl knew that better than most. He'd had a whole war to learn what he couldn't and couldn't use his pincers for. Certain locks? Couldn't do it. Shooting guns? Frag yeah, he could. Picking up shotglasses at the bar? Woo! Surgery on a companion? Not so much.

Especially when the poor slob had his spark ripped out. Eaten, too. Nobody could do much for that.

Whirl looked down at the ruin that had been his roommate. Everyone else had taken off, chasing after what had to have been a spark-eater, and he'd have blown the scrapheap to smithereens if Trailbreaker hadn't stopped him. Wasn't much of a send-off for Animus, but he'd tried. Whirl had tried. Revenge was usually the best he could offer, but they'd stopped him from even that.

The others had up and left the body here on the floor, however, and Whirl squatted beside it clumsily, feeling as though he should do something. Take the body to the morgue, maybe? He hadn't been part of a regular crew for so long he didn't really know how normal people functioned around death. What was he supposed to do with a dead body?

He might as well take it to the medibay. He knew where that was, at least. Old Ratchet could figure out what to do with it from there.

Whirl slid his pincers under the body, vaguely proud that they could do this. It felt normal. It felt okay. He could do this, even if he couldn't kill the spark-eater.

Animus felt curiously light in his arms. He peered down at the hole where the mech's spark had been as he walked. Funny how one missing part could change someone.

"Primus spare your spark, buddy," he said.

[* * * * *]

"Spark sex with great swords"

[* * * * *]

It wasn't every day Whirl had a stalker. Haters, of course, he got a new one daily, it seemed. Haters by the handful. When he was feeling particularly self-delusional, he insisted he had admirers as well. Rung usually gave him a tolerate smile and complimented him on his confidence, those days, and Whirl kind of missed Rewind. Recording his un-vincible self had been a fun ego-booster.

Having Ratchet stalk him around the ship was more unnerving than ego-boosting. Whirl was really, truly not used to having the CMO eyeing him from across the medibay with anything other than an open glare. The speculative look got under his plating like nothing else. While he was generally kicked out of the medibay the second he was functional, this time Whirl took it upon himself to skedaddle the moment the good doctor turned his back. He didn't like the weird looks. Last time someone stared at him like that, Chromedome had hugged him.

Come to think of it, Ratchet had given him a watered-down version of that look that time, too. Huh. All the more reason to play Dodge The Medic. Whirl could handle potshots and catcalls. He didn't know what to do with genuine gratitude and physical displays of affection.

Which was, although he didn't realize it, the reason Ratchet had been reduced to stalking. Cornering the wild Whirl for an actual conversation was far more difficult than yelling at him for being a moron. A mech couldn't just walk up and expect to be taken seriously. Whirl was a caustic nutjob on a good day. Attempting to set up a real discussion with him took…effort.

Ratchet eventually settled for sending enough free drinks over to float Riptide. Whirl sucked down so much engex he couldn't run away when Ratchet slid into the opposite chair. His rotors buzzed, scooting his chair back a bit, but the mech himself couldn't have found the exit to save his life. It wasn't Ratchet's greatest solution, but it'd have to do.

"Whaddya want?" Whirl slurred after a long period of mutual wary stares. "Not fraggin' you. Not my type."

The medic's left optic twitched, but he elected to ignore that comment despite an immediate sick curiosity about what was Whirl's type. Instead of asking, he leaned on the table and came right to the point. "How did you know Cyclonus could save Tailgate that way?" He and Swerve had been at their wit's end trying to devise a cure, and Whirl had come up with a solution no one else had even dreamed of. It had been driving Ratchet quietly mad ever since it happened.

Whirl blinked at him. "Buh?"

"The sword! How did you know Cyclonus could do an instantaneous spark transfusion to Tailgate via the sword? Did one of the Circle of Light tell you it was possible? Is it a common practice among them?" He hadn't thought of Whirl as a particularly good people-person, but apparently Whirl had passed on something he'd learned from Dai Atlas onto Cyclonus, and Ratchet needed to know what else that sword could do. "Is stabbing the best method, or could he have caused more damage than he cured? Tell me, mech!"

Whirl stared at him a moment longer. "Uhhhh. I didn't…but doc, I didn't tell him to stab the shortstop."

It was Ratchet's turn to blink. "You didn't?"

"No? I said, er, I said something about the sword and whatnot, but I said he should, y'know." He made an awkward gesture with both pincers. "With it. And Tailgate. Would have done the job, I think. Right?"

It took Ratchet a second to interpret the crude gesture. His mouth drooped slowly open.

Whirl shook his head and grabbed one of the drinks on the table. It took him two tries. "That Cyc guy's just big on drama."

[* * * * *]

"It's a date"

[* * * * *]

As with a lot of things Whirl did with intentions, those intentions tended to be interpreted as bad. The problem, of course, was that while he'd intended to make Getaway a laughingstock and possibly humiliate the escape artist in front of Skids, he hadn't intended it badly. Directly. He didn't hold any ill-will toward Getaway, anyway. The prank wasn't any more or less malicious than Whirl's usual barroom grandstanding.

The prank wasn't the point, in any case. The point was that giggling about his intentions within hearing distance of Cyclonus alerted the dour mech to his plan, and that plan, quite intentionally but not in a bad way, was to use Tailgate as bait. Cyclonus being Cyclonus, he gravitated over to glower at Whirl with a look that held dire doubts as to the rotary's intentions. Even with whatever wall Getaway was constructing between Tailgate and Cyclonus, there was obviously some feeling of responsibility and/or attachment there.

"You will not."

"I totally am. Getaway won't know what hit him." Pincers clacked eagerly. "Too bad about Tailgate getting in the middle, but it probably won't hurt him. Maybe. He'll survive."

Red optics narrowed dangerously. "Do not involve Tailgate."

"Well, I need somebody to hold the bucket," Whirl whined.

Cyclonus hesitated, just barely. Ha!

"…I will accompany you to make certain this does not get out of hand."

Heeeeheheheheh. "So you're going to hold the bucket? Awesome."

If Cyclonus narrowed his optics any further, he'd be better off just closing them. "You don't require Tailgate."

"Nope. Just somebody to hold the bucket, but I picked Tailgate 'cause," Whirl shrugged, deliberately and offensively casual, "they're so cozy they're a package deal these days. I mean, used to be if you were involved he'd be toddling after, but not so much anymore, huh?"

Red optics widened slightly. Oh, had that hit home? It had.

Cyclonus turned and strode away, fists clenched at his sides as Whirl cackled at his turned back. "See ya there!" the rotary called after him. He knew he would be. He might not have bad intentions toward Getaway personally, but he knew them when he saw them. Cyclonus was itching for a chance to take Getaway down a peg or two. Whirl was simply providing a convenient opportunity - and a scape goat for Getaway's anger afterward. Reckless, out-of-control Whirl made a great target. It wasn't a role he minded.

Not with the intentions he really held.

He admired the back turned to him as it walked away. Perfect. Phase One of the plan had finished without a hitch.

Frag, the things he had to do to set up a decent date around here.

[* * * * *]

"Black Shadow - Restraint"

[* * * * *]

Tarn had seen a great many things in his time as leader of the Decepticon Justice Division. Kaon and Helex looking embarrassed to exist was a new one. Tesarus being Tesarus, he just seemed confused. Tarn had seen that before.

Vos was new enough to be thrown off by the weirdness. He asked if this was normal for missions.

"Not...precisely," Tarn murmured. He shook his head and refocused on the rogue Phase Sixer kneeling in the center of their circle. "I don't think you truly understand the severity of the penalty you've brought upon yourself, Black Shadow. We are the Decepticon Justice Division. Surely you recognize us?"

Black Shadow swayed on his knees. Judging from his wide smile and flickering optics, he was three banned substances and half a distillery from being scared for his life. "Yah, 'course I do! You...you played at the club last night, didn't ya? Good times. Liked the stage show. Like I said," he paused to hiccup, "I'm aaaaaall for gettin' in on that. Just wanna make sure we got a safeword in mind goin' in, yah?"

"What kind of stage show is he talking about?" Tesarus asked loudly. He tended to whine when he didn't understand what was going on.

Kaon very gently covered his face with one hand, hiding.

"Aw, frag, it was great!" Black Shadow's enthusiasm had no limits and a sloshing tank full of high-proof engex to fuel it. He seemed to have forgotten that he thought they were some kind of band. Or...performance group, apparently. Tarn was sort of afraid to find out. "Okay, get this, they had a fire pit, like an actual fire pit, and they were doing flaming shots off this guy's helmet. He had one of those flash compensating-for-something flaming helms, you know the ones I'm talking about, and he was standing in a pool of - "

"We're here to torture you!" Helex said in a rush.

Vos shushed him. He wanted to hear what it was a pool of.

Tarn decided enough was enough. "Black Shadow! You are guilty of betraying the Decepticon Empire and our Lord Megatron for money!"

Instead of proper terror, Black Shadow met his pronouncement with a lewd smile. Tarn almost inhaled a filter as the kneeling traitor leaned forward and ran a far too familiar hand up his thigh. "Aww, yah, this is just like th' show. Yah, I'm a bad, bad 'bot. Punish me. Punish me good. I got the shanix, baby. I'll tip you real good if you pull out all-a th' stops."

"...okay, now I'm curious."

Appalled, Tarn gaped. "Kaon!"

"No, seriously, what kind of club's doing trials? How do they stay in business?"

"Tesarus!"

"Wanna call my name, too?"

"Black Sha - stop that!"

"We really are going to need a safe word, aren't we."

[* * * * *]

"Tarn - Visible"

[* * * * *]

"This never goes beyond this room," Tarn said.

His mechs nodded with varying levels of solemn agreement. Also sobriety. They'd passed around Black Shadow's stash before starting this, since the belongings of a traitor automatically defaulted to the state, ie. the Decepticon Empire in the body of the nearest policing force, that being the Justice Division. Under that logic, therefore, partaking of a traitor's engex and assorted mind-altering substances became partaking of the Empire's...well, the Empire's engex and assorted mind-altering substances, to be blunt, but Tarn preferred to think of it under the kinder, more general term of 'bounty' Yes, they'd partaken of the Empire's bounty. That sounded a lot better than 'got completely fendered off of confiscated illegal drugs.'

Especially since the drugs in question still technically belonged to the traitor they were supposed to be taking them from, as the traitor was still alive. Nodding along with Tarn's statement, in fact.

"I am so not leaving this room," he promised, slurring slightly. "If I leave this room, ya'll ain't doing your jobs right." He squinted up at Helex. "Hired ya fair and square. Want my money's worth."

Tarn coughed into his fist. That wasn't quite what he meant, but close enough. "So we're in agreement. This doesn't go beyond the room."

Vos mimed zipping lips he didn't even have. Or maybe he was cutting his throat. Knowing Vos, either was likely as a promise.

Helex looked down at Black Shadow, then further down to where Black Shadow's hands were and what they were busy doing. Not that he necessarily needed to look, being that he was what they were busy doing. "You got it, boss!" he squeaked.

"Agreed," Kaon said far too quickly for Tarn's peace of mind. None of this was good for his peace of mind, but his mind really wasn't what was calling the shots in this room tonight.

"I still don't get what we're doing," Tesarus whined, but everyone ignored him.

Tarn swallowed, bracing himself. "Very well. Since we're all in agreement," he reached down and picked up the riding crop from the table, bending it into a taut bow between his hands, "the safeword is 'Optimus Prime.'"

"That's two words."

"Shut up, Tess."

[* * * * *]

" good, old fashioned Bacchanal"

[* * * * *]

Figured that the only time Rodimus turned traditional was when it came to the more ribald festivals.

Then again, Ratchet really wasn't one to talk. The Festival of Creativity had long been a favorite of medics, and he'd…missed this. He wouldn't admit it, but he had. It was undignified. It was unfettered hedonism. It was everything he, as an officer and old-timer, should loath. He should be speaking up against this senseless worship of creativity, making, healing, and life.

He really should, but he wasn't. They'd been fighting to the death too long for him not to grab this chance by the sides of the helm and drag it in close. Ratchet shut off his optics, cocking his head to the side as he kissed the living spark out of whomever had reached the head of the line after Rodimus. Warm, eager lips met his own. A heady burst of engex met his seeking tongue, and Ratchet chuckled into the kiss as he drew back. He'd needed that pick-me-up.

"Thanks," he said roughly, and Drift grinned at him before bouncing to the back of the next line.

The officers had evidently come as a group. Ultra Magnus knelt before Ratchet could do more than give him a sharp look, but the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord captured one of his hands when the medic reached for those tempting antenna. "Drink," he ordered Ratchet, pressing a vial into the captive hand. "Gifts must be accepted," he added when Ratchet persisted in attempting to pull him down into reach for a kiss. "It is an integral part of - "

"Yeah, yeah, I know the rules." Ratchet snapped the top of the vial. Slugging it back, he paused with it pooled in his mouth, optics half-offline as the lenses dilated. The energon sat on his tongue. It could stay there until he remembered how to swallow.

The energon itself was nothing inordinately special, although a higher grade than standard rations. What had Ratchet frozen in bliss was the gentle exploration of his other hand by Magnus. It seemed that Ultra Magnus chose to honor one of the lesser forms of the Guiding Hand by worshiping Ratchet's hand. Most of the crew had swarmed in for kisses, groping, the occasional treat or moment stolen to polish him to a fine gloss scattered throughout events, but Ultra Magnus held Ratchet's palm to his mouth as if nothing else mattered. There was nothing overtly erotic about what he did, but Ratchet's throat worked without functioning despite that.

Warm breath curled over sensitive pads. Ultra Magnus shifted just slightly, and his lips whispered across Ratchet's palm. The medic shivered. A nose nudged his thumb, moving it with the drag of air as the mouth on his hand opened. The barest pressure of air puffed out. His plating immediately cooled on the inhale, air rushing in from the sides to be gently blown back into the center of his palm. The sensors under his plating spangled electricity, hot and cold shooting in a minor lightning storm through his wires. Trembling chills ran down his circuitry. Large fingers wrapped around his wrist held him still, but a muted gurgle testified to what it felt like to have a slow lick send his keyed-up nerves haywire.

Ultra Magnus lit his optics, sparing a molecule of concentration from properly worshiping this form of Primus' blessing upon Cybertron. Ratchet represented Adaptus' understanding of their bodies, Solomus' wisdom of age and experience, and the life that Primus gave His children. These hands should be celebrated. They were, in fact, one of Rodimus' most compelling arguments for honoring the festival today.

Brainstorm, honored for his creativity, was in the center of his element getting one and all to test even his craziest inventions, sans supervision. It'd been all he'd wanted, today. Ultra Magnus turned his optics away. Best he not look too closely, there.

Perceptor currently had Drift in his lap, fingertips lightly tracing the ex-Decepticon's helm finials as he accepted a lingering kiss in honor of his intelligence. That was Rodimus' statement for what the scientist and sniper was being honored for. Ultra Magnus made a mental note to follow his fellow officer's example later.

Hoist had vanished under a pile of enthusiastic mechs, laughing in disbelief as they bickered over where the line started. His shock at being recognized as a medic worthy of honor was a grave statement of how far the Autobots had fallen from consideration of their most precious creators.

There were others, scattered through the room. Back in the corner, Ultra Magnus saw a flash of golden yellow. He almost turned his gaze away. He understood why Rodimus had insisted on picking out all creators, but Sunstreaker had a history. Although perhaps that was the purpose of the festival. After so much death, destruction, and betrayal, maybe the point of a celebration of life-affirming work was to remind soldiers that they could be something else.

Ultra Magnus squinted, suspicious. Sunstreaker wasn't isolated in that far corner. A slim orange mech cupped his face in a tender hold, serious gaze steady on the hesitant, disturbed expression in the former artist's optics. As Ultra Magnus watched, Rung leaned forward slowly, giving Sunstreaker time to bolt if he so chose. For a moment, it looked as though he would. At the last second, blue optics screwed shut, and Sunstreaker lunged forward to meet Rung with a violent fierceness even Ultra Magnus could tell covered fear.

Rung accepted the biting kiss and gentled it, mouth moving against the warrior's. By the time they parted, it was with a meltingly sweet smile from the psychotherapist and a dumbfounded blink as Sunstreaker's optics came back online.

There was one creator Rodimus' announcement had missed, Ultra Magnus noted. Strange how no one seemed to remember Rung.

Ratchet moaned in front of him, and the Duly Appointed Enforcer returned to what he was doing, dismissing the matter from his mind. To complete a task was to focus entirely on the work at hand. In his hands. On Ratchet's hand.

Taking his cue from Rung, Ultra Magnus pressed the medic's hand to his cheek, turning his face into it to nuzzle and breathe. Simple contact, but full and nonthreatening. Worshiping in its simple acknowledgement, full of gratitude for what this hand had done. Opening his mouth to lip at the base of Ratchet's fingers inspired a full-body shudder, and Ratchet's mouth snapped shut, the energon going down in a loud gulp. Ultra Magnus pushed his tongue to the metal of those fingers, not licking but just letting the wet, hot feel of it penetrate the sensor-laden expanse. Ratchet's chevron dug into his chest as the medic's head tipped forward. A throaty sound welcomed his efforts. He brushed his lips down to lay a chaste kiss on the inside of the medic's wrist, then turned the hand in his hold over to start on the back.

It took time to properly acknowledge one of the festival guests. Ultra Magnus had no intention of rushing this.

[* * * * *]

"Rung - Forge"

[* * * * *]

Constructed cold or taken from a hot spot, every mech made their own personality. They built their hopes, dreams, thoughts, and beliefs, and life molded them into successes or failures, ever molten as one changed to the other. Back and forth, reformed or cast aside, abandoned or discovered, they made themselves.

The universe was an open fire, burning out of their control. As much as any mech could manage it, in a moment it could destroy all their work.

He brought them to the forge. He couldn't force anyone there. He couldn't make the universe stand still for anyone, or manipulate life into something calmer, easier to understand, simpler to navigate. What he could do was shine a light on what they had made, and he could help them change themselves. He brought them to the forge, guided them in how they could hammer out a knot here, sever a tie these, fold a scar until a weakness became strength.

The Functionalists never figured out what he was. Rung knew what he could do, and it had everything to do with what he'd made of himself in the fire.

[* * * * *]

"Bob - Disdain"

[* * * * *]

They had the wrong idea. Bob hadn't started out the way he was today. Nobody understood that, looking at the wriggling bug eager for their attention. Bob bounced around the Lost Light on the end of a leash, straining to run faster, jumping up on people he thought had treats, and wagging his aft at even Ultra Magnus.

Bob hadn't been a stray Sunstreaker took in out of pity. Bob had been a wild creature. Bob had been one of the Swarm, for Pit's sake. Separated out, yes. Isolated by Metroplex's arrival, and running terrified from a threat he couldn't understand, but Bob hadn't been some kind of cyberpuppy burrowing into Sunstreaker's arms.

Out in wildness of Cybertron, the Swarm had reigned supreme. They were the apex predator, and Sunstreaker, when Bob first saw him, had been a particularly large example of their preferred prey. Alone, Bob hadn't stood a chance of taking him down. That didn't mean he didn't draw himself up and look down upon the Autobot like he just didn't want to chase the mech right now. Sunstreaker had never had anyone - Autobot or Decepticon, before or since - look upon him in such total disdain.

Bob hadn't been a stray Sunstreaker adopted. Bob was a feral who deigned to accompany Sunstreaker.

Sunstreaker never forgot that, as he wrestled his rambunctious bug through the halls. He lunged to cover Bob's audios when Siren spoke. He put himself between the D.J.D. and his pet. He did it all without hesitation, knowing that the warm, cuddly Bob everyone else knew was a measure of how much this feral, savage beast trusted him. For that trust, Bob would be Bob.

Betray that trust, Sunstreaker knew, and the Swarm would break the leash in a sparkbeat.

[* * * * *]

"Sixshot - Zoo"

[* * * * *]

Nobody came for him. The metrotitan crushed him, armor crumpling like eggshells, and Sixshot stayed broken in his footprint. Metroplex moved on. He stayed.

Nobody had come for him, so Sixshot had attempted to go looking for help. He'd found no one. Fleeing hadn't worked, either. The thing about war was that it attracted scavengers. Those that didn't fight or flee pecked around the edges, feeding from the detrius left by battles or picking off survivors. Metroplex departed. The Autobots left soon after. Then, the scavengers moved in.

Left behind, Sixshot became a prize piece. The scavengers closed in on their payday, and it wasn't as though he could fight back. The first scavenger to find him straight-out tracked him down carrying a leash. No weapons, no pretense of sweettalking him into cooperation by at least pretending to have good intentions. Sixshot could have bargained with someone promising medical care, but he never got the chance.

"Collectors will pay top price for something as rare as you," said the rusted old neutral who tracked him down.

He ducked his head and growled, but the old mech knew business. That business was evidently trafficking in 'things' like Sixshot. He had a muzzle and choke collar on Sixshot so fast Sixshot's head spun. They cut off his vocalizer and threatened to choke off the energon lines to his head.

"You'll clean up pretty." A satisfied pat between his audios made him crouch, bristling, but the hand just followed him down. "Don't fight it. I can make this a lot worse for you before it brings your price down. Remember that."

His audios twitched wildly when he couldn't crouch any further. His engines, damaged and leaking, howled protest. He snarled a warning, but what could he do? He had nowhere to go, and the choke collar tightened enough to show him the old mech meant his threats. The hand stroked him between his audios and along his back, and Sixshot had to accept it. It could be made a lot worse. Injured as he was, he already knew how bad off he was.

He stumbled after the old mech, half-limping and half-dragged at the end of the leash.

Later, enough of the damage self-repaired that he didn't limp so badly. Fat lot of good it did him, locked into a cage. An inhibitor claw between his shoulders kept him in his wolfmode. Choked, muzzled, hobbled, and mode-locked, he eyed the old mech warily. He remembered the threatening promise in the scavenger's words.

"Sit."

He paced in the cage, exaggerating his limp. Look at him, crippled and harmless. Open the door, old mech. Open the door to the hurt wolf.

The old mech grinned, teeth snaggled and rusted. He wasn't fooled. He'd handled intelligent cargo before. Trained them, too. "You want this?" He jiggled the dish of energon. "Start learning commands. Sit!"

Sixshot didn't sit. The dish was set down out of reach. No matter how he lay down and pawed through the bars, he couldn't claw it any closer.

"Sit," the old neutral said next time. Sixshot snarled up at him. "Not feeling cooperative, eh? Got a lot of spunk. Bet I can sell that, too."

He could. Sixshot had thought resisting the old mech's demands would make him angry, more likely to make a mistake, but instead the old mech took his defiance as a cue to magnetize him down and look for things he could sell. It was bad enough being awake while uncaring hands rummaged around inside him, but the small yanking stings of parts pulling loose started deep up under his armor.

"That looks valuable. Ha! They still build you with these? You don't need that to function. T-cog's worthless for you now, too. What's this?" The hands in him paused, and Sixshot's spark fluttered in the first stages of what he'd soon know as fear. "Oh. Oh, you beautiful thing. You're gorgeous. That's a weapons system, that is. Oh, come to me, you beautiful, beautiful thing. You're going to pay for my next ship upgrade, you are."

Metal screeched across metal, and Sixshot passed out.

He woke up changed. It wasn't so much that the old skinthrift stripped him for parts. It wasn't that he couldn't transform, T-cog permanently removed. It wasn't even how weak he felt after he got back on his feet. It was the cumulative impact of all of that hitting him as he stared through the bars at the dish of energon still out of reach. So much had been taken out of him for his defiance, and he was afraid of how much more could be yanked out.

Nobody had come for him. After a while, Sixshot stopped hoping someone would. It occurred to him that one day he'd look through the bars of his cage and see someone he knew staring back at him, and the idea horrified him. So much had been taken out of him. And the things that had been used to fill him up...

"Sit," the handler at the zoo he'd been sold to said, and Sixshot sat.

Please, nobody come for him.

[* * * * *]

"Megatron - Restraint"

[* * * * *]

He didn't know what he expected. Something less visual, perhaps. There was something profoundly startling about so much of one color in one location, and it shook him to the core in a way he hadn't anticipated.

He had stood in the smoking ruins of battles that devastated hemispheres watching piles of body shift as they burnt, yet this made more of an impression. He didn't know why. Maybe it was harder to take in shredded bodies as individuals once he'd adjusted to the sight. The first one, two, dozen battlefields had been shocking. After that, his vision adjusted. He scanned the mounds of dead for signs of snipers or tactical value, pausing only if he recognized a face.

It was like scanning a list of casualties. After a certain point, the names stopped registering. They were just numbers.

That was what had made the Senate monsters. When individuals disappeared into a bureaucratic summary on a list, numbers shifted around to best advantage. The people doing the equations didn't even see what they were doing as affecting actual living beings. They simply counted, and that was the monstrous part.

The flowers reminded him of what he'd become. There was nothing to tell them apart. There were no names, no markers, no faces, no lists. There was only an overwhelming blaze of blue, petals fluttering in tiny starbursts of residual spark energy glittering across the hills as a breeze moved them. Megatron stood on the hill, surrounded by the dead, and the compartmentalizing, dismissing, strategic tricks his mind had learned over millions of years of war were useless here. He knew how to cope with confronting the living and the dead. This was a memorial. It was almost an art installation, open to interpretation, silently visual, and he hadn't been prepared for it.

It demanded respect how numbers didn't. He walked softly, placing his feet with care to avoid crushing the flowers. He'd taken less care in morgues.

Even so, the petals brushed against his ankles. Spark signatures flickered at his archives. The lists of names tried to cross-reference. I.D.s pushed into the forefront of his mind. Impatient, he ignored them. It wasn't that they didn't matter, but the red insignia on his chest said all he had to say about shouldering responsibility. Guilt had a conflicted relationship with him. It would take more than facing the dead to drown him.

He kept his sensors open to the flowers, however. There were names he looked for.

Near the base of his statue, close observers might have seen him flinch, one hand rising to flatten over the Autobot insignia on his chest. Well. That answered one question, at least. Frowning, he looked down at the flower. He didn't shy away from taking responsibility for anyone's death, but the spark signature in the flower did make him wonder what criteria determined it. Although his immediate reaction was to deny it by arguing technicalities, and what that said about him disturbed him slightly. His fingers dug in around the red face.

Megatron narrowed his optics and moved on.

The Necrobot found him some time later. "Please don't pick the flowers. They belong where they are." Neutral observer or not, there was a weary wariness in his optics. He probably feared the ex-leader of the Decepticons was plotting to seize the potential of the residual spark energy abundantly present on his planet.

It would be a massive resource, but Megatron had no intention of making that fear a reality. He kept his hand cupped around the single flower he'd finally found but didn't pluck it as he looked up at the Necrobot. Even without the updates from the Lost Light's comm. frequency down here on the planet, Megatron would know who this mech was. Considering how he'd lost track of time searching among the flowers, he thought himself lucky none of the crew had found him first. Ravage would muddle his trail for a while, but Rodimus was persistent. Annoying as well, and lacking any sense of tact when it came to respecting privacy.

This mech was impartial enough the flare of defensive embarrassment in Megatron's spark ebbed away to nothing. If it was true that the Necrobot worked out who was responsible for each Cybertronian's death, then Megatron had no reason to hide like this was a secret. It wasn't.

It was an old, old pain.

Out of respect for the memorial, he asked instead of demanded. "Please," Megatron said simply. The fragile petals in his hand predated the war and held a spark signature he had missed longer than that. It warmed the palm of his hand and crucified him with a guilt he'd mistakenly thought he'd come to terms with.

The Necrobot stared him down, level as a judge. "Leave it be."

Anger twinged in his spark. Shame unfurled cool blue shadows across it. "Please," he asked again.

"It is where it belongs," the Necrobot repeated, and under his steady neutrality, there might have been something called compassion. Megatron refused to call it pity. He was Megatron, former leader of the Decepticons, murderer of most of his own kind. He knelt among a sea of his victims. No one could pity him.

He wanted to ask if the Necrobot was absolutely certain. He wanted to find the list Rewind had found Dominus Ambus on, look down every name until there was no doubt, but that would be splitting technicalities. Nobody had ever found the body, but Megatron had long known who held responsibility for the cut rations, the threats, the disappearance. Denying his guilt on the final blow wouldn't spare him it. If he told himself he accepted responsibility for a sea of blue flowers but balked over just one, then it only cast his indifference to sheer numbers into stark, merciless light.

Let it. He gazed down at the flower sheltered in his hand. A war's worth of the dead surrounded him, spark signatures spilling over the hills and pooling in the valleys, and he'd trade them all for what he held. For one more day in the mines of Messatine, he'd have fought the war to the last soldier.

The Necrobot waited. Megatron ran his thumb over the flower, an apology he'd said aloud many times, but it changed nothing. The flower still stood at the base of his statue. His hand tightened.

But he let go.

"Are you ready to return to your friends?" the Necrobot asked, impassive.

Megatron rose to his feet slowly, optics on the flower. "They're not my friends. But yes," he turned to leave, "I'm ready to leave."

For the second time in his life, Megatron left Terminus behind.

[* * * * *]