Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.
You all know the rest.
Theft is a crime punishable by Megatron. Just saying.
Hello wonderful readers and reviews! How are you this fine Friday?
Good?
Well I'm glad.
Could this be another chapter on time? That's two in a roll! Look at me go.
Once again I would like to thank all of you who reviewed. You are awesome and I love you. You keep me inspired and keep all this mess going. So hats off to you guys. You all deserve hugs, or cookies, or something along those lines of things people enjoy but since this is the internet and none of that can be done I'll just give you a chapter instead. How about that?
Also, couple of things that I need to mention will be put in a really long note at the bottom of this chapter. I'm going to try and clear up something that was pointed out to me and then . . . well its me and I'm crazy and I cannot be held responsible for what my brain has done now. Just read the note at the end to find out. Or don't. Its up to you.
So yeah, go enjoy! I thought it was about time Hot Rod got his story told.
Chapter 12
Bumblebee shuddered against Jolt's chest as the brightly painted apprentice medic carefully welded some torn wires along the mechling's shoulder. However, the little yellow youngling was not shuddering from his own pain—honestly he really wasn't in any, he was terrified out of his processor, but he wasn't hurting—he was shuddering from the sounds that were echoing on the other side of the medical bay behind a drawn scrap of fabric as Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Preceptor worked to fix the twins.
Bee could hear the sounds of welding torches and flying hands as the smell of energon still drifted through the air.
And it wasn't the good smelling energon either.
This was the smell of processed energon. The kind that ran through a bot's systems. Their life blood.
Bumblebee did not like this smell.
"Anywhere else hurting, Bumblebee?" Jolt questioned quietly mindful of the faraway look in the shivering mechling's big blue optics. He hadn't spoken since Quickfire handed him over and returned to her own ship.
That was over three breems ago.
The bright blue mech was starting to worry about the little mech, but Ratchet was too busy fixing the twins to have time to look up right now since the youngling was in no mortal danger. So the issue was left to Jolt.
He turned from the little mech, rummaging around in a cabinet under the medical berth until he found was he was looking for and then he pushed himself back to his feet holding a bright orange energon sucker in his hand.
Bee's big baby blue optics drifted up to meet his electric blue ones, but he didn't reach for the sucker. He just curled into a ball on his medical berth and watched the thing that separated him from the twins that had gotten that hurt trying to keep him safe.
Jolt sighed, subspacing the treat and plucking the little one from the table. Bee made no protest though he did scramble to peak over Jolt's shoulder to watch the place he knew the twins to be until the medical bay doors swished shut behind them.
Together the apprentice and the youngling made their way through the eerily quiet halls toward the commander's office where Jolt knew the Prime, the SIC, the TIC, and the WS were probably currently yelling at each other about how the pit this could have happened. Jolt rolled his optics.
It had started out as such a good orn.
The youngling had been so excited to go and see something outside the ship and then everything had blown itself to pit. He had a feeling that this was going to damper the little mechling's chances of getting off the ship again anytime soon. It was a fact that saddened the quiet blue mech.
If Optimus Prime wasn't . . . well Optimus Prime, he probably would be yelling at the top of his vocal processor and chunking stuff across the room much like Prowl had been doing not that many orns ago.
However, unfortunately, he was the chosen Prime of Cybertron and he could not in good conscious start hurling objects at the walls no matter how bad he wanted too as he sat back in his massive swivel chair and brooded to the far wall.
If looks could kill that pour innocent wall would be twelve feet under by now.
"The twins are going to be alright, right?" Jazz's quiet question broke the Prime from his dark thoughts and brought his gaze to the three mechs that sat around the table with him. Ironhide was at his left, his head in his hands and his cannons still humming quietly as he took long slow breaths trying to keep himself from charging down to the shooting range and blowing a hole in the side of the soaring ship.
It was not a posture that suited the powerful, weathered warrior.
Prowl was to his right, his posture tight and ridged, his doorwings flared in an angry ridged 'v' that had yet to fall since he'd stomped back to the ship. It was his optics through that drew Optimus' attention. The normally ever calculating blue orbs were now empty and confused.
It unnerved the powerful Prime.
Then there was Jazz.
Ever optimistic, lovable, easy going, happy Jazz.
The very mech who was now staring down at the table before him, his visor dim and dark, his posture deflated and beaten as he drew meaningless circles on the silver table top. He didn't look like the Jazz that Optimus knew.
In fact, Optimus didn't recognize him at all.
"Ratchet will fix them, Jazz." Optimus assured him and the silver mech nodded slowly, but the Prime wasn't completely sure whether or not he had really heard what he said.
"And Jolt's gonna bring Bee down here when he's done looking him over?"
"Yes." This time it was Ironhide that answered. "Ratchet doesn't want any other bots in the bay right now."
"Understandable." Prowl commented drying. "He is working, and Bee isn't in any real danger."
Anymore.
The SIC didn't say it, but his friends—his brothers—heard it all the same.
The swish of the office door brought all the mech's attention up to find Jolt strolling in with an eerily quiet Bumblebee in the crook of his arm. When the youngling's bright optics found the table of mechs his antennas flicked back and forth slowly and he chirped reaching out with his spark and his hands for the big black bot that had had to leave him in the medical bay. Ironhide twisted in his chair plucking the little mech from Jolt's hands with a soft thank you to the apprentice as he let Bee snuggle into his chest where he wiggled until he was comfortable and then he went still.
"Thank you, Jolt." Optimus thanked the young blue mech as well.
Jolt tilted his head in acknowledgement and then took a step toward the door. "I'm going to go and try and make myself useful to Ratchet. If you'll excuse me, Prime."
"Are Sideswipe and Sunstreaker alright, Jolt?" Prowl questioned before he made it out the door.
Jolt looked over his shoulder pausing for a moment before nodding stiffly. "Hatchet has stopped cursing dead mechs and static-hounds now so things are looking up. They will be fine, Sir."
Prowl nodded along with Jazz, Optimus, and Ironhide.
"Though they won't be busting up 'Cons for a good few orns. From what I've heard that glitch got really close to Sideswipe's spark."
Bumblebee flinched, making Hide rub calming circles into his back as he pulsed warmth and security through their bond. Calming down himself as well when the little mech snuggled into not only his frame, but his spark too and lay there quietly until the warmth that bubbled inside him drew quiet tired purrs from his frame.
"It's not the first time they've taken a beating." Jazz mumbled. "They'll be alright."
"They are stronger than most." Jolt agreed softly before he quit the room vanishing as silently as he entered with no more sound then the hissing of the door behind him.
The gathered officers were left in silence after the medic left. Quite content to just let the tired purrs of the little one vibrate through the large office space as Ironhide absently rubbed circles into his now clean frame. Jolt had cleaned him up as well as given him the once over he so desperately needed. At least now he didn't look like he'd been through pit and back over the course of the evening.
Though he certainly felt like it.
Even as he drifted into recharge, his over taxed processor giving up for the orn, letting his aching tired frame slip into nothingness now that he was safely in the arms of his guardian.
"First Aid patched you up, right Hide?" Prowl's question drew the massive ebony mech's optics to the black and white mech that sat across from him.
He offered a curt nod as he tried to ignore the dull ache in his chest.
Spark vaults were not meant to be sliced open, and he'd be feeling that fight for a while. Though he's injuries were nowhere near what they could have been. What could have happened to Bumblebee if Grimlock and Snarl hadn't torn those glitches to shreds.
That was too close.
Too damn close!
And the question still remained in every bot's on this ship processor.
What the pit did two bounty hunters want with Bumblebee!?
"I know this is gonna sound like a really dumb question." Jazz slumped in his seat as he stared down at the table again. "But . . . umm . . . why the pit did any of this just happen?"
"I wish I knew, Jazz." Optimus let out a defeated sounding breath as he leaned on the table and rubbed two fingers between his optics trying to fight off the oncoming headache.
"Bounty hunters?" Jazz mumbled. "What do bounty hunters want with Lil' Bee?"
"They said there was 'quite a price on his head'." Ironhide's tone took on a growl that he quickly had to shush for fear of waking the little bundle of yellow in his arms. "Who in the name of Primus put a price on his head?!"
"All likelihood would be Megatron." Prowl grumbled. "But that doesn't really seem his style now does it?"
"Letting some other bot haul in his prize?" Optimus snorted. "No that is not Megatron. He's always been the more do it himself type. He might have let Starscream and Shockwave do all the work last time, but that ended so well didn't it. I doubt he'll try it again."
"This is more up that whiny glitch's alley isn't it?" Jazz's optics darkened making his visor dim even more. "Would Starscream try for Bee again?"
"I doubt it." Prowl shook his head. "He's a foolish glitch, but even he knows that he can only push his limits with Megatron so long before the Decepticon Lord shoves his own foot up his tail pipe."
"I'd pay to see that." Jazz smirked. "I really would."
"I'd rather do it myself." Ironhide grumbled.
"That too."
"As entertaining as that would prove to be." Prowl sighed. "That does not leave us with an answer as to why a pair of bounty hunters went to all that trouble to snatch a youngling that isn't supposed to be all that much of a common knowledge."
"I'm as lost to this as you are, Prowler." Jazz breathed out. "We don't know that much about bounty hunters. They're not really that open of a cult."
"But we know some mech that does." Ironhide turned his clouded with the past optics to Optimus.
The Prime narrowed his gaze at the table.
He didn't want any of this to be what it could be. They had had enough of the past coming to call as of late. Couldn't it leave well enough alone? Couldn't the many war destroyed lives that had managed to stay alive this late in a battle that was destroying their very world just be allowed to have the things they'd left behind them down the dark parts of the paths they had walked leave them to their haunted nightmares? Did the ghost really need to be brought up and throw in their faceplates all over again?
Hadn't those that were still breathing suffered enough?
"The glitch acted like he knew, Roddy."
"Huh?" Jazz perked up.
Prowl tilted his head, his right doorwing twitching ever so slightly.
"Wanna tell me if Roddy knew them?" Hide pressed the Prime.
"It seems that he did." Optimus answered slowly, weighing his words carefully since he was still trying to work it all out in his head.
For a moment the table was eerily quiet until Prowl's doorwings arched up higher behind his back—even if that looked to be impossible—and his gaze narrowed to the far wall as he uttered just two words.
"Hive City."
Optimus nodded with a sigh. "Seems so."
There was a moment of silence as each of the powerful mechs let the name of the first city after Kaon to go trailing after Megatron like turbo-pups with wagging tales sink into their processors along with all the memoires of what the place created come with it.
Then Jazz's head slammed down onto the surface of the table.
"Well this is just great!"
The Longbow had taken on a new kind of quiet that night as the crew was either piloting the ship the long way to Tyger Pax, blowing stuff to pit in the shooting range, or sitting quietly thinking over everything that had come to pass over the last orn.
Hot Rod had started out as one of those down in the shooting range taking his anger out on an electronic image of Starscream that he blasted until the computer program glitched out. Now he was holed up in his office, slumped in his big chair, with a bottle—not just a cube, the bright commander had pulled a whole bottle from under the galley cabinets—of highgrade in his hand, as he stared blankly across the dark room trying to shake the images from his processor.
Though no matter that he was halfway through the bottle and very much feeling the charge of the drink making his processor fuzzy it did nothing to rid him of what he didn't want to see.
Hive City had been a very long time ago.
It was a time he'd thought he'd moved pass.
Over come.
Though it seemed . . . he'd done nothing like that.
He'd just hidden from it all these vorns because the moment it was thrown in his faceplate he was drowning in the past.
Again.
They told him to be strong.
To mech up.
That he was on his own now and that was just the way it was.
After all, he wasn't the first orphan in Hive City and he certainly wouldn't be the last. The dirty grey streets were full of them. Mechlings and femmelings who's creators had never come home from a job. The back road alleys around the capital tower of the overrun thieves' village that his race had the audacity to call a city filled up every night with small, shaking frames curled into dirty balls on the street. Huddled together trying to fight off the cold. Dirty, dingy, thin plating giving them away in the sunlight and the moonlight as they either begged or snatched their supper.
The grown bots cared nothing for them.
They all looked down and sneered as if seeing the starving little youngling on the corner made them feel a little bit less like a scrap-rat.
No bot in Hive City was wealthy.
Pit. Hive City itself wasn't wealthy.
It wasn't even really a city.
Which was why the little red mechling didn't understand why they called it a city. It was nothing more than a rundown, gloomy grey spaceport on the edge of the world. No bot came to Hive City unless they were looking for somebot to kill some other bot, or to kill a bot themselves. It was a slum fueled by murder and greed.
It was the home base of the most ruthless organized crime operation on Cybertron—besides the Rings—it was the home of the bounty hunters.
The little red mechling clutched himself to the rim of the scrap-bin scrambling and kicking as he tried to heave himself over the edge with his week arms. Normally he stuck to smaller bins, but he was hungry and hunger made bots do stupid things.
The mech that owned this bar was notorious for shooting first and asking questions later, especially to thieves. Roddy still didn't understand how picking broken cubes and bottles that had been tossed out into a scrap-bin could be considered stealing, but not many bots really cared what orphans thought.
They were pests.
They could starve for all most cared.
But little Roddy had no plans of starving anytime soon.
Which was why with a final push of his feet on the side of the metal bin he shoved himself over and crashed into the scrap piled inside. For a moment his world spun in a dizzy blur before he shook off the daze and quickly went to scrambling.
There was only one thing worst than getting caught trying to climb into a scrap-bin, and that was actually being in the scrap-bin. Roddy had to snatch something and bolt. He had no wish to feel the lick of an energon whip to his side every again.
That had not been a pleasant experience.
Rummaging around through things the twenty-eight vorn old youngling was content to not know what were he managed to find himself an almost full cube of glittering purple liquid near the top. He scrambled to it and plucked it from its precarious position atop a mass of crumbling something and brought it to his noseplate.
He knew better than to just drink it.
Only took one time of mistaking high-grade for normal energon and purging everything his tanks had held in the last two orns to teach the mechling that not all energon was the same.
So he took a deep sniff, filling his olfactory sensor with the scent.
It wasn't highgrade.
It wasn't really all that good of normal energon either—he could smell the stale plasma that had settled near the bottom—it wasn't going to taste good, but it would keep him alive. So he chugged it back trying to pretend that it didn't make him cringe on the inside and outside.
Swallowing it down despite how bad he just wanted to purge it back up he licked the last bit off his lips knowing he would need the energy. The taste wouldn't kill him. Not having energon would.
Once he had whipped the last bit off his small faceplate he scrambled back up and out of the scrap-bin sprinting off into the darkness to find himself another corner to hide in for the night.
"Worthless scrap!"
SLAM
Pain exploded into the little mech's back as he was slammed into the wall only to find himself yanked up nano-klicks later and tossed to the other side of the alley. He crashed into the far wall with another sickening crunch.
"Waste of metal!"
He was yanked back up and then painfully thrown into the ground. A cry of pain tore from his vocal processor as a large black foot slammed down on top of him crushing his thin plating and starved frame under its unyielding claws.
"You don't deserve to live!" A fist wrapped around his thin neck making him squeak in pain as it pulled him halfway up while still keeping him trapped beneath the claws. "And that is a problem I'll rectify for ya."
"Let go of him!"
CRASH
A round scrap-bin lid banged into the side of the huge, ugly, black mech's faceplate making him stumble just enough that Roddy shot out from under his claws, scrambling and tripping over pain filled limbs that didn't want to obey him as he broke for the far side of the alley. He glanced up just in time to see bright lime plating and another purple frame shooting off beside him.
"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE GLITCHES!"
"Run, slow poke!" The purple mech shoved him forward, titanium grey optics glittering with mischief as the lime green mechling laughed on his other side, his orange optics glowing just as bright.
"Don't keep up and we saved ya for nothing!"
Roddy was too shocked to say anything as they fled. He just followed them as they twisted through back alleys and side streets he'd never used before. Somehow among all the twist and turns they lost that over grown bully and ended up panting, bent over double in a dark alley cycling in air as rapidly as they could. Roddy falling down to his aft with his arms wrapped around him, aching and tired, but alive.
And that was all that mattered.
"Don't you know that Wreckage will kill any youngling that gets near his shop?" The purple mechling's voice brought the bright blue optics of the forty-three vorn old youngling to the slightly older one in front of him. It was a young seeker by the looks of him, his tiny wings underdeveloped and pinned tightly to his back, no use to him until he grew into the ability of his alt mode.
"Or are you just stupid?" The lime green one drew his attention then. Standing there in front of him no older than the other as he smirked down at him like between the two of them, they knew everything.
Roddy huffed. "No."
"Every orphan around here knows that." The purple one snorted. "You are an orphan aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Then ya should have known it." The green one drawled.
"I'm from the north side of the docks." Roddy pushed himself to his feet, winching as the movement stretched dented and leaking plating. The other two didn't seem too concerned with his injuries and truthfully neither was he. He'd survived worse without a medic. He'd be sore for quite a while, but he'd live.
"Oh you are?" The purple mechling laughed. "Why you down here in our neighborhood then?"
Roddy shrugged. "Thought the pickings might be better. There is a lot of competition at the docks."
"That there is." The green one nodded. "But we work harder for everything down here."
"Mainly 'cuz these glitches really like to use us as target practice." The purple one finished.
Roddy rubbed his aching side. "I noticed."
"Designation is Flipswitch, by the way." The purple mechling tilted his head with a grin. "This here is Slipknot. Who you?"
Roddy regarded them for a long moment before he answered. "Hot Rod, but I go by Roddy most times."
"Nice to meet ya, Roddy." Slipknot grinned. "If you're still hungry we know a place you're less likely to get shot at trying to swipe stuff from."
"Between the three of us we're bound to get a meal." Flipswitch added.
The young red, yellow, and orange mechling's tanks rolled painful as a reminder that he really couldn't recall the last time he'd had more than a few sips of energon. If there was a chance for food, he'd take it.
"Lead the way."
Stuffing the very few objects that he owed into a bag that would ride better in subspace Roddy glanced once more around the tiny apartment he lied, cheated, and swiped to pay for every Decacycle.
He was tired of this life. He was tired of Hive City. He was tired to coming up with ways to survive that didn't include killing some random stranger for the credit signs under their name.
Slipknot and Flipswitch might be all into it, they might be damn good at it, but he wasn't like them. He didn't want to be like them. Which was why he tried to distance himself from them. He hadn't seen them in a few vorns, and that was the way he wanted it to stay.
He was going to vanish off into the night and leave Hive City far, far behind.
He'd skimped, scraped, and struggled getting together every last credit he had to buy that ticket for the next midnight ship out of the pit hole. Now that he had it he had no regrets.
Only a burning in his spark for a chance to find something better.
There might not be a lot of chances for somebot like him in the glory of Iacon, but he had never let who or what he was stop him from doing anything before and he certainly wasn't going to let it stop him now. He'd find a way into the Academy. He'd find a way to make a name for himself.
He'd find a way to be better than what he was sparked to.
Slinging the bag into subspace he took one last look at the dirty dark hole he called home before shutting the door behind him and heading for the ship docks. This was the beginning of the rest of his life.
And he tried to pretend that the fact that it was raining wasn't a bad sign.
Shaking himself from his memories Hot Rod glared at the expanse of his office.
Oh how he wanted to scream at the top of his damn vocal processor! It wasn't fair!
All he'd done. All the work he'd put in!
All the better he had tried to make himself and he still hadn't out run it all. It had found him again. Even if it hadn't been looking. It had found him.
Slipknot and Flipswitch.
Dead.
The mechs that once upon a time had saved him from getting beat to death in an alley, the mechs that had taught him a new kind of grit and determination in a city that was rapidly proving to be the death of him. . . the mechs he had once called his friends.
Before they decided that tearing out innocent sparks made a good pastime he had held them close to his spark. He had valued their opinions, trusted their judgment, and watched their backs. They had been a great team.
As different as they were it was true.
And then they had grown different ways.
Two very different ways by the looks of it.
He had found a place in the Prime's court by the mistake of dumping high-grade all over his brother . . . yeah that hadn't been his most dignified evening. Turns out even back them old Big and Bad had a temper, only back then it was less likely to kill mechs and more likely to end in joking if one could amuse him.
But as unorthodox as that meeting had been it somehow ended up with him in the Academy and becoming close friends with bots that at one time he would have been too terrified to stand in the rain with.
He had become something more than an orphan left to die among dirty streets.
It seemed his two partners in crime had not.
He'd wondered time and again, on quiet nights when something horrible had happened—like when a mission failed and he had to write a condolence letter that would never be sent for there was no bot to send it too for a mech that he hadn't even known the name of before he read it on a casualties report—when he was doing what he was right now; sprawled out in a chair that wasn't comfortable, in a room that was too dark for his liking, all alone and confused, nursing a container of far too much highgrade. That was when he thought about it.
Thought about the mech he had been.
The bots he had known.
The place he'd been determined enough to get out of.
He thought about the faceplates he'd never see again . . . or at least he had figured he'd never see again. He wondered what had become of them.
Now he had his answer.
At least for the two he had once called friends.
The mechs that when they were trying to tear his family apart he hadn't recognized. Not at all.
Some small part of his spark was confused by this. While he knew it was probably for the best—considering he had been trying to kill them as desperately as they had been trying to kill him and everything he cared about—he couldn't help but wonder could he have stopped it all. Or where his once called friends too far gone in the darkness to every lay down their swords?
They had been trying to steal a youngling.
To collect the bounty on a youngling.
They had been willing to kill a youngling!
The last youngling!
Snorting he took a long drag from his bottle and glared at the far wall.
They deserved what they got. He would have killed them himself if they had gotten there before Grimlock and the other Dinobots did.
That wasn't what he was debating.
It was the fact that he wondered if there was something he could have done. Something he could have changed.
He changed.
He became something other than the shadow his creators left behind.
So . . . could those two have done the same? If they had only been given the chance.
"Oww. For once I wish I couldn't feel my head." Rubbing at his aching processor Sideswipe lay unnaturally still—for him—on a medical berth scooted close to his brother. Sunstreaker was still in recharge. Held down in the bliss of nothingness by the meds Ratchet had pumped into their systems, but only staying there because Sideswipe was keeping him there.
Normally Sunstreaker's highly evolved and developed firewalls and defenses—made by vorns and vorns in the Rings—would not submit to the medic's medicines and such without a painfully long and dangerous fight. It took almost three times the drugs Ratchet would use on any other bot to keep Sunny or Sides under for anytime at all. Even in surgery.
It was always something the medic was dancing around.
Because every program inside the two melee warriors fought the venerability of being unconscious. Even if they trusted Ratchet with their sparks they couldn't change the things that had been beat into them over and over again a lifetime ago. Even if they wanted too.
Even when it was making one of their heads feel like it was splitting in two.
Banging his head back against the head of his berth Sideswipe groaned to the ceiling. He might have been the worse injured in the fight, but after it was all said and done Sunstreaker had taken the worst of the beating. Because he hadn't stopped fighting when he should have.
Sides felt like smacking him to the Pit and back for it.
Stupid idiot shouldn't have done it. He should have let him help.
Because now Sideswipe was forced to lay there and not be able to feel his brother's spark echoing inside his chest. He was too busy shoving the other's consciousness down into the depths of drugged bliss to be able to listen to his brother's spark. His only reassurance that he wasn't alone in his spark was the beeping of the monitor sitting between them, hooked to both sparks that beat in time if not just a half a nano-klick apart since Sideswipe had slowed his brother's to keep him in recharge.
It wasn't the action of keeping Sunny under itself that hurt Sideswipe; it was more of the fact that to do it he had to steal his brother's sense of pain. Even if the pain was more of a memory. The drugs in his system wouldn't let him feel the pain of his wounds or his brother's, what he felt was past pains.
Pains from long ago.
Pains that were trying to form nightmares, to take advantage of the deep rest that Sunstreaker wouldn't be able to pull himself out of even if he wanted too.
Sideswipe would not allow his forced rest to haunt his brother with all the times he had hurt to keep Sides safe. So the crimson warrior took the pain from his spark. He pulled it toward him as if it were tied to the end of a very long, very dangerous rope and he held on tightly as it shook him around inside. Throwing aches and pains and agony that were real and yet were not real at him as he lay there bubbling in the numbness of his own sedatives.
In fact, he was so lost in the process of trying to keep the pain of the past to himself that he didn't even notice Ratchet had returned until the fretting medic ran a tingling scanner over him.
"Can you hear me, Sideswipe?" The mech's tone was unnaturally soft and it unnerved the warrior. He fought to have his optics open again trying his best to hide the pain glittering in the depths of his optics from the mech he trusted like the Sire he had never had.
But there was really no point.
Ratchet knew how the twins did this for each other.
He knew because he had paid enough attention to find out.
And he didn't like it.
He made a point to tell the pair that every single time Sides did it.
Because normally only Sides did it. No matter how much Sunstreaker snarled and growled and puffed up at him after he came too to find out that his twin had been floating alone in the cosmic nothingness between them when one was numb and had battled with the pain all on his own. Sides still did it though.
It was his way of making up for it.
For all the pain Sunny had lived through just trying to keep his little brother safe.
Sideswipe knew he shouldn't feel guilty about it. There were more times than he could count that Sunstreaker had gotten done yelling at him to find him just standing there smiling that crocked little half grin of his and would just sigh heavily, wrap his arms around him, and hold onto him like only his twin could do. Sunstreaker didn't regret what he had done over the vorns, to him it had had to be done, and he would not allow Sideswipe to feel guilty. He made sure after sessions such as this that the red idiot would not feel guilty.
It was still there though.
After he watched his brother get stabbed, or shot at, or blasted off the back of a triple changer, or fall twenty thousand feet off the wing of a seeker, or . . . whatever it was that happened that time they charged off the frontlines.
It wasn't a guilt that it had happened really, because in all honesty Sideswipe has gotten the slag beat out him for his brother time and time again as well.
It was not something that was even thought about.
It never had to be.
It was just done.
They protected each other, they took blaster shots for each other, they leapt in front of falling buildings for each other, they hauled each other back from certain death over and over and over and over and over again.
And they didn't even question it.
Not once.
They just did it.
Because they were . . . them.
Brothers.
Twins.
Two halves of the same whole.
One was not himself without the other and they could never be without the other.
There wasn't just them.
There was never just 'I'.
There was only 'we'.
Because together—being one and the same, different in every fraggin' way possible, but a part of each other all the same—was the only way they wanted to be.
So Sideswipe did it.
Time and time again.
He lay in a medical berth beside his brother and he yanked on that rope with his entire spark. He let the pain and everything that came along with it wash over him and he just bore it. Because that was the only way to give his twin—who was the more heavily damaged of the two at the moment—the rest he so desperately needed. Because he knew that if he were awake he would not do it for himself. Because he knew if he were awake he would be too concerned about Sides or everything else to lie there quietly letting his self repairs finish mending all that Ratchet had put back together.
He would try to make stuff better. Just like he always did. He would try and take care of those he cared about. He'd do what Sideswipe was doing now.
Because Sunstreaker had done it plenty of times for him over the vorns.
After Sideswipe had been so royally fragged that Ratchet had actually worried about putting him back together. Those orns—that came more often than Sides liked to think about—Sunny would drag a berth to his brothers side, or more often than not curled up on the berth beside him after Ratchet had locked the bay door and retreated to his office to let them recover in peace yet where he could still keep an optic on them, as Sunstreaker pushed his twin into the drugs that his battled hardened prodigals were fighting off rapidly bringing him back to consciousness.
Sunstreaker did what Sideswipe was doing now.
He took the painful memories away and held them in his own spark until his twin was well enough to return to the land of the functioning.
It was just what they did.
Even when it hurt.
Because making sure the other twin was alright was far more important than anything else any orn.
Because no matter the bickering they did, the name calling, and the mock fights . . . and the real fights . . . they were twins.
And this is what they would always do.
"Yeah, Wrench I can hear ya." Sides mumbled.
The yellow and red medic glared down at his tried faceplate.
Sideswipe just offered him that cheeky half smirk of his.
It got him a very light flick to the audio horn, the medic mindful of how bad his head was aching even with the medical drugs floating in his system. Sideswipe was awake and that told the medic enough to know what was going on.
"Do you want me to put you in shut down?" Ratchet questioned softly running some scans and checking the patching near Sideswipe's spark. He tried to pretend that he wasn't still shaken up, but he was.
That blade had come this close to ending the vibrant red hellion and in doing so taking his twin with him.
Ratchet had patched these two—Sideswipe more than Sunstreaker usually because it never failed the red idiot was always the one that let himself get the most royally slagged when they did get that deep into trouble—back together so many times he could do it in his recharge but that didn't mean that sometimes it still didn't shake him up.
He cared about them far too much for his own good—he'd never change it—but he knew it was true, and it hurt him each and every time he saw one of them laying there.
Still and quiet was not how either of them belonged.
Ever.
As much trouble as they caused, even to him, he would rather them be up running amuck then being silent in his medical bay.
"Don't treat me like a sparkling, Wrench." Sides rumbled affectionately though the seriousness was very much in his voice. "I'm not a sparkling."
Ratchet glared down at him as he ran light fingers over the healing weld in the warrior's chest. "I'll treat you as I please you stupid red glitch!"
Sideswipe smiled up at him. "Awe now, Ratch. Don't start that. You'll make me think you was worried about me."
That got him a slightly less light smack to his chest, far from his wounded portions, but close enough and hard enough to remind him that Ratchet was well known for using the old theory of whack-the-turbo pup-in-the-noseplate-with-a-rolledup-paper-to-teach-them-not-to-do-stupid-things.
Sideswipe had not forgotten, but that didn't mean he'd learned over the vorns either.
"I'll worry about you as much as I slaggin' please!" Ratchet grumbled, whacking the mech once more for good measure before he went to rummaging around in some tools and checked on Sunstreaker again.
"How's Sunny?" Sideswipe asked after a few moments.
"You can tell much better than I can most times, Sideswipe." Ratchet told him over his shoulder.
The red twin snorted sounding somewhat downcast. "Not right now."
Ratchet understood.
"He's as fine as you are. His self repair systems are just having to work harder since the glitch wouldn't listen to me and kept on fighting. Neither of you were in any shape for that second go around."
"Yeah," Sides sighed. "Didn't have much of a choice in the matter though."
Ratchet snarled over to him as he left his twin and started imputing data into both of their charts. Sideswipe just watched him with a small smirk knowing that the medic was still angry at both of them—mainly Sunstreaker for once, which was not normally something that happened, usually it was Sideswipe that managed to piss him off—for not letting him help them when they needed help.
Granted, the odds had needed Sunstreaker's swords. Ratchet probably wouldn't have been able to keep all those hounds back on his own, he might have been able too, but there had been so many. The medic was a skilled warrior because he had to be, but even he had his limits just as everybot did. He knew that. He lectured others about it enough to know that it was there.
But he also knew he'd been fragged off enough down in those tunnels to make him fight like twenty mechs.
The glitches had tried to take Bumblebee and then they dared to hurt his adopted younglings . . . that weren't really younglings . . . oh damn it all to pit he'd call them what he please!
They were his.
Silence descended on the pair for a long while, Ratchet just monitoring the sounds of the beeping keeping up with the twins sparks and making sure to watch Sideswipe from the corner of his optic as he lay there quietly holding onto his brother's pain so that the other could rest.
It was going to tick the golden twin off when he came too and found out what Sides had done again, but Ratchet would not tell the warrior that he couldn't try and help his brother. It would only be a waste of breath. So instead he would just keep an optic on him as the klicks of the night ticked by into the breems of morning.
It was only once the ship had rumbled on into the sunrise that Sideswipe spoke again.
"Ratchet?" He called softly from the far corner of the bay where he and his twin lay. The yellow and red medic looked up at the sound of his name and left his desk walking back to the red warrior before he answered.
"What is it, Sides?" He questioned, quickly running several scans to make sure the mech was alright. When he didn't find anything out of sorts he looked to those deep blue optics and found they looked sad and far away as they stared at the far wall. When he didn't get a reply, Ratchet pressed. "Sideswipe? What's wrong?"
"Sorry."
Ratchet blinked. "What? What on Cybertron are you sorry for?"
"Was our idea."
Ratchet just stared at him.
"To take him down into the tunnels. It was our idea. Well it was Sunny's idea. But I'll take the blame for it. Prime won't get mad at Sunny will he? He really was just trying to help. Please, don't let them get mad at him! He's already going to be mad enough at himself. He's going to blame himself and he's gonna get pissy and he's going to take things apart by force and he's gonna be upset. 'Cuz he's gonna blame himself. And—"
"Enough, Sideswipe." The gentle yet commanding tone of the medic drew Sides' babbling to a stop, drawing the frontliner's optics to the calm, proud, and loving optics of the first bot outside his brother that he had ever trusted this much.
"But,"
"But nothing." Ratchet's gaze hardened just enough to prove to the red fool that he was serious before he continued. "It was not your fault, nor was it your brother's and neither of you will believe that. You should know better than to think Optimus will blame you. You two were doing everything in and above your power to keep Bumblebee safe. There was no way you could have known that those glitches were down there, nor could you have known anything that was going to happen. You will not blame yourselves. I will not allow it. Do you understand me?"
Sideswipe blinked at him before he smiled tiredly, the affects of keeping his brother's pain from him staring to wear down on his own battered frame.
"Thanks, Ratchet." Sides yawned before going on. "For everything."
The medic's spark warmed in his chest as he smiled at the mech before him. Reaching to the side he flipped a switch on the I.V. that was still hooked to the warrior watching while the bright orange, very powerful, sedative slowly dripped into his veins. For once Sideswipe didn't complain.
He was tired, and he could feel over the space between his brother's spark and his own that Sunny was healed enough to come back to the land of the processing. He could stop holding him down now and let him come back, and since he had mentally exhausted himself Sides had nothing left inside him to fight the meds Ratchet was giving him now.
"You're welcome, Sideswipe." Ratchet's voice drifted through his tired audios as the warrior sank down into blissful nothingness were not even his nightmares were going to find him this time. "And thank you, the pair of you, for giving me something I never thought I'd know."
Wheeljack quietly, almost mechanically went about his normal pattern of trying to find the floor of his lab at the end of the orn that was now really almost mid morning.
He'd had a bit of a night.
Much like the rest of the ship.
Though his night had included trying to calm restless Dinobots. Which had taken a lot more than one would think.
Swoop and Sludge had been distraught and had not been consolable until Wheeljack sent a comm to Ratchet and had the medic assure the two beast mechs that Bumblebee was alright. Only then had Wheeljack been able to get the two to curl up in the corner of his lab and go to recharge.
Snarl and Slag had been another story all together though.
Snarl had been prickly and snapping at everything, more than once almost setting the ship on fire from knocking something over. Edgy over what had happened and not being able to help. Once Wheeljack had managed to him settled down and get him in recharge piled in the corner with his brothers he went to work on Slag.
The mech had been pacing since they got back on the ship, growling and smashing and picking fights with the others. He was still edgy, still willing to go off about the simplest thing, but he'd had the satisfaction of snuffing out the fool's spark and that was the only thing that Wheeljack had been able to console him with. That and a promise to let the Dinobots have full run of the shooting range in the morning. He assured them Ironhide would not say a word about it. He owed them his youngling's life and they could blow everything to pit and back if they wanted too. Only then had he too piled up with his brothers in the far corner of the inventor's lab and fell into a much needed recharge.
They wouldn't leave his side for the night. Not being as worked up as they were, and Jack had no problem with that. He could make sure they were alright while they were here.
However, then there was Grimlock.
The mech that still had yet to say a word to him or anybot else. Not even his brothers.
The massive mech still just crouched there against the left wall staring blankly at his claws.
And Wheeljack had no idea what to do about it.
So he busied himself with trying to find his floor—it was not a successful mission, he had long ago forgotten what the actual color his floor even was—he ended up just shoving most of the clutter under a few tables and onto a bunch of shelves before he sighed and made his way over to Grimlock.
The mech didn't move nor speak as the tri colored inventor slid down the wall next to him and situated himself comfortably. Then they sat in silence, for Wheeljack knew better than to press Grimlock on any matter. The beast mech would speak when he figured out how to say what he wanted to say and not a moment before then. That didn't mean his lingering quiet hurt Jacky's spark any less though.
He was like any other creator.
It hurt him when his younglings hurt.
Even when said youngling towered over him by a good many feet and was three times as bulky as he was and could turn into a t-rex and could breath fire when he really wanted too and could stand toe to toe with Optimus Prime when he really wanted too and was more than capable of taking complete care of himself.
It was just a Sire thing.
He worried.
"Me Grimlock not need be coddled by you Wheeljack." When the deep gravelly tone finally spoke up it shook Wheeljack from his thoughts drawing the bright mech's optics to the massive bot crouched beside him. That dark red visor was dimmed to the point where no matter how hard he tried he could not see the emotion that lay on the other side.
Grimlock was hiding from him, and Grimlock hid from nothing.
"I and not trying to coddle you, Grimlock." Wheeljack told him softly looking over his faceplate before it turned away even more and disappeared from his sight once again.
"Then go 'way."
Wheeljack's smile faltered and he looked to his hands clasped in front of him. "Is that really what you want me to do, Grimlock?"
The mech snorted a sound some where between a huff and a whine before he sighed and slumped down full against the wall. It was not a position the mighty King of the Dinobots would allow himself to be seen in to anybot beside Wheeljack.
"No."
"Than what do you want me to do?"
"Me Grimlock . . . ." The mighty mech trailed off looking down at his claws again. He really didn't know what he wanted. "Don't want Itty Bitty go out again."
Wheeljack smirked sadly. "I doubt that's gonna happen again anytime soon."
"Itty Bitty attract trouble."
"That he does."
"Why?" Grimlock turned his attention back to the mech beside him.
All Jacky could do was shrug. "He's got a talent for it I guess."
"Not like talent." Grimlock grumbled.
Wheeljack reached up and lay a careful hand on the massive mech's shoulder. When Grimlock didn't flinch away he took it as permission to go on. "None of us really do, but you helped save him Grim. He might be lost without you. Thank you."
The massive mech shrugged. "Said would protect Itty Bitty. So will."
And he would, as long as he was functioning he would.
Meanwhile: On the outskirts of Kaon near the Combaticon outpost.
The quiet gasp from the purple and brown 'Con drew no attention. Not that the bright red mech thought it would, as he grabbed the little glitch by his throat and slammed him into a fallen pillar.
"Let go you over grown glitch!" Swindle hissed, but a laugh and cobalt blue optics narrowing were the only answers he received as he was slammed into the hard stone one last time before the red mech closed the distance between their faceplates.
"We got a tip, Swin, old buddy old pal." The red mech laughed.
"That you could tell us where to find a sparkling-tale." The tri colored mech over to the side who stood with his arms crossed and an optic ridge raised finished.
Swindle rolled his optics at the pair of them. "I'll give you info, you both know that! Just put me down!"
SLAM
BANG
CRASH
"Oww," The businessmech whined pitifully after his attacker had thrown him across the ruble. "What the pit was that for!?"
"You double crossed us last time, glitch." The bright red mech closed the distance between them again with a chuckle before he grabbed the scrambling 'Con and slammed him into another pile of ruble. "Or have you forgotten?"
"Double crossed you?" Swindle paled. "I would never double cross you two!"
"Liar." The red mech hissed in his faceplate before spinning around and tossing him at another wall. The Decepticon hit it with a bang before the tri colored mech grabbed him by the chest armor, hauled him up, and grinned into his purple visor.
"So tell me, Swin." He smirked. "Why oh why would you ever do such a foolish thing as double cross the pair of us? Did you really think we wouldn't put it together?"
"I heard you got the mech you went after! You got your bounty!" Swindle pleaded.
"And you hear everything don't you, Swin?" The tri color snorted as he tightened his grip on the struggling mech. "Well we did, because we're just that good, but you didn't answer my question."
"So I might have sold some other mechs the details too, come on now I'm a businessmech. You make your living, I make mine! Megatron doesn't pay all that well you know!"
"Then quit." The tri color laughed before he banged the mech into the wall one more time and then let him fall to the ground.
"Quit?" Swindle balked. "I can't quit."
"Coward." The bright red mech walked to his brother's side laughing the whole way as he and the slightly shorter mech stared down at the glitch.
"I'm not a coward!" Swindle leapt to his feet glaring at the two of them.
They both just raised an optic ridge in the same moment.
"Prove it." The tri colored baited.
Swindle huffed, crossing his arms and rolling his optics. "That sparkling-tale you're after is a well guarded secret. How'd you come to find out about it?"
"The same way every other bounty hunter on the planet did." The bright red mech lied. "We saw the wanted poster."
"That's a big price for such a small bot." His partner tilted his head.
"Seems like an easy enough haul in, if only we knew where to find him."
Swindle strolled past the pair feeling more than hearing them walk along at his side while he dusted dirt and ruble from his armor. "Believe it or not, you're not the first bots that were smart enough to come ask me if I knew where he was."
The brothers glanced at each other before narrowing their gazes.
"Really?"
"Yep. And those mechs were willing to pay quite a price to know what I know."
The tri colored mech cast a glance to his big, bright red brother. Said brother smirked all over again, reached out, snatched the glitch off his feet, and hauled him up before him by his throat.
"HEY! I thought we moved past this! Let me down!"
"I don't think so." The red mech shook his head. "You see we paid you for info last time and then you sold us out. This time you're gonna tell us what you know and we're not gonna pay you a single credit. Or maybe you'd like me to go knocking on Onslaught's door."
Swindle's optics widened behind his visor.
"I bet he'd be thrilled to find out his gestalt brother is up to his old tricks again. Selling Decepticon intel."
"NO! I mean . . . umm . . . you mechs have always been the best of customers."
"That we have." The tri colored mech grinned.
"So how about this time the info is on the house?" Swindle pulled the best salesmech grin that he could manage dangling by his neck cables several feet off the ground in the fist of a giant red idiot he knew very well would pound him into a sparking heap if he didn't get what he wanted.
He'd done it before.
"I like the sound of that." The bright red mech smiled. "So tell us, where can we find this bright yellow sparkling-tale?"
"He's on the Optimus Prime's ship."
Both brothers' sparks went still in their chest.
"That over grown, trigger happy, weapons specialist is his guardian, and the whole damn faction has the little glitch up on some sort of pedestal. They adore him. They'll tear anything apart for him. So good luck getting a hold of him."
Swindle was dropped like the slag he was and he was about to complain about it before the glowing end of a plasma blaster was pressed against the side of his head.
"HEY! I TOLD YOU ALL I KNOW!" He panicked.
"How is it you know all this!? How do you know that the weapons specialist is his guardian!?" Cobalt blue optics burned with anger and Swindle gulped as he stared up into them.
"Megatron knows all of it! He keeps tabs on the runt, but after he got his aft handed to him by somebot he hasn't tried to snatch him again. I don't think he'll ever try it again."
"Then why does he keep tabs on him?" The tri color snarled.
"I don't know! Not even I know everything! Megatron just seems interested in him. Like he's curious or something. But he only talks about it with Soundwave, I only know because I spy on the creepy glitch. But think about it you two, he's a youngling. The last youngling."
The pair glanced at each other before the red mech snorted. "So you believe he's more than a sparkling-tale?"
Swindle snorted before he carefully—mindful of the blaster right next to his head—reached into subspace and pulled out an image he'd been toting around with him every since he found out about the bounty on the runt's head. "Oh yeah, mechs. I believe."
The two bounty hunters stared down in awe at the still image of a giggling little bundle of bright yellow protoform metal and both their sparks slammed to a stop in their chambers all over again before they kicked back into overdrive.
So it was true.
There really was a youngling.
"Where did you get this image?" The tri color asked.
"Soundwave's files." Swindle shrugged. "It was taken a while ago. Before Megatron tried to snatch him."
The red mech took a quick still image of the picture in the glitch's hand before he lowered his blaster and nodded. "Thanks for all the help, Swin. You're a pal."
"See ya next time."
"Wait! Don't you want to know where the Autobots are?"
The tri colored mech called over his shoulder as they left the 'Con behind them. "Oh no, we'll find 'em."
Once they were out of audio range, transformed, and racing over the barren ground the smaller of the brother's sighed.
"We're going back."
The red mech snorted. "It seems we are."
And with that they raced on into the sunrise.
Meanwhile: Above the Secret Autobot Storage Tunnels.
"I can't fragging believe this!" Tossing a broken rock at an even bigger pile of rocks the mech snarled to the dawn and then went to doing something completely outside his normal range of action.
He started slamming his head against a crumbling stone wall.
"They were here! They were just here! Like seven breems ago just here! We missed them by seven breems! I can't fragging believe this!"
Before—after he had thought on it for a while—he hadn't been so sure about killing the Prime when he found him. . . now . . . now he was going to kill him.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Without mercy.
Yep.
That was just what he was going to do.
There would be no explanations or anything of the sort. There would just be him strangling the damn glitch with his bare hands! He would kill him until he was dead.
"They would have gone to Tyger Pax." He stopped mid head bang on the stone wall and turned to look toward the soft voice behind him.
"Tyger Pax?"
"Yes." The soft voice conformed. "That's where the other tunnels are. They were here for supplies. They'll finish stocking at Tyger Pax if they were forced to leave this place. Which it looks like they were."
The bright mech leaned away from the dent he was making in the stone wall and turned east toward Tyger Pax. "That's a long walk."
"We're waited vorns for this. A few more hundred miles won't hurt us." Another soft voice echoed from his right.
"Well . . . let's get going then." And together the four of them started off into the rising sun.
Oh how I love these bots.
And I've stopped trying to rein them all back in. They've taken this plot and ran away with it.
Little Bee, the places you're going to take us all. It's just getting started.
Okay so onto the two side notes.
So it was pointed out to me that the backstories that are coming to light might be starting to become a bit repetitive so I thought I might take a moment to try and clear it up for any others that might be wondering about this as well. I was a little afraid that for a while you guys might start to think that. Because lets be honest, most of my twist of characters' stories have a bit of a depressing note to them. It seems everybot that I bring into the depth of everything has some kind of horrible thing from their past that haunts them to this very day . . . well that's because they do for the most part. . . and that was kind of the point of this part of the series. All Roads Lead Home is about the past coming back to haunt them. Its whole purpose is to tell how everybot got to this point in their lives, how they all ended up where they are now and how it all fits together.
And I can't ruin the story by explaining to all to you now, I don't want too.
Just know that everything I do in this mess has a purpose. Nothing I write is just filler space. It will all tie back in together. There is a method to my madness believe it or not.
My version of Cybertron was not a perfect world where everybot was happy and wealthy. There are a lot of very good reasons so many fell in with Megatron when he murdered his own Sire and destroyed an entire way of life, and I promise it will all be explained. With time.
I don't want things to be repetitive, because some stories are different. Not all my characters have horrible past that have altered who they are, but a lot of them do.
This is war we're talking about here. A war that has destroyed their entire way of life and most everything they have loved. It has affected these guys, it has given them all their fair share of scars and ghosts.
And I hope I have conveyed that well enough that through the story you guys can understand it. Not every part of the series will be like this one, it is going somewhere I promise. Just for now, I have to tell the stories of how they all got here before I can tell you where their going.
Hopefully you guys will stick around through the tragic past to find out their very explosive futures.
.
.
.
.
Now for part two of the note.
Those of you that actually read these god awful long things might remember a note I put in way back when. About the story that I wanted to write that has been stuck in my head forever. Well over the last, oh I don't know, seven months maybe I've started it, and restarted it, and deleted it, and completely rethought it, and started it again, and then restarted it again, and then completely given it up, and then started it again and finally decided that this OC is never going to leave me alone until I put her in print.
So I've finally done it.
I finally gave in.
I finished the first chapter of it and I'm going to post it, because if I post it I can't restart it AGAIN. If I post it I'll finish it. Which I desperately want to do. I want to tell her story. It might take a while. But I will.
So yeah, by either late tonight or tomorrow I'll have it edited and up if you guys want to check it out. I'll warn you now though. Bumblebee's story has its dark moments, there will be parts in this series that are going to be far darker than anything I've touched so far, but Jynx's story is nothing like this one.
I love it and I want to tell it, but its far from the adorable tale of a little yellow youngling. If you want to check it out though I'd appreciate the feed back. For now, I'm off to go edit. Again. Yay.
And there we have these huge notes.
I've think I've made this long enough now so hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'm interested in seeing if you guys have figured out who our mysterious bots are as of yet, and what you though of how Hot Rod came to be who he is now.
Next chapter a 'friend' is coming to say hello again.
Until then. :)
-Jay