Notes/ There was a bit of a wait for this chapter again, this time only because I simply could not seem to get it right. This was at first another one that did not want to be written, as I wanted it to be. As a result, a whole scene has been cut, to be added later, because I finally realized doesn't belong in this one, after writing it. This is another long chapter though, so that should make up for my slowness.
Thanks again everyone for the wonderful reviews and feedback. I got a couple for the last chapter I posted, that really made my week. It makes me happy to hear that someone is still into this story. And I keep writing this because of that. I was also asked if this story is finished Almost... though not quite. Probably just a few more chapters. But there will be a second part, this one more of Soundwave's story if all goes to plan.
Looking across his empty medbay over the top of a repair table, while he gave it a very typical sanitizing with clean rag and spray bottle, Ratchet watched Knockout as he quizzed Bumblebee on all manner of various matters of medical science. The red defector, he noticed curiously, made no attempt at all to stick to any specific pattern in his quizzing. One question may well have have had everything to do with wiring within lower limbs, while the next was related specifically to a virus that no bot had seen in decades. Ratchet was for a second about to question him on it, to tell him, tell both of them in fact, that that was hardly the way he would have approached it himself. But 'Bee's replies given to each question, many issued just as rapidly as Knockout could think - and that was certainly fast enough- were as a rule becoming quicker as the young bot learned to trust his knowledge and refrain from his usual overthinking and self questioning.
All the while, during their session of rapid quiz questions and answers, both of the younger bots did their own work in cleaning the medbay and equipment. The two of them were currently working together, doing a thorough job of the far wall's lower cabinets. And they had a workable system to their task. Knockout had pulled up to a worktable moved close to those cupboards, and Bumblebee emptied the cupboards one at a time, so that he could then dump their contents onto Knockout's table, where the red bot, working slower than most might have, but still doing a good job with one decent hand, sanitized them with a rag and spray bottle and waited until they were retrieved by his teammate and soon replaced with the tools from the next cupboard. 'Bee, meanwhile, during the time Knockout cleaned, sat on the floor cleaning the insides of empty cupboards.
"Very nice job, 'Bee," Ratchet said, still watching from his place partway across the room, when his his young student answered another question right – his tenth right answer in a row. The old medic paused a second before he said seriously, though almost as an afterthought. "Your drive and motivation has been something else lately."
"There's so much more to be motivated for now," Bumblebee answered. He backed up from the cupboard he'd been scrubbing. And for a short time he just kneeled on the floor, with a strange kind of smile on his face-plate.
Ratchet only chuckled under his intakes in response to that. Knockout's reactions to his own impending creator status, not so long ago, had been just so funny some days. And the old bot was glad for that reason and more, to be able to now see much the same from another of his teammates.
"I want my youngling to know someday, when she's old enough to understand, that if a bot works hard enough for something, it might just be achievable," 'Bee said after a moment. And he stood up from the floor, and began to quickly gather up the things that Knockout had finished working with on the worktable.
"It's a good thing then?" Ratchet inquired, tactfully. "The youngling on the way, I mean." Speedbreaker had so recently made it all to clear to him, that her greatest worry as she faced a very much unplanned carrying, was exactly how her still very new mate might just have felt about the whole matter. And from this his own concern had begun to grow.
"It's good news, yes," 'Bee answered. "I mean, I gotta admit I was shocked at first. That and terrified of course." He went right on restocking the cupboard as he talked. "Me and Speedy are still young bots ourselves. All I really know is endless war. We have a very small apartment... and so little else... But still Speedbreaker is so happy."
"Speedy loves my youngling," Knockout pointed out. He smiled then as he handed off items from the top of the work table with his right hand. "She'd love any one the two of you have five times as much as that."
"So many times over the years, in the heat of the worst of the battles..." 'Bee mused aloud. He paused in his work and simply kneeled on the floor a moment, thinking. "I thought I was surely going to be scrapped eventually. I know we all thought that time and again. I remember, more than once, fighting and fighting for all it was worth, outnumbered and surrounded, everything exploding, bots already offline everywhere I looked. And when I thought about how I might just be the next bot to fall, it was never the idea of dying that bothered me exactly. I was always as willing as any, to die for my faction if I must. The thing that bothered me instead, that sad regretful thought that always played and replayed in the back of my processor, was that I'd be long gone before I ever got to have my own children..."
After another silent, Bumblebee opened his mouth to speak again, more than likely meaning to finish his musing out loud. But before he could say another word, the medbay doors across the room, slid open. Speedbreaker, who had been helping out, working somewhere inside the base, hurried into the medbay. 'Bee stood up immediately from the floor, in order to greet his mate. But Speedy held up a hand with an urgent look on her face-plate.
"A medical emergency is on the way," she quickly explained. "Probably in minutes. Someone comm'd in ahead to say they are coming. And there are more behind that one..."
Ratchet had been busy, still cleaning repair tables while he socialized with his teammates. And immediately he tossed both his sanitizing cloth, and spray bottle of cleaner he held in his hand. Immediately his optics were looking right at hers and he was ready to pay attention.
"What's happened?" he questioned quickly. Already he was prepared to give out orders at once. "And how many?"
"Accident in an energon mine to the west of the city," Speedy explained, just as fast now. She shook her head a little in a gesture of uncertainty. "Something exploded. I... I don't know how many. The bot that comm`d... he couldn`t say."
"There could be twenty, thirty injured bots on the way. Many might be critical. Some might be offline on arrival," Ratchet said, immediately in no-nonsense and serious emergency mode. He'd seen situations before just like the young bot was hinting at. And he knew his best guesses at still unknown details, would be good enough guesses nonetheless.
"There's no way we're prepared for this kind of mass casualty disaster," Knockout pointed out.
He backed his cart quickly away from the work table he'd been using, and just as quickly he rolled forward and around so that he was heading toward the centre of the medbay. He looked around, quite helplessly around the place and Ratchet understood exactly what it was he was thinking. He was of course thinking the same thing himself. This was of course a medical bay, a small facility designed for first aid, medical scans, the treatment of some broken limbs, blaster wounds and wire kinks. It was of course equipped for far more urgent and serious things, including complex operations. But with limited space, and an even more limited member of capable personal, the prospect of a mass causality situation was truly nightmarish. But Ratchet, nevertheless, shook his head a little, and with one hand he waved off his comment.
"We do the best we can do," he said, as 'Bee, now standing nearby, stared at him in wide optic'd near panic. "They are being brought in here because there's nowhere else. And they're counting on us to do the best we can do." Ratchet looked around the room them, from one of his teammates to the next. He ignored the horrified looks, the expressions of doubt, the dismay and the panic. And quickly he gave a rapid string of orders. "Knockout! Comm Arcee at once. She's high level first aid. We can use her. And find Bulkhead too. He's always proven useful in here. And that Vehicon that proved himself on the battlefield. When you're done with those comm-calls, you're working crowd control, and primary patient assessments. 'Bee! You're with me. When I tell you where to go, you go. Meanwhile we've got repair stations to get set up. Go! Speedbreaker, man the comms and the door, and keep us posted..."
The set up of those needed repair stations was barely stated, let alone finished, when the medbay door slid open again, and a couple of bots hurried inside. Only one of the pair appeared at first glance to be injured, and the damage appeared to be little more than a badly broken foot, and a few bad bleeding gashes. Both of them were, however, coated head to foot in a think layer of dust, and both of their intakes choked and gasped from exposure to the dust in the air. Ratchet was ready to hurry over and assist the pair of dust covered miners. But Knockout was on it at once, and even with the mobility cart, he'd reached them faster. So the old medic only went on readying work stations, and watched, nodding approval as his teammate lead the damaged bot to the repair table closest to the back of the room, and then just as promptly grabbed a med scanner from his cart's side basket, while he asked him questions.
One more bot was hurried in, the one helped carefully by Speedbreaker, who must have found him somewhere outside the doors. This one was bleeding from both arms through wire mesh bandaging that had been used, however terribly, for temporary first aid. His blue optics, wide open with horrified shock, stared straight in front of him though his own coating of dust. Ratchet grabbed this one at once,
crossing the room in just a few running steps, to take him gently from Speedy's careful hold on him, so he could lead him quickly to the repair table, second closest to the back of the room. That bot was, at least so far, the worst of the two. And when the old bot explained that quickly to 'Bee who stood beside him again, he saw his young student nod his fast understanding.
"We had forty-six bots in that mine..." the damaged bot mumbled suddenly, and still clearly in a state of shock even as realization began to down on him. "...Must be fifteen trapped in the central pit... I found two dead myself..."
"You're going right into power down," Ratchet said calmly to the damaged bot, who was now also being to panic. "I assure you everyone will get here, and as they do, we'll do the best we can for everyone of them." The damaged bot only nodded, silent again.
The medbay doors opened and closed, and then did so again, and then again repeatedly, as a growing number of dust covered bots, many of the them suffering from varying degrees of damage, found their way inside. At some point early on in the chaos, Arcee hurried in with Bulkhead close behind her. And Ratchet felt relief at once for just a second as both of them immediately ran to repair tables to begin simple enough but no less urgent patch up jobs.
"Frag off! You busted up junk pile! You get away from my friend." A loud voice shouted in anger somewhere across the room. And Ratchet, busy now with some dusty bot that was leaking energon too quickly from a wound to his chest panel, looked quickly for the source of the shouting, just in time to hear a clatter of metal as the shouting bot knocked a work table deliberately to the floor.
"Pardon me," Knockout answered, loudly enough to be heard over the shouting, but still perfectly calm and collected while somebot pointed a furious finger in his face-plate. "I'm a perfectly capable medical officer, and I don't even need to scan this bot once to tell you he's clearly got a potentially serious head injury. And to know how bad that might be, I need to assess him. So step aside!"
"I will not! You... you get away from us both. I won't have anyone with optics as red as yours anywhere near..."
"Hey," someone commanded firmly, before Ratchet, who was just about to speak up while holding most of his focus on his urgent work, could do so. And the old medic blinked his optics in impressed surprise to realize the voice belonged to that of his young student, who had left his place beside him awaiting his next order, only to snatch up a large wrench from their work table. He quickly advanced toward the angry bot across the room, wielding it with a scowl of frustration on his face-plate.
"We don't need any of your ignorant, discriminate attitude right now. This is a medical bay. Not the time. Not the place. Your friend is injured, and I don't give a slagging scrap about your personal opinions right now." 'Bee gestured toward the barely conscious, clearly confused bot on a repair table near where he now stood, and waved the wrench in shockingly Ratchet-like fashion, at the other bot who stood in front of him. "Now you either stay out of Knockout's way or Bulkhead over there is going to toss you straight on out of here."
"Ratchet," Speedbreaker called suddenly. She ran back in through the doors that she'd been running in and out of all the while, directing some bots and physically helping others inside. This time though she was rushing as fast as she could, backwards, and doing her best to help a pair of slightly injured mining bots, who were carrying one of their badly damaged coworkers.
Ratchet looked up at once from his urgent work. And immediately he understood, before he even crossed to get himself closer to the new arrival, that this one was far more serious still. The worst of them yet.
"Repair station two," the old bot ordered, without missing a beat as he ran across the medbay. He looked over the damaged mining bot, just as soon as the others had managed to safely put him down. And he shook his head, dismayed, at the energon that mixed with the dust covering body armour so near to completely melted in places, that it was only hints of it's white and light yellow showed here and there.
"Ratchet... his... his chest panel is..." Bumblebee exclaimed, disbelieving, shocked, and so clearly shaken by the state of this bot. But still he had obediently followed the old medic, and stood waiting because he was so clearly unsure exactly what it was he was supposed to be doing. And Ratchet only nodded once saying nothing, because he of course saw exactly what his young student was trying, in his own anxious panic to state out loud.
The patient's front panel, had been nearly crushed entirely. Something heavy must have hit him hard. And years of experience told him it had been at very close range. Something had certainly gone flying. And the only thing that had stopped it had been this bot's own body. Then, judging by the burns, that thing had promptly exploded. And looking closely at the panel, crushed beyond reasonable repair, too little metal left of it not to have possibly meant that somewhere in the blast bits had not somehow gone missing, he cursed out loud at seeing the glowing of exposed spark energy, far beneath the bent and twisted wreckage.
"He was drillin' into the eastern wall," explained one of the stunned, and dusty bots that had been carrying this badly damaged and possibly dying one. "The survey got it all wrong. Shoulda hit rocks there, but he drilled right into an unstable energon deposit. The wall, and his equipment blew three feet in front of him..."
The badly damaged bot's optics snapped open then, showing his suddenly high decent degree of consciousness. And given his devastating injuries, that was not exactly ideal. In obvious shock, he stared up for a moment at the ceiling and the bright lights above him. One more fast moment, and his optics were open wider, and he struggled to move.
"Firestorm..." he mumbled. And when Ratchet only looked at him, baffled as what he talking about, the bot repeated it again, this time louder and close to screaming.
Ratchet searched his memory for anything – anyone – that might have been helpful in telling him what it was his patient was trying so desperately to tell him. And sifting fast through his memories of so many patients he'd never quite forgotten, he remembered almost instantly the white and yellow bot with the walking frame – the walking frame he had built and then painted light yellow to match the little bot's paint job. And instantly he remembered that the little bot was cared for by a nearly identically painted sibling.
"We need to contact her," Knockout said firmly, sadly and serious. He rolled up beside the others, clearly helpless to much at all for a bot with such a degree of damage, but just as clearly determined to scan and assess the two that had brought him in, as both them were hurt themselves. He nodded once toward the badly damaged bot, and said with certainty, "He's her brother."
"Knockout's right," said 'Bee, as recognition dawned on his face-plate. And he shook his head sadly for a moment. "And he's her only family..."
"Do either either of you have a way to reach her quickly?" Ratchet questioned, his decision made at once, and well aware that young Firestorm was a friend of them both. When they both nodded their heads quickly, the old bot mumbled in certainty and now focused almost entirely on a bot he knew may not live long, "someone call her down here, quickly."
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
Walking idly away from the Autobot base, Soundwave wandered beyond the property line, and unhurriedly stepped around a still standing section of the high metal fence, which was now well into the process of eventual tear-down by some of the 'bots. Wandering without a need or desire to get anywhere, walking for the simple sake of walking, was a new concept to him. But he was quickly discovering just how much he enjoyed it anyway. And daily walks were becoming routine.
His wandering that evening took him in a new direction, this time moving toward the centre of the growing little city springing up steadily around the base. But instead of stepping at some point onto the walkway that would take him along the edge of the first of the main roads, he turned moving slightly to the west, so that he could walk on the rougher and less perfected pathway behind 'downtown' Now to his right, high-rise housing buildings rose up in the distance, and the much smaller commercial stores sat far closer. And to his left, the sulphur field stretched for miles in front of jagged cliffs and huge shining crystals. In the sky high above him, Laserbeak flew in little circles while at the same time she roughly followed the path below her.
Silently laughing just a little to himself, at watching how his lifelong companion so clearly enjoyed her freedom where she had never truly had the chance before, Soundwave rounded a bend as the pathway veered suddenly to the right. And he found his path unexpectedly blocked by large chunks of crystallized sulphur - the likely result of some excavation work left unattended and without warning signs, by workbots who had never bothered to do anything with it, aside from leaving in on the little used walkway before calling an end to a workday. Soundwave may well have simply stepped over or around it. The rocks were large but certainly not so big it would have stopped him entirely. But a strange yellow painted walking frame parked carefully against the smooth and closest edge of the large sulphur chunk, got his attention at once. And the small white and yellow bot that learned against that caused him immediate concern. Before he had time to convince himself that she should not matter – that one random bot he barely knew a thing about should make no difference – he quickened the pace of his walking, and carefully approached her.
"Inquiry – Firestorm- alright?" he asked with awkward hesitation, and all too aware that his tone barely indicated at all that it was indeed meant to be a question.
"Hi, Soundwave," Firestorm said slowly. It was more than clear that she had been practising a lot, putting a great deal of work into her speech and language skills. Even still her words were far from perfect. She looked up from her place, sitting on the walkway, with her back to her walking frame. But did not move to actually get up from the ground. After another second she looked down again and mumbled with hesitation, "I just been thinkin'..."
"Firestorm's brother – damaged in the mine disaster," Soundwave said slowly in reply. It was not a question, but instead his best try at stating his understanding.
The little white and yellow bot nodded her head slightly, and looked up again at him. Slowly, moving carefully, and struggling to hold her balance in doing so, moved so that she was for a moment kneeling on the walkway, before she turned, reached for the handholds of her walking frame, and used that to pull herself to her feet. "Ratchet says he lucky ta be 'live. And we still dunno what could happen... I always told'im I didn't like the thought of 'im in the mines... Tha' raw energon can eas'ly explode. He... he always says it safe 'nough, and he fine." Firestorm stood a while simply looking silently up at him. Finally she said, in the kind of tone that Soundwave knew so many used when they only wanted to convince themselves of something, in the face of uncertainty,
"You have... seen him?" Soundwave inquired. And Firestorm slowly nodded.
"Yeah... Idid. It.. it is bad. Ratchet lem'me see'im a minute before he powerdown for majorrepair... Windstorm – m'brother, he looook so bad. His metal is burnedup. He stillcover in energon. He tell me, be gooood... try hard... The wholemedbay was ah'full t'day. Bots ever'where, damaged... Some'one on either side-a roooom, scream for help..." Firestorm stopped speaking, and for a moment she just stared up at Soundwave, optics wide with growing fear as she faced uncertainty. But just as quickly, a hint of a smile came to her face-plate. And she so clearly searched for and found hope, because she mumbled slowly, "Ratchet gooood at wha' he does. Windstorm... be okay..."
"Inquiry – Do you have a place you can go?"
"I dunno... I thought'bout staying alone at'home. But I could gointo reboot..."
That was a fair and real point she had made, and the reason Soundwave had asked in the first place. He wondered at the wisdom of her even being out alone in the city and moreover, in a quiet and empty area of it, because of her condition and the obvious risk. But then he knew that Knockout took the very same and greater risks on a very regular basis, only because he simply never wanted to fear life itself. It certainly stood to reason that it would have been much the same for this young bot.
"Suggestion – speak with Autobots. Request accommodation."
I willdo tha," Firestorm was silent a second before she continued on with hesitation and looking around her with clear uncertainty. "Iam sorry tohave disturbed yourwalkin.' I know ya don't muchlike talkin' tooanyone..."
"Skill in socialization – vastly improving," Soundwave answered slowly. And Firestorm smiled a little in his direction.
Above them, Laserbeak flew in one more circle, this time a much wider one, before she gave a happy chirp and dove quickly from the sky. She perched at once on the arm that Soundwave extended for her, and sat simply looking around.
"The bird ispretty..." Firestorm said speaking slowly as ever. But clearly she was trying with even greater effort to speak clearly. And Laserbeak, perched on Soundwave's outstretched arm, lifted her head as high as she could in a gesture of self pride at the compliment, and lightly buzzed in appreciation.
"Sheis smart..." the young bot went on, after she'd watched the bird for a second. And she laughed slightly under an intake, while her usual bright smile began to show again on her face-plate. "Shecan under... stand ever'ting we say."
"Laserbeak – fully capable, intelligent, and self aware life form," Soundwave answered simply.
"How'd ya get'er?"
"She chose me," Soundwave answered simply after a moment. And if only he'd been better at conversing out loud, if only words come to him just well as they did for anyone else, he could have explained just how a connection between a bot and symbiotic being worked. But he didn't because he could barely work out exactly how to do so.
Firestorm let go of her walking frame's handlebars, so that she could shift her grip just slightly. And at the same time she shifted her weight just a little, with one tiny step forward. That would have been perfectly fine, of course, except that her foot landed on a smooth and too slick little bit of loose metal on the rough walkway. And where most bots would easily catch themselves with little thought about it, her terrible balance made her stumble badly, and the weakness of her legs made her fall awkwardly forward because of her stumble. Her hands reached at once for the handholds of her walking frame obviously trying to catch herself that way. But her reach was off, and instead she accidentally shoved the whole thing over as she continued in a fall from which it was clearly she could not possibly save herself.
Without taking even a second to think, Soundwave reached out with his free arm not currently occupied by Laserbeak, and quickly grabbed her arm to stop her from falling forward. When she was standing up straight again, he grabbed the frame, righted it while reaching froward just a little, and quickly let go of her just as soon as she was standing upright and safely holding it's handlebars.
"Thanks." Firestorm flashed a grateful little grin at him. Slowly she moved herself toward the large rocks that blocked the path. And carefully she sat herself down on top of the smallest of them. Her smile faded then as she looked up at the other bot.
"You are gooood bot, Soundwave," she said, speaking much muster than usual, and so clearly trying harder to be clearly understood because of it. "Youhave goooood spark. Don'let anyone say ya don't." She smiled again and went on. "Iknew eet when firstsaw ya'on base..."
"Departure-... necessary," Soundwave said, finding a couple of words just as quickly as he possibly could.
"Soundwave?" Firestorm asked, concerned when he quickly spun on his heels so that he could look away from her entirely. But instead of giving any answer at all, he walked away with hurried steps.
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
Soundwave was busy, in the midst of an unrelenting session of training with his favoured punching bag, downstairs in the gym. He was sure a decent amount of time had passed while he trained, only because the slight tiredness of his boy and the dimming light seen through a window high in the far wall, told him so. But neither of those thing had come to bother him yet and so he just kept on going, kicking the bag, in long spinning kicks, changing directions sometimes often and sometimes less so, and with punches thrown in here and there between.
His own mood, confused without and certainly of why, disturbed him. And all hope of punching and kicking away his confusion, back into the back of his mind, was fading rapidly the more he tried. At first he'd paid a visit to the blaster range, tucked away behind the gym. He'd finally bothered to key in his name, as the Auotbots had asked him in vain to do so many times before. And he'd fired near perfect, on three rapid fire training rounds in a row. But his restless confusion, which quickly began to boarder on anger, had not yielded even then. And Soundwave did not care much for weapons, aside from his use of blasters. So he'd moved on to his much favoured unarmed combat training instead.
The sound of a door sliding open on its track, far across the gym, registered somewhere at the back of his processor. And Soundwave slowed his pace just a little, surprirsed to find himself at least slightly pleased with the idea of possible competition from an Autobot looking for a match. But instead of footsteps, as he may have expected, he heard the light whirring of a strange electric motor.
"Knockout – visiting the training gym for particular reason?" Soundwave questioned, without much thought, as he spun once quickly to the left and kicked the bag three times rapidly before turning to his right. He looked over a should just long enough to see the near dismayed look on the red bot's faceplate, before he issued the bag one fast punch and spun again.
"I do use the gym too you know," Knockout said. Soundwave knew from both his tone and the look he bore, that he had probably come close to at least mildly offending him in his own lack of social ability and tact. And silently he cursed himself for it, surprised at the same time with how much he felt it mattered. But Knockout only rolled just slightly closer to him, on the mobility cart. And for a second, he just chattered on, confidently, "I do rehabilitation in here sometimes with Ratchet and Arcee. The landing mats have their uses, because they're soft and safe to roll on, or sit on. Place is handy for kicking balls too, or throwing and catching... Of course I came down here tonight because I figured I'd find you here."
"Knockout – looking for me? Inquiry – reason?" Soundwave kicked the punching bag again, twice, before one more fast turn and three more kicks.
"Just wanted to check up on you, make sure you're still alright...," Knockout paused then and his face-plate took on a strange, and bewildered look. Slowly, he continued on, his tone strangely cautious now. "Soundwave, you never were the easiest bot to read. It's that whole hidden optics and face-plate situation of yours... but still, somehow you don't look so good tonight."
"Inquiry – why?"
"If you were fighting an enemy for real right now, he'd surely be more than dead already."
"Intent – training."
"Overly intense training, even for you." The swinging punching bag was stopped on an outward swing. And Soundwave saw, to his surprise, that Knockout had managed to stop it himself, blocking its swing with his arm extended, reaching up, and his hand in a loose kind of fist. "Keep that up and you're going to hurt yourself." Knockout's optics looked intently through Soundwave's face-shield, managing to roughly find his hidden optics behind it. His expression turned slowly to one of true concern, and he sat still on the cart, letting the punching bag swing away from him, and back again slower, before he awkwardly stopped it again.
"Firestorm – said I am good," Soundwave explained suddenly. And it was only after he had spoken that he fully understood what it was that he was so unsettled over to begin with.
"So?" Knockout's reply - and the tone in which he had spoken - made it all seem like it was so little, so unimportant.
"Firestorm – wrong. Soundwave – far from good. Terrible deeds – too great and many for redemption."
"I thought the same of myself when I first defected," Knockout answered, roughly repeating something he'd said a good while before, not long after Soundwave had first arrived in the Autobots' medbay. Hesitantly, he reached out, again with the stronger of his hands still in a fist, and gave the punching bag a couple of small hits. It was barely enough to even get the bag swinging, and the expression on his face-plate roughly seemed to indicate that he simply wanted to see if he could do it. With a tiny, awkward hint of a shrugging motion, he moved to hit the bag again. It was clear this time, he'd done so just about as hard as he could, and still it was barely enough to make the heavy thing swing even slightly.
"I remember how much I doubted," he continued slowly, and rolling the cart back a little. "How that little spark of goodness I sensed buried somewhere, almost long forgotten to survival in this ridiculous war, felt like it would never be enough to mean a thing. For everything I did, trying to make up somehow for some act of hate I'd once done, there were memories of six or seven more, worse than the first, waiting to convince me it was over for me. And I'd lay awake at nights, unable to recharge, wondering in the darkness, just how a simple change of opinion could be enough to change much more. I knew I could never go back. You know full well how that would have gone over for me. But so many nights I could not imagine how could possible go anywhere else either. So many nights of laying in the dark, terrified of everything, though to the pit if I'd ever admit it, wondering just what I'd gone and done. Finally I started to get closer to some of the 'bots. Until one day, Ratchet was a colleague and a mentor, 'Bee and Smokescreen were my racing buddies, Arcee was my greatest friend, and I was working as hard as I could to get ready for my Autobot loyalty pledge..."
Knockout did not seem to much like talking about certain aspects of his life, before the catastrophic failure of his processor anymore. He rarely mentioned anything by then beyond his life of doing just as much as he possibly could while confined to his motorized cart, with much of his body either greatly damaged or barely functional at all. He wanted so often, or at least it seemed so, to forget all about his street racing days, that he'd been so fast in a high performance automobile mode, that many bots could scarcely catch him. And just the fact that he had directly hinted at it now, was certainly not lost on Soundwave, who blinked his own damaged, hidden optics, in surprised emotion. But the mix of his own still lingering and growing frustration, and his utter lack of any needed social skill that might possibly have been relevant then, stopped him from saying a thing about it.
"Situation – different for me," Soundwave said instead, struggling to explain, struggling to socialize, struggling he felt with everything he barely even understood. He looked ahead of him, refusing to look down at the floor, though he strangely wanted to – a feeling he was certainly not used to.
"Have you given much thought to Ratchet's offer yet?" Knockout questioned, graciously changing the subject when Soundwave simply could not find the words to further explain himself in his confused edginess. "He and I have had a couple of good discussions on just how to best go about some possible repairs for you. Ratchet is confidant he could construct a fully functional face-plate for you. And you would have an at least almost normal appearance. The optics are the trickier thing. But with any hope of at least partly restored function..."
Knockout went on speaking for a moment more, but Soundwave could no longer comprehend what it was he was saying. His fellow defector meant well, and he knew that. But a strange anger, not unlike the feeling he'd been battling back with punches and kicks and earlier with a blaster, only this time far more intense then before came welling back up from somewhere within his frame. And just as quickly the anger was sheer rage. And before he could even act upon that in any way, for better or for worse, the rage became a strange and crushing despair. He stared for some long moments at the wall, directly across from him, across the training gym and close to the door which led out to the corridor, leading to the lift. Eventually he realized his entire body was trembling with his growing despair, and only then he understood it had been for moments already.
"Soundwave," Knockout said in obvious concern. And slowly, with small careful movements of his hand control, he moved himself on the cart to sit a little closer in front of his teammate.
"Soundwave – failed Cybertron," Soundwave said, managing with difficulty to find both his voice and just enough words to at least begin to explain himself.
"Well now, I hardly think the responsibility for an entire planet and its fate even fell on your shoulders," Knockout answered quickly. His tone sounded as though he was almost, but not quite making light of it. But still it was clear he spoke that way to prove a point. And Soundwave saw that point instantly, though still that hardly made anything any better. His despair hit harder still, and he turned his body away so that he could stand facing the back wall instead. Losing control of himself in any way, was something he had once prided himself on never doing. And now for at least the second time since he'd come to the Autobot base, he felt like he was losing it again, and the very thought only made him angry again through the growing despair.
Laserbeak had been hidden, recharging up in the rafters, above the gym – a favoured place, she had come to use regularly for its perfect built-in perches, while her master trained. And Soundwave felt her awaken again with the intensity of his emotions. This was the last thing he'd wanted – for her to realize his state for herself. And with urgency he tried in vain to block his own feelings from the telepathic link he shared with the little flighted bot. But already the wiser, Laserbeak leapt from her perch high above and flew a moment in small, tight, distressed circles up near the ceiling, before she swooped down abruptly to land – of all places – on the armrest of Knockout's mobility cart. Even seated perched again, her little grey wings flapped, raising and lowering again in her own despair, while she screamed quietly in confusion over what was she was to do, and awaiting orders that never came.
"You need to pay attention to her," Knockout's voice was urgent now, but not at all lacking in any tone of understanding either. And soundwave turned his head and upper body back around just enough to see that the damaged bot had managed to pick up the bird, who had jumped to perch in despair, on his stronger arm. And moving slowly, he held out his arm, with her still perched and screaming her own unease, in clear hope that Soundwave would take her, because of course that's what she wanted him to do. "You are the only bot who has any ability to really work with her."
Soundwave's despair increased tremendously, as he realized that in his own emotion, his own growing panic over that, he had all but forgotten his own much loved small dependant. The guilt of simply that alone was enough to force the tears he'd been fighting back, to spill from his optics, well hidden behind his face-shield. And quickly, now barely daring to look at his damaged fellow defector again, he held out his left arm, to realize only then how badly it was trembling, and let the bird perch immediately on it. She flew a second later to his chestplate, and on her own accord, she docked herself, flat against his docking port, where their sparks could pulse close together.
"Plan of action – to kill Megatron," Soundwave said after a moment, looking back toward the far back wall again with his back to his teammate. Where once he could barely find a single word suddenly he could barely stop himself from speaking, as strangely the words came from what seemed like nowhere. "I believed in the cause we all fought for. Freedom, a right of any bot to be anything he wanted. Soundwave – discarded by Cybertronion council. Thrown to the fighting pit. And they laughed and cheered the day someone nearly killed me, destroyed my face-plate... A new cause to fight for... a bot to follow, who spoke of a place for even one like me. I vowed that no one should be a slave, after I myself had been one. And eventually I understood our own leader would himself enslave entire worlds... For years I saw the energon shed, I watched our people die, slaves to the war, to fear, to Megatron himself. And I made up my mind to play the loyalist of officers, to say little least I say too much, and one day I would kill him."
"No one had any idea..." Knockout said. His voice was quiet now, and Soundwave knew full well that the red bot was clearly shocked to the core by what he was learning. He wondered why he saw fit to say so very much at all. But he could barely think with enough logic to even try to reason it out. And a sense of crushing guilt formed out of his still growing despair.
"I won't say it doesn't matter anymore," Knockout continued. And the bot, once so known only for showing off in his own pride, and thus known as much for blurting out the most insensitive and simply immature of comments, showed great concern and understanding in his careful words. "Of course it matters. It might always matter. But it doesn't matter quite so much now. With the war officially over, Megatron in chosen exile, the peace treaty signed..."
"Starscream – waged war too long after it should have been the end of it," Soundwave explained. His frustration and sadness reflected now in the tone of his voice. He could hear it too clearly, and he didn't like it. He'd never liked it. He tried so hard to avoid it, keep his tone even on the rare occasions he chose to speak at all, hide the contents of his emotional mind behind a calm and collected near-monotone. But this time, he could not help it, and he liked it less than ever. "Reason for his actions – partly my fault."
"Starscream was a few scraps short of a junkpile on a good day," Knockout countered quickly, with a laugh clearly meant to lighten the mood again. "Quite simply insane on a bad day." The small electric motor that powered his cart whirred a little as he wheeled slightly closer to sat behind his teammate. "I can't see how the frag that was your fault."
"I..." Soundwave sputtered a moment, helplessly. He tried to bring his speech back to his typical pattern, which he knew baffled others, but still he was most comfortable with it. But the words would not be forced into a pattern, and he could barely think besides. "I didn't save him."
"He and his brothers – barely more than younglings when they arrived within Decepticon ranks." Soundwave struggled now just to go on explaining it all and making some manner of sense, as tears of coolant poured against his will down his hidden face-plate, and the room began to spin badly all around him. "I made myself believe that Starscream had only been lucky. He had beaten the odds... moved through the ranks... had been handpicked for greatness. But from the start of the war he was the primary target for Megatron's uncontrollable anger, the greatest blame for every insignificant failure, beaten more than once to near death for the master's own insecurities. I made myself ignore that, because I convinced myself he was still fortunate, as next in line for command. Even when I eventually knew how horrible it had gotten... how he had been violated not only in frame and processor, used as no bot should ever be... I failed to do a thing..."
Soundwave stopped speaking then, rather abruptly, because on some level, through all of his trembling sobs of despair, he realized that Knockout, still behind him, had turned the cart around to face the door, He turned his head just a little, and after a second or more to blink away his out of control confusion, he was horrified to see the door to the gym now sitting half open. The sound of slow and small footsteps registered next, and blinking back a new stream of tears, he saw Knockout's bondmate, the Autobot, Arcee cross the training gym, with a look of alarmed concern over her face-plate.
"Soundwave?" she questioned, speaking slowly as she continued across the padded mats on the floor of the gym. She come to stand beside her mate, and looked from one of the bots to the other, with a mix of concern and confusion clear in the tone of her voice. "Is everything alright?"
"It's all good," Knockout said quickly, answering for him. And for that Soundwave was oddly grateful. The red bot turned to his mate and smiled a little, however shaken he must surely have been. "Soundwave and I were just talking a few things over."
"Is there anything I can...?" Arcee clearly meant to offer her help, and Soundwave became aware of shaking his head at her helplessly after he had already began doing it.
He knew she very quickly said something more. But her strangely her words were suddenly muddled into little more than utter nonsense in his processor. And the room, which had never yet stopped spinning, began to spin faster and Soundwave saw his own vision turn to blackness. There were hurried little footsteps as the small Autobot ran the few steps closer to him, and the sense of falling, before he felt the impact of his knees, and finally his head against the landing mats. After that there was nothing at all.
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
"It's too bad about Soundwave..." Arcee mumbled slightly. She shook her head a little, but she didn't look up from her position kneeling on the floor of her shared living space, where she was busy fumbling with the charge cord of Knockout's cart, and trying to plug it into the wall. She held a slightly fussing Cybershock, balanced somewhat awkwardly, against the left side of her frame, held by a left arm, while Arcee's free hand fought with the cord and and outlet.
"Ratchet says it looks like Soundwave simply collapsed from emotional shock," Knockout answered, from his place on top of their recharge station. He sat up on it, his weak left hand still wedged lightly against the side mounted grab-bar, and his right free at his side. He had not laid down yet that night at all, having transferred to the recharge station in a seated position as usual when he'd been helped. And this time, he'd just stayed sitting up. "Too many emotions, too quickly and too little understanding of it all. Processor overloaded, he panicked, and out he went."
Arcee stood up from the floor, her fight with the the charging cord won. And the plopped the baby playfully onto the still empty side of the recharge station, where she bounced lightly to land laying on her back laughing.
"It never does seem to be easy for defectors," Arcee mumbled, sadly. She picked the baby up again, long enough to sit down in the place the little one had occupied. And promptly she set her down again, to lay between her and her mate. "It's been just as hard on Soundwave as it once was on you."
"Was I ever in such a bad state?" Knockout asked. His tone sounded both doubtful and almost horrified. But the look in his optics made her made wonder if he had truly forgotten, at least a fair amount.
"It was pretty bad once," Arcee confirmed. Her tone was compassionate, and she smiled assurance at him, as she spoke. "I still remember a night you completely lost consciousness in the middle of terrible flashbacks. Oddly that was in the training gym too..."
"I regained awareness leaning against your chest panel, with your arms around me," Knockout answered slowly as he thought back. It seemed like he remembered the whole incident she spoke of now himself. And he looked almost horrified at remembering it now. "I'd been crying all over your body armour, but I couldn't seem to stop... that was terrible of me. And I barely knew you then..."
"I never held it against you," Arcee assured him quickly. She opened her storage compartment, and reached in to grab a toy, which she'd been storing for the baby. She handed it to her grinning little one, before she reached back in there, dismayed and shaking her head a little, at finding two more small toys she had forgotten all about. With another shake of her head, she tossed them both easily onto the nightstand. "If anything I think I just felt so bad for you then. Not pity or anything. I could never do that. But bad. Understanding for real then, just how seriously complicated it was to change sides and mean it..."
"I've been trying hard to convince Soundwave it'll all be worth it in the end," Knockout muttered slowly. He let go the the grab-bar he'd been holding onto, sat another moment, fully supporting himself in a seated position, and then deliberately he fell back to lay comfortably instead. "Worth the confusion, the flashbacks, the panic... just to see what's on the other side of all that. It's funny... all the years I served along side him on the warship. I thought he was unshakable..."
Cybershock, still laying between the two much larger bots on their recharge station, rolled herself over with a content little sound, so that she could lay a moment snuggled against her creator's frame. Her tiny silver hands reached playfully for one of his, and when he extended his much stronger right one, the one closest to her, she grabbed for his fingertips happily. The youngling would be sitting up soon, completely on her own. Arcee saw that much in the way she already tried to pull herself up to sitting, using Knockout's body for balance, and clearly needing him less and less now in order to do so. She was almost sad just to think of it, because she knew now that her child would sit fully unaided before her mate could do so. And she knew he'd set the goal of doing so first. But still he seemed not to mind at all, as he watched the child, smiling at her efforts.
"No bot is truly unshakable, or immune to emotions," Arcee mused. She got off the recharge station, and spent a couple of quick moments folding back the little pink blanket inside the youngling basket, turning off lights and closing a window she had left open across the room. When she turned back again to look at her little family in the now near darkness of the room, she saw the youngling dozing in near recharge, against her creator, with his stronger arm holding her close to him.
"She was tired after all," Arcee said, with a quiet little laugh, so as not to wake the little one again, as she carefully lifted her into her arms, turned around, and placed her gently into her recharging basket. "You can always get her to sleep without even trying."
"What can I say?" Knockout's laughing grin spread quickly over his face-plate, and his red optics shown brightly. "I'm a bot of many hidden talents. Turns out I'm also a youngling whisperer."
Arcee laughed quietly under her intakes in the darkness, as she wiggled a little on the recharge station to be closer to her bondmate's frame. And she wrapped her arms around him happily, letting the heat of his body warm her comfortably. His stronger hand reached toward hers, and she took it quickly, smiling as she wiggled even closer.
"Hey Knockout," she said after a moment. And her face-plate took on a serious look that she sure he could have read at once, had it not been still nearly entirely hidden against his shoulder panel. "What did Soundwave mean tonight with his comment about Starscream and violation?"
"I promised I would never tell anyone," Knockout said. He voice was suddenly quiet, and he looked at his mate with confused conflicted optics. "Starscream made it more than clear he would tear out my spark if I ever let anyone find out about any of this."
"Any of what?" Arcee begged gently, wanting to understand what it was that suddenly seemed like it was so important. "What was it he was so willing to threaten your life to keep hidden forever? Knockout, Starscream is dead. And as hard as it still is to believe, he will never bother any one of us again. And his threats mean nothing now."
"Until today, I had no idea even Soundwave knew a thing about this. Though I don't suppose it should surprise me. There were no secrets Soundwave didn't seem to know..." Knockout paused a moment, thinking intently before he went on speaking again. And slowly, with obvious hesitation he began to recount details.
"One day years ago, not long before Cybertron fell, I was on shift alone in my medical bay on board the warship. It was actually quiet for once. I remember I was just standing next to a sink, cleaning a few tools I'd used that day while preforming surgery on some officer whose name escapes me, and I'm not sure I ever actually knew in the first place. I was about ready to close up shop, hit the showers and apply some wax, when three vehicons come running in through the door, with Starscream, who a couple of them were doing a mostly decent job of not dropping. One of the them managed to explain, that they'd found him on the floor on their way to report for the night shift. Just laying, inexplicably unconscious, face down in a high traffic main hallway close to the largest of the wash stations. I'll never know just how many bots must have passed by their own second-in-command, while he lay unconscious in the hallway. And knowing that bunch most only must have laughed and just stepped nicely over him. But there was energon all over him, the troopers...the floor. And it was pretty obvious he could easily have died if those three hadn't seen reason and brought him to me.
"Those troopers all swore to me they had no clue what had happened or how he'd ended up on the hallway floor. And I believe they truly didn't. But I knew right away that Megatron had obviously beaten him nearly to death. I'd treated him for the results of Megatron's psychotic anger too many times to count already. But this time he'd taken it to a whole new level. Starscream had obviously either run for it from somewhere nearby, only to collapse in that hallway… or he'd been thrown there… discarded like junk and left for the crew to laugh at… A hard kick to the head, probably more then once, was more than likely what must have knocked him out, and his head was obviously damaged. There were multiple other injures. Mostly things I'd come to associate with brutal and senseless assaults. But his speak chamber was also bleeding energon from the seams of his chest panel, and not just a little bit. That was the most pressing of any problem he may have had that night, so I forced open the panel to begin there... it barely took any forcing at all, pretty much opening on its own. That combined with energon bleeding told me at once that this was not good. I knew in that second that I was in almost well over my head."
Knockout paused then, in the middle of the story he was relaying, so that he could turn his head in the direction of Cybershock's little basket on his mate's side of the recharge station. He could not quite see her inside the basket from a laying position, but he listened for any noise that would tell him she might have woken up. And even when he heard nothing he gestured once with his optics toward the basket. Understanding his concern and his silent cue at once, Arcee half sat herself up and peeked over the side of the small basket to check on the baby. She smiled a little and nodded her head a bit when she'd found her still in sound recharge. And slowly she lay herself back down with her frame pressed against her mate's.
"What happened?" she questioned slowly.
"He was carrying newsparks," Knockout said, quietly. "Three of them. That's common for his kind for some reason. Many, though not all, carry triplet newsparks. Two of them, I could tell at once, had been extinguished. There was nothing I could do. But the third, a tiny femme-spark, nowhere near ready to live in a frame yet, was alive, and my medical programming told me I had to try… For a moment I hoped that he would simply continue to carry her and all would be well. But she was detaching early, probably because of the beating that had killed her brothers. I didn't have a frame built and ready of course, and she was so small she'd never have integrated even if did. So I comm'd for Breakdown and when he made it to the medbay as fast as he could, I told him how to assemble a makeshift life support tank from a discarded energon system and some spare parts I knew were laying around. And I told him exactly how to do it while I repaired my still very damaged patient. Anyone who's ever called Breakdown stupid has no idea how fast he built that tank for me, and how perfectly he did. Well, sure enough the newspark did fully separate eventually. It was inevitable. And with little more than blind hope, I put her into the tank, filled it with enriched energon, and turned on the warming pad.
"Starscream woke up in a couple of days. And it turned out he'd never known he was carrying at all. Still, he grieved the loss of the sons he'd never known existed until they didn't. But his tiny daughter was still alive and he loved her at once. I told him she may or may not live and he insisted that she would. That she had to because he said so, and he told her that very thing as he sat by her tank for hours. He asked me how it would be until she couple live in a frame and I told him at least twenty days. He decided that gave us a good twenty days to build one, and when he asked me to build it for her and I said I would, he insisted I build a shining little silver frame with beautiful blue wings. Starscream made it clear to me that he knew Megatron would kill her if he knew about her. He never explained to me exactly why, but It was pretty clear than that our mighty 'lord and master' had once had his way with him, and would go as far as to murder a youngling to hide what he had done from his troops. And so I made a plan. I would help Starscream escape with the little one once she was in her frame. That was of course if she lived. I told him to run straight to the Autobots. It would of course require his defection, but I knew no Autobot would ever turn away a defector on the run with a brand new youngling in his arms. He could raise her and she could live."
Still pressed tightly against his frame, Arcee stared at Knockout in disgust and terror as he spoke. And when her stare turned to rage that flashed across her optics, he stopped speaking a moment, sure that she might just look for the closest thing to throw at a wall. But she didn't, and soon enough coolant tears filled both of her optics, as she looked at his again, encouraging him without a word, to go on.
"He named her Skyspark. I warned him more than once to please not hope for much. To love her as long as he had her, but understand that she had little chance of living. He shoved me hard against a wall, nearly clawed my face-plate in his rage and told me to never say such horrible things. For one more day he lived his dream and we reviewed our plan for him to run. And that night Skyspark was gone. No reason for it really, aside from the fact that she was just too small to make it. I believe that was the night Starscream became truly insane, full of nothing but rage and hate, more determined than ever to overthrow Megatron. And after that night I no longer bothered trying to talk him out of it."
Arcee sat up then on the recharge station, and looked down at her bondmate with the true shock of realization quickly dawning on her. She looked again at her sleeping youngling, and that was just enough to pull her away from a steady growing sick feeling in her tank.
"The day I last talked spoke with Starscream," she explained slowly, as a growing rage replaced her sickness, and she understood at once that it was now not directed at all toward the now dead bot that she had once hated more than any other, "not an hour before he died... he was asking me about our youngling. He said he'd wished he could have met her, and he looked so strangely sad about it. I let him see her picture. There seemed little harm by then. It might have made him happy at the end of his life to see the first child born on Cybertron after the war... Our little Cybershock reminded him of his lost youngling. It makes so much sense now. Looking at her picture, he must have thought of everything that Skyspark would have been if only she'd survived."
"Yeah..."
"I had no idea…"
"No one knows. Well Breakdown knew, but he's gone too. And Soundwave of course..."
"It's so strange to think of it but if things had only been a bit different. If she'd somehow lived, Starscream might just have been an Autobot, or at least not a deadly enemy. We both know Optimus Prime would have taken him in a second. You're right about that. And youngling to speak of or not, he always secretly dreamed of a day Starscream might defect."
"It may just seem unbelievable to you, but Starscream might just have been a wonderful carrier. She lived only days and she never even had a frame, but that newspark was probably the only thing he ever truly loved in life."
"It's not so unbelievable." Arcee shook her head. Cybershock began to whimper slightly in her basket, and Arcee reached over to gently rock the little basket from side of side, until the youngling's low whimpers faded again and she dozed back to recharge.
The Autobot laid back down then, to press her body tight against her bondmate's. And with both her arms around him again, she looked around in the darkness, recharge seeing like it would be impossible. And she saw the very same in Knockout's still wide open bright optics.
"It's strange," she mumbled, quiet as ever so as not to wake their baby. "Starscream told me that same day, he'd known for years that Soundwave was blind without all that technology of his. The two of them... they may have been rivals... there may have been resentment and dangerous competition, and in the end yeah it turned deadly. But still somehow they protected each other's secrets..."
Notes/ The last scene... I hope I didn't go too far. I'm surprised with myself for writing that, because I realize such things in fanfiction tend to greeted with very mixed opinions. But I simply wished to logically explain both Starscream's insanity and the utter brokenness that made him choose to die - and Soundwave's devastating guilt, that was triggered when someone called him good.