Years later.
Thundercracker is woken from recharge by a loud, desperate crying and leaves the berth. He looks at Skywarp, who is still in recharge and smiles at his bondmate's impressive ability to recharge in the noise from their crying sparkling. Their sparkling looks up at him with tears streaming down its face when he walks over to the crib but silences immediately when it gets picked up by its carrier.
"It is okay, little one." He soothes as he walks down the stair and into their living room to not risk waking Skywarp from recharge. It is best that only one of them gets their recharge disturbed. Skywarp has enough going on with his work at the moment, applying for patents on his latest inventions.
He sits down on the couch and reflects on what has happened over the years while the sparkling eagerly sucks on the feeding tube and fills its achingly empty fuel tank.
When they left the protection of the Polyhexian Cartel, life came crashing down on them. They suddenly had their lives before them without danger at every corner and had moved into a house close to Nacelle and Prowl's neighborhood when they were ready to stand on their own feet, feeling it safer with them nearby should anything happen. Nacelle had chosen to set up a private practice in his and Prowl's home, where he dedicated his time to helping the victims of Retrograde, and Thundercracker has been and is still a frequent visitor.
The spontaneous memories still occur, but after Skywarp spark-bonded with him, his bondmate can pull him out of them, which causes the memory data to be stored in a cache and wait for whenever he is ready to assess them and consciously pulls them into his awareness. It now lets him be in total control of them and decide when he wants to process them. The unassessed memories will, however, still affect him unconsciously, and he will know when to take care of them in controlled sessions with Nacelle when he starts to become mentally ill.
When he became able to control the spontaneous memories, Hotspot resumed the planned uploads of memories. The process has been ongoing over the years, happening gradually to let his mind acclimate to them and will continue for many years to come. While he longs to be whole, it has to go this slowly because giving him all of them back too fast or at once will lead to a severe psychological trauma he never will recover from, unable to cope with all the foreign memories belonging to his previous selves.
While the first few memory uploads―before they had to stop because of the spontaneous memories―had centered on Skywarp and how they had formed their initial relationship at D-14, the uploads afterward were less pleasant as they revealed more about his stay at D-14―both before and after he met Skywarp. He has recently begun to receive memories giving him more information about Torrent and Retrograde and his fate at their hands, horrified to realize he had been kidnapped from D-14, gang-raped on the way to their destination and then handed over to Torrent to be raped again while drugged.
Only merges with Skywarp and Nacelle's frequent visits to check up on him have kept him sane, and he has only just started to cope with what had happened. It will take a few months before he is ready for new controlled memories after this, especially since the next ones likely will be as traumatic. He prays to Primus that no spontaneous traumatic memories will require his attention while he mentally recovers from this.
So far, he has been spared the memory of Retrograde's second procedure on him. The one that had led to his creation. Hotspot and Athena have told him that it would be unethical to purposely give it back to him. But one day, it might pop up spontaneously. And when that happens, he will be ready for it―he will not be as affected as when he experienced the first one.
A few of his memories from before D-14 had been salvaged too, but Nacelle, Athena and Hotspot had all agreed that those held no vital information for him and would only be detrimental to his mental health and continued psychological development. This tells him that those memories, as impossible as it sounds, had to be worse than the worst of those he already has received, and he won't miss them if that is the case.
Yes, they had been a part of who he had been and had shaped his former self to become who he had been, but he is no longer that person and needs to develop and become his own―free from undue influences from the past.
As it is, he is already getting influenced enough by the uncontrollable memories surfacing from his spark.
When he had received all accessible memories of his time at D-14, he had a year ago been back at the place to visit his previous identity's colleagues. During that visit, he had learned more about who that Thundercracker had been. He had instantly liked Echo and felt a warmth in his spark when he shook hands with Megatron.
They were understandably confused by his change in personality, not knowing what had happened to him after he and Skywarp had been kidnapped from D-14. Nacelle had taken the time to explain everything to them, which caused Echo to burst into tears and cling to Thundercracker while Megatron shook with barely contained rage.
In a way, it felt good to have them all―except for Athena and Hotspot―gathered there because it made it easy for him to combine his returned memories with the correct associated feelings―everyone helping him to understand more about himself and what his former selves had experienced in their lives. Because when he asked questions about vague, incomplete memories from D-14, he received the answers he needed, clear and precise―which filled out the 'blank' spots.
He also learned more about Skywarp and what caused them to meet at D-14. That last part had been blank to him until then, and it surprised him to find out he had been something akin to a therapist that had helped like-minded recover after he had recovered from most of his own traumas at Torrent and the Syndicate's hands. Skywarp was meant to become one of his clients, but they apparently never got that far because of Skywarp's fragile mental state and the Syndicate's attempt to kill him.
Now aware that Torrent had been the leader of the Syndicate, the information had filled Thundercracker with a fierce hatred towards the despicable sire. And he found peace knowing that the sire's final moments had been pure agonized torture.
That is something he can never thank Talon and Torment enough for. They stepped in when most needed, risked their lives to stop Torrent, and while doing so, gave him and Skywarp a safe haven where they could work to restore their shattered lives.
Tears of gratitude fall from his optics.
He owes them so much for what they did. Because it is impossible to know where he or Skywarp would be without their timely interference. That is why they have invited them to be at the naming ceremony when their sparkling reaches five years in a few months.
Outside the sporadic mention of them in the news, he has not seen them since he and Skywarp left the protection of their stronghold and is looking forward to meeting them again. With Prowl also attending the ceremony, it must be held strictly in secrecy and on the criminals' turf.
It is the only way to have both sides safely attend.
Not that he thinks Prowl will use the naming ceremony as an opportunity to strike against the criminals and attempt to arrest Talon, Torment and the others if it is held outside their stronghold. But he understands the criminals' inherent suspicion towards the enforcer. They are natural enemies, and only exceptional circumstances have brought them together and made them all into the closest family he and Skywarp have.
Despite their distinct differences, having them all present at the naming ceremony is only natural. Because it means the world to them to have their family celebrate their sparkling's step into becoming an official member of the society with them.
Skywarp onlines his optics to an empty spot beside him and sits up, looking around for Thundercracker. But seeing the empty crib, he relaxes and rises to silently walk down the stair and into their living room.
There he finds Thundercracker sitting on the couch in deep recharge with their sparkling snuggled into a ball in his lap, its tiny wing nubs twitching contentedly in its recharge.
With a fond smile, he walks closer and slowly sits down beside Thundercracker, unintentionally rousing the sparkling from recharge. When the curious optics meet his, he is greeted by an animated babble.
"Oh, no! Were you hungry? No, we simply can't have that! It is good that your lovely carrier takes such good care of you!" He answers it with a growing smile, his voice little more than a whisper to not wake Thundercracker.
Taking pity on Thundercracker when the blue seeker's wings begin to twitch as the first sign of him slowly waking from recharge, Skywarp carefully takes the sparkling from his bondmate's lap and lets it play calmly with his digits. Then he scoots closer to Thundercracker and snakes an arm around the blue seeker's waist, pulling him against him.
There is a muted reaction in Thundercracker's field, but the blue seeker is so fatigued that he instantly slips into recharge again while leaning against Skywarp's side.
"Just recharge, my love." He murmurs affectionately as he kisses the top of Thundercracker's head.
His side of their bond floods with his unconditional love, and he pulls Thundercracker more firmly against him. Happy moments like this help him when all inside him becomes dark and melancholic. When his PTSD in weak moments breaks forth and sends him back into his past and, in traumatic flashbacks, reminds him of everything that had happened to Thundercracker and him and the fact that he never imagined he would ever experience a moment like this, where they are at peace and in love. That he thought Thundercracker would be lost to him forever.
But Thundercracker and his love for Skywarp weren't lost forever.
Their bond is physical proof of that.
And when they merge their sparks, Skywarp can feel the wisps of the Thundercracker he once knew in the spark of his beloved. The salvaged memories are all that is left of him―his fragmented being now woven together with Thundercracker's in their beautiful spark. And he loves them equally and as one.
A lone tear falls from his optic as melancholy fills his spark and takes him to a dark place, but a burst of laughter from the sparkling brings him out of the darkness in his mind, and he looks down at it with a soft smile.
"Thank you, little one." He murmurs and receives a joyous babble in return.
Cradling the sparkling in the crook of his arm, he lulls it into recharge. And when its optics have gone dark in recharge, he follows soon after, his head resting against Thundercracker's as the first rays of the sun break the horizon and slowly chase away the darkness of the night.
Signaling a new beginning.
A new chance.