Shortwave smiled brightly – watching a small group of younglings as they tumbled and swung about on the playground. They were clearly a bit old for slides and the sandbox filled with fine, soft metal dust that sat off to the far side of the fenced-in area. But they made good use of much of the equipment nonetheless, hanging from the bars by their feet and bent knees as they chatted to each other laughing, or flying through the air for entirely long seconds at a time after they'd taken turns at launching themselves, quite impressively from the top of the climbing structures to flip once or even twice before landing firmly on the ground and almost always on their feet.
The Autobot flier looked for her own youngling son in the midst of the noisy, laughing, and chattering group. And she found him at once – alone as always, even amid the crowd of the boisterous and brightly painted little bots who were now his peers. But even in his own alone-ness, he was smiling too – his faceplate somewhere decently close to content and almost confidant as he swung idly back and forth on a swing at the far end of the swing set, daring to swing just a little higher now than he had moments before.
Shortwave held her smaller youngling in her lap that day, doing so simply because she wanted to, and because it never had felt right to her to leave her sitting, strapped into her chair – however comfortable it probably was – when she could hold her instead while sitting on a bench.
"Shortwave?"
A voice behind her – just barely familiar and belonging to someone who'd obviously approached while she was too distracted by the younglings to have heard the sound of footsteps – made her turn around quickly, alarmed.
"Ratchet," she said, sighing her relief out loud when she instantly recognized the medi-bot who she'd come to know decently well. She shifted herself a little on the bench, politely making room for him to sit beside her, and all without jostling Lightwave – who he smiled at, at once.
"I... like to come here sometimes," the medic said, in answer to the question Shortwave had not yet even thought about asking him. He chuckled a little with a near-silent laugh, and smiled again, sighing. "After so long just fighting a war... our world destroyed and new life for our people all but some long dead dream, I'm not sure I'll ever tire of just watching younglings play."
"They are certainly... impressive, to watch," Shortwave answered. Her optics fell on a pair of identical younglings – fliers clearly – balancing perfectly for a long moment, each on one foot on top of the highest of the climbing bars, before they both leaped down over the edge of the structure to grab hold of it quickly and hang, each by a hand and a foot while they laughingly chattered to each other.
"I was going to stop by the clinic later on," Shortwave continued. And now that she'd mentioned it out loud, she found herself so suddenly stumbling just a little, over her words. "I.. wanted to speak with you for a moment."
"Oh?" Ratchet's tone was one of curiosity and interest, as he looked her in the optics, just a little concerned.
"I wanted.. to apologize," Shortwave told him – because there was little reason at all not to simply explain herself then and there instead. "I had no right to speak to you the way I did the other night and I know that. You've shown me and my younglings nothing but kindness... nothing but understanding. And to accuse you, of any bot, of discrimination was absolutely unacceptable of me."
"You're a carrier, who just wants to save your youngling," Ratchet answered her at once. And he smiled, understanding, as he did. Gently he rested a hand on her shoulder, and the other on Lightwave's smaller one too.
"Don't give it another thought," he said. "I certainly haven't."
A blue-painted young bot nearby 'fought' or at least he so clearly pretended to, with a green-painted one – each blocking punches and returning well-matched fast kicks, as around them three more little bots cheered them on with good-natured shouts. And Shortwave turned to watch them for a moment, distracted by the shouting, and smiling at the carefulness with which they played.
There was another set of twins somewhere. Shortwave found them in another glance – a brother and a sister and with well-matched frames themselves. And she watched, smiling again as they tumbled over the dusty metal ground, each of them fumbling once and then again as they tried so clearly hard to keep up with a bigger youngling – grinning her encouragement at both of them as she flipped several times in fast succession backward, her feet barely resting for a second on the ground between her tumbling flips.
"She no doubt learned that from her carrier," Ratchet said laughing, gesturing toward the youngling – a red and light blue painted one with lovely streaks of swirling purple, that Shortwave recognized at once.
"That's... the kid from the racetrack incident?" Her question was not quite a question at all.
"She is," the medi-bot replied. And his pride in the youngling in question was all but unmistakable right along with his sudden spark-broken sadness, as he smiled in her direction. "Though you'd never know it now to simply look at her... certainly a wonderful, and impressive come-back she's made. She'll be back on the track for the next youngling race if she wants to be."
"Well, that's wonderful." Shortwave smiled as she spoke now. And she sighed grateful in the moment as she leaned back on the bench – Lightwave whirring just a little in her arms as she did so. "I was told recently that something would be started soon for the fliers too..."
"Indeed. An areal-acrobatics club as I understand it. The flier community's answer to the racing leagues. And... there will almost certainly be a team for younglings. Though... I can't say I've ever actually seen your Blastwave fly."
"He does." Shortwave sighed again, and just a little sadly now as she watched the flier twins, now in their own jet modes, zooming in a low circle in the sky over the heads of their playmates, while they each laughed over the roars of their own engines. "Well, a little bit anyway. I mean... he's starting to. And he's doing it more now, and better. It's... hard when you're born on a ship with nowhere to practice..."
A new little bot appeared on the playground – or maybe he'd been there all the while, sitting on the lowest platform of the furthest away of the play structures, with a data-pad held balanced in his hands, and Shortwave had simply not noticed him before. He read for a good while from the pad, laughing to himself, presumably over something he was reading, and he looked up now and then to watch the other small bots, smiling, as they jumped around and played. Finally, he stood up himself, pulling himself to his feet with some obvious effort in that simple task – holding tightly to the play structure's railing, using it to steady himself as he pulled himself to standing. He tossed the pad into his storage compartment then, freeing up his second hand. And with that one he held on further down the railing, hopping to the ground a short distance beneath him, nearly falling as he did so, but strangely smiling all the while even when he stumbled on his obviously damaged legs.
"Never let yourself feel bad for that one," Ratchet said, smiling brightly as he waved toward the damaged little bot – now limping with some impressive speed across smooth and ever ground between the playground structures. "I'm not sure I've ever seen that kid not smiling since he got back to Cybertron!"
Shortwave watched said youngling, as he limped toward the swings. And she smiled, grateful and amazed when he simply got himself up, carefully, onto a swing – the one beside her own youngling son. Her smile grew brighter as he began chatting quietly to him, and it brightened still more when Blast' answered back, laughing just a little.
"I wish Lightwave could play too," Shortwave said – her smile leaving her faceplate slowly, to be replaced instead by a sudden sadness she so seldom allowed herself to feel. She looked down again at the helpless daughter she held in her arms, listening as the youngling made a quiet whirring buzz that could have meant something but might have meant nothing.
"It's... it's silly I know," she said, with a nervous and uncertain laugh under her intakes as she shook her head a little. "You know Blast' tries so hard just to include her in life's simple things. It makes me wonder sometimes... and I wonder if she might like swinging..."
"Let's try it!"
Ratchet's words were sudden, confidant, and completely unexpected. But Shortwave hesitantly followed his lead as he got up from the bench, leading her, with her daughter still held tightly in her arms toward the playground swings.
"Jump on," the medi-bot said, taking Lightwave from her carefully, to allow her to do so. And Shortwave, entirely unsure how to even start to use the Earth-inspired playground swing, followed his odd instructions with some hesitation.
She took her child back then, holding her on her lap with her arms hooked around the chains of the swing, holding her balance with some determination as she pushed off with her feet – laughing as the swing got just a bit of lift.
It was tricky to do. Her badly damaged fully helpless youngling was little more than dead weight against her – and Shortwave knew it would be just as difficult even if she'd had the slightest idea of what she was actually doing in the first place in trying to make the playground swing work as intended. But she looked at her youngling daughter, as she did the best she could regardless. And to her greatest surprise, she saw the tiniest hints of something just as close to a smile as Lightwave - in the rarest special moments that she tried her hardest – could manage. Light' buzzed again then, louder than she often did – her optics open wide before she began to whir gently once more.
"Carrier!" Blastwave was excited, talking just as loudly as he so rarely dared to do, from his own swing next to hers, and with his new-found friend on his other side looking on with curiosity and joy of his own. "She likes that!"
"Yes Blast'" Shortwave said, letting herself smile all over again. "Yes, I think she does!"
Blastwave jumped from the swing – a bold move like none his carrier had ever once seen him make before. And she laughed just a little, smiling, watching as he landed perfectly well and balanced on his feet. He paused to wait for his youngling friend, who left his own swing with far greater caution and a grin across his own sliver faceplate. And slowly, at the limping young bot's pace, they wandered off together, Blast' following now and lagging behind shyly again, into a group of chatting laughing youngling bots that gathered, swinging from – or sitting on – the climbing bars. Blastwave himself chose to swing – surprising and impressing his carrier again, as he clambered up so easily, to hang upside down as he listened to the conversation of the others.
"He's... slowly finding his own place here on our world," Shortwave mused, following after her youngling son with her optics, as she pushed the swing gently with her feet. "I worry so much for him, and I used to worry so much more... guilty I suppose, worrying so much that perhaps I couldn't possibly love him enough after failing my first one, even if I know now that that wasn't my fault. Then Lightwave came along, and she's... a lot, obviously. It's truly daunting to think there really may not be another bot like her... anywhere. Blast' loves her more than anyone. But he could have just as easily have resented her for simply not off-lining as a first-frame like I'd so sadly just assumed she'd do..." She paused again in her words, her head hanging in her embarrassment. And slowly she made herself look up again, to mutter, "I'm sorry... you certainly don't need to, or want to hear my rambling on..."
The medi-bot though smiled, brighter than before. And he laughed a little, with a hand again resting gently on her shoulder panel.
"I certainly don't mind it," he said. "In fact, I'd love to talk to you again. Perhaps... we could meet again, and someday soon?"
"So... question for you..."
Cybershock's words – asked with hopeful innocence and curiosity, as she walked beside her creator through the main hallway of the medical center – made Knockout laugh just a little at once. Because not a single day had gone by, in the years since she'd first learned to speak in sentences, that his beloved youngling daughter had not had near endless questions.
"What is it, Cybershock?" he asked her, with his laughter turning quickly to an interested smile down at her.
"How would I befriend a Predacon?"
That question was surprising, and fully unexpected – even from Cybershock, who was well known for the most random of questions out of nowhere... from a little bot who might just ask over morning fuel how a space bridge worked.. or ask in the middle of the marketplace how organic life could function just as well as living metal. And Knockout stopped dead in his tracks for a long and panicked moment, looking down at his youngling, before she shook his head, helpless and dismayed as bots hurried past the large windows of the well-decorated corridor.
"I'm... not sure you could," he told her, nearly stammering a little in his own shock and bewilderment. And he left it at that – or at least he tried to. But Cybershock was... well... Cybershock. And she only looked up at him, pausing in her own steps beside him, to look up, incredulous and determined, his answer clearly far from helpful to her as she began to rock just a little on the fronts of her feet.
"Why not?" she asked, her faceplate serious. And she continued on, her matter-of-fact and confidant tone accented only by her youngling excitement as the two began to walk again. "They're not that different from us, really. They are intelligent and fully self-aware, can transform into alt-modes, speak informal common Cybertronian... and they have their own younglings!"
"True..." Knockout was cautious as he spoke again. And he chose his words carefully, as his entire processor filled fast with alarm. He was going to say more – to firmly explain that common language was hardly enough reason for any real trust... that the presence of the younglings among the primitive life-now-restored could only make them all the more dangerous... and that transformation meant little. But the youngling spoke up again instead, continuing on down the corridor as she did so – knowing the way to where they were going without needing to be shown, in her creator's well-familiar workplace, where she'd walked with him so many times before.
"They built their own lives here, as we built ours," she said, smiling – a wistful and wondering expression across her shiny polished faceplate. "A different path... a different culture, but still just as Cybertronian as we are! And... maybe they are curious about us too..."
"Cybershock," Knockout answered. He stopped walking again just as they reached the closed doors of the med-bay. He leaned forward a little, to meet her optics with his own. And for one good moment, he just looked at her intently. "Please, do not ever go anywhere near a Predacon. I mean it."
"I won't," the youngling said slowly – and to her creator's immediate relief – as the sliding doors slid open, creaking just a little on their too-well-worn track.
"Knockout?" The voice – Ratchet's, from somewhere inside a mostly darkened room that was otherwise empty of bots - called to him in his obviously startled surprise. He looked up from his place in a chair, near a worktable in a corner, set down the data-pad he'd been so intently reading from, and stood up to greet his colleague hurriedly. "I didn't expect to see you in today."
"I just need to grab a patient file," Knockout answered, crossing the room with his youngling in tow – smiling at her ever-present and endless curiosity as she looked one way then another around the medical bay, filled with its many shelves of data-pads and all manner of medical equipment, now powered down amid the clean and empty repair tables. "A young refugee that arrived recently with a bad lower leg and foot..."
"Ah yes." Ratchet smiled at once, setting down his work – leaving the pad next to a vile of glowing bluish liquid on the work table - and crossing the room to meet his colleague in the middle of the empty room. "I met him today along with his family... another lovely young bot that youngling is too. There is talk of building a brand new foot for him... not unlike what we once did for young 'Switchgear's arm."
"I'll be starting work on that tomorrow," Knockout confirmed, proud and smiling. "Speedbreaker is taking the lead on that build. And Firestorm so eagerly agreed to give it a custom paint job when it's complete. However... my young patient has asked if perhaps the replacement could be painted in a very different color instead of matching his own yellow paint! I told him, why not? He's always just embraced his own uniqueness, so it only makes sense really... He's thinking blue."
"Well, it certainly couldn't hurt anything," Ratchet muttered back – so clearly amused himself, as he shook his head just a little while chuckling.
The old bot looked away then. And Knockout followed his gaze as it turned toward Cybershock – having wandered a short distance away, and presently absorbed in so carefully studying a realistic model of a bot processor, that sat, displayed on a low shelf across the room.
"She certainly is a curious youngling, you've got," Ratchet said, smiling a proud smile that Knockout returned at once.
"She is," he replied, without hesitation. "She wants to be a medi-bot, you know. I don't doubt for a second she'll succeed in it too if she just keeps on learning..." His smile turned then to a grin, as he watched his daughter for a moment longer. "She could probably already tell you about almost every part within a real living processor..."
"Well nothing about that surprises me," Ratchet laughed, his own smile spreading over his faceplate. "Surely all of Cybertron knows by now just how much simply being your creation inspires her own dreams. And you know it all so well by now, just how glad I am, just to see a youngling bot growing up in a world where she gets to have meaningful ambitions and her very own dream to begin with. I look forward to seeing her among my students in the coming century."
"Strange to think that any day now I'll have two of them," Knockout said slowly, and referring of course to his younglings, as he sighed slowly, considering.
"Don't get me wrong," he said, speaking quicker now. He watched his young daughter for a moment, as she stood still, now far across the room and studying another medical model – this one a detailed, miniature representation of a flying bot's inner framework – which she held in her hands with as much care as she had the first one.
"I love this coming newspark already – just as much as I love my fast-growing girl... just as much as Arcee did from the first moment we learned of our success after years of our trying..."
"But...?"
Ratchet's simplest of questions made Knockout look back at him again. And he sighed once again, leaning against a nearby work table while he considered his own thoughts carefully.
"I know I'll love my new arrival. My... son..." Knockout said the word slowly as he considered the confirmed result of a still recent scan. But he shook his had just a little, sighing again as he continued on speaking. "Because I, of course, love him so much already. But I worry perhaps a little too often that maybe I'll always love my daughter just a little more."
That sounded so terrible, and Knockout knew it – looking down to stare at the floor for a moment until his colleague's optics caught his again, making him look back up at him, instead. And to his surprise, the old bot was simply smiling while he laughed just a little under his intakes – his faceplate showing not a hint of any judgment.
"First you worried years ago, right alongside your bond-mate that you couldn't possibly love your first child enough," he said, shaking his head just a little, and so clearly amused. "Now you worry you'll never love the second as much as the first..."
He paused though, his sentence dying out in the air as he sighed again, with his expression growing serious.
"Cybershock is the biggest reason you are what you are today," he said easily. He smiled toward said youngling – who looked up from her intent study of the processor model just long enough to grin right back at him. "You mastered independence after what should have been permanent and near catastrophic damage just so she could grow up in a real home, like other young bots. And I'm fully convinced your biggest motivation in standing on your own feet again, was to push her on a playground swing. Your connection to your second child will always be so very different than that with your first. But it will mean no less, or matter any less."
"I suppose... I worry we might never have a thing in common." Knockout uttered his still growing concern as he watched his daughter again – now happily reading from one of Ratchet's many medical texts in the furthest corner of the room. "I know it's fully likely he'll never take to medical interests before his third-frame years like his sister. And what about racing? He might never want to go fast. Might want to transform into a... classic station wagon! Of maybe he'll even do what Firestorm did one day, and choose reconfigure his entire frame so that he can be a flier.."
He laughed a little then – knowing from the second he'd spoken those words, that the last prediction was entirely unlikely. The mentioned bot in his over-the-top and panicked scenario had done something that was not exactly commonplace among their people – even if obviously doable. Still, he shook his head and sighed again, before he looked back at his daughter, and then at his mentor. He smiled then, and quickly that turned to a grin as the other bot smacked him lightly across the backs of his shoulder panels.
"You're right!" he said, easily. Understanding Ratchet's point then – wondering all the while what his coming child would indeed become someday on their still fast-changing world of ever-growing possibilities.
"I can at least only hope my son will not share my young daughter's seemingly endless disregard for danger," Knockout muttered a brief and fleeting moment later. He watched said youngling as sat, continuing to read intently from a text that was surely well beyond most others her age, in both comprehension and interest in the subject. And with a slow and thoughtful intake, he shook his head again. "She asked me, just today and in all seriousness, how to make friends with a Predacon!"
Ratchet, who had been smiling and chuckling just a second before, was not doing so now. Instead, he looked at his teammate with alarm in his optics and cast his own glance at the youngling bot, still reading in the corner. He shuddered then for just a second before he sighed but said nothing.
"How are you by the way?" Knockout asked the older bot – in medic mode now as he studied the old bot with a slow and careful look-over. He shuddered once himself, just recalling the utter state of damage he'd found said bot in, not so long before, once he'd been called away from the youngling ward in the sheer helpless desperation of the medical students.
"You certainly look better today."
He spoke those words with relief and another slow sigh. And he wondered all the while if perhaps his youngling – who'd been shielded from any knowledge of the Predacon attack, and the old bot's near-fatal damages because of it – should perhaps have been told after all when she'd asked about his day as she so often did if only just to stifle her sudden, new, alarming interest in inter-species friendship.
Knockout shuddered again, his processor now filled with the too-recent memories of his teammate, unconscious on the medbay floor - his frame cool and too close to lifeless, limbs trembling involuntarily in his full-on system shock, and a serious dent on the side of his head.
"Very much, thank you," the older bot said, huffing under an intake as he waved his hand a little in a gesture of dismissal. "I suppose you've seen my follow-up processor scans from yesterday?"
"Indeed I did," Knockout told him. "And I've since told a handful of the still-concerned students that you'll surely live for another ten centuries!"
"Ratchet?"
Cybershock's voice, speaking up suddenly, after a long time of her busying herself her quiet studying made said medic and her own creator turn at once to find her standing near Ratchet's work table in the well-lit corner of the medbay, with her optics so intently focused on the glowing bluish liquid in the small container.
"What is this?"
Knockout shook his head once and quickly, apologizing without any obvious need to for his now-too-curious youngling. He watched, with just hint of real worry now, as she lifted the container up, to hold it in her hands, and look it over carefully as the liquid swirled around with the motion. But the older medic only chuckled in her direction, without a hint of concern in his amused expression.
"We call that cybermatter," he explained, before adding quickly, and with just a hint of warning in his tone, "be very careful with that, Cybershock. You don't want to spill any of that onto yourself."
He walked toward the youngling bot, with Knockout right behind him as he spoke again "Our world is made of it – you've surely learned that much already in school. But this kind... artificially made and replicated - I'm going to use it... or try to anyway... to save the life of a little bot called Lightwave."
"Soundwave's baby sister?" Cybsershock so clearly recognized the name at once, despite the two younglings have likely never formally meeting each other. She looked up at the old bot – her expression at first smiling, then sad, then entirely unsure. Her processor mulled through a hundred questions – all of which she never asked but were clear in her intent and focused optics – as she wondered about the unfortunate life of a youngling so very different from herself and anyone she'd ever met. Finally, she smiled again. And that smile turned quickly to a bright, hopeful grin.
"I hope you can save her," she said to the medic. "Every-bot deserves a chance!"
Pain!
Firestorm's head was suddenly exploding with it.
She sat still, in her place at her work table, and offlined her optics for a moment in hopes of driving off the hot stabbing that she felt somewhere well inside her own processor. She dared to look again at anything at all, as the burst of pain lessened – thankfully fast – to an uncomfortable ache. And she fought for another long moment to steady her vision, as the image before her – a simple think-lined graphic she'd just finalized for painting – swam and wavered just a little as she struggled with her focus on it.
"Well," she said, and her own voice echoed just a little inside her own head as she spoke out loud. She tried her best. She did her very best to hide any hint of the shakiness she feared was fully obvious within its tone, and snatched up the printed holo-film – cursing herself when her hand nearly sent it flying instead – before handing it to Bulkhead. "How's this look, 'Bulk?"
The big green bot looked the graphic over carefully. Firestorm could see him do that now, as her vision fully cleared. And quickly he grinned, nodding his head with enthusiasm.
"That's perfect!" he answered, waving the graphic around just a little, in his happiness with it, instead of setting it carefully back down again. He moved to snack Firestorm across her shoulder panels, much like he surely would have done with so many of his larger, stronger teammates and friends. But then he paused, mid-swing, shook his head in his own clear dismay at his momentary lack of any real sense, and placed his huge hand on her shoulder instead.
"Not bad at all, for a refugee who's never seen a wrecker symbol in person!"
"There were a couple of decent examples to be found within the public records, thankfully," Firestorm replied, thankful when the pain in her head further faded, at least for that moment – equally thankful to not have been sent flying clear across her own workshop.
Her gratitude over both was short-lived though, when the dizziness started up instead, quickly replacing the pain. And she let her hands rest against the surface of her work table, truly fearing then that she might actually fall from her stool, as the room began to spin faster around her.
"Are you alright, Stormy?" Switchgear questioned, using the nickname that she herself had recently given to the mini-bot. But when she said it now, her voice was filled with her clear concern.
Firestorm looked toward the green youngling cautiously – saw her standing at her stand-in creator's side with uncertainty all over her faceplate, and the holo-film in her hesitant hand. The room spun still worse now. But Firestorm just nodded regardless, forcing the motion of her head even as a wave of heat spread across her upper back panels, followed quickly by an immediate chill of too-cold systems.
"Yeah, Switch'" she said, thankful when the dizziness began to slowly pass – more thankful still when the youngling nodded back, appearing to buy the lie without any further question. "I'm good. Thank you."
"May I hold Stormwave?" Switchgear asked, hopefully, and grinning. And Firestorm followed her gaze toward the folding playpen in the corner of the paint shop, where said newborn recharged on the many days he was brought along to work with his carrier.
He was awake now, in the playpen – red optics open wide, as he lay, silent and content as ever, looking up with a curiosity he'd begun to show so recently at the world around him, and the fingers of one hand shoved into his mouth.
Firestorm nodded easily, at the older youngling's eager request. And she smiled her approval as she watched Switch' lift the baby up and into her arms, with fast-increasing skill in the task.
"Well," Firestorm turned back to Bulkhead again, his way even as another burst of pain threatened, with buzzing, too-high-pitched hum through her audial receptors that was becoming just a little too familiar. "If you're happy with the final design, I can get you in for painting first thing tomorrow..."
The buzzing grew worse... followed quickly but the next, all-too-well-expected burst of hot, stabbing pain.
"Firestorm...?"
Switchgear was clearly not the mini-bot's denial now. And neither was Bulkhead – the latter supporting her gently by the upper arms, preventing a very real chance of a fall to the floor, as his youngling daughter stood, the newborn still held in her arms and her optics wide, beside him.
Firestorm was sick, and she knew it – just as much as she tried hard to continue to deny the obvious. One bad day had become two, and those had become another then one more after that. And with each day, instead of better as she'd hoped and expected, she only grew worse. And all the while, she pretended – working just as hard as she could make her throbbing processor and her clumsy hands work, while she just carried on... waiting it out and hoping the next day would be better.
"I... just skipped my morning enrergon..." she said, thinking just as quickly as her lagging processor could manage – and that wasn't exactly untrue. She'd barely fueled in days – her fuel tank all but unable to take more than a sip here and there when she needed it too desperately to leave it much choice. She smiled up at Bulkhead again, and then at his youngling, and her own much smaller one. She saw Bulkhead speaking again, instead of hearing him through the ringing that now sounded through her head. But she smiled regardless, nodding – only hoping the response had made a hint of sense in her momentary helplessness. And she saw him frown at her, his own concerned look only growing fast, as her hand sent a small stack of empty holo-film sheets flying off the edge of her table in an uncontrolled motion.
The sun was slowly setting on their world. And Soundwave, walking slowly beside his carrier through the near-empty streets at the edge of the city, took a moment to admire the reflections on the metal of the ground around him, as it dipped low in the sky. Shortwave, pushing a recharging Lightwave in her chair with slow but confidant steps on the smooth, and newly finished walkway sighed just a little – so obviously thinking her own thoughts intently as they walked together aimlessly in the cooling air of evening.
Blastwave, walking just a pace or two behind the others, was quiet that evening, even for himself. But he smiled just a little, his faceplate uncertain – the look of a youngling that was surely growing uncomfortable in the long and dragging silence.
"I am..." Soundwave searched hard for his words – something he so seldom struggled so much anymore to do at all. And his gaze turned easily toward his tiny sister, with her freshly polished paint. "...Glad to hear that Lightwave will be getting her chance at possible treatment."
"Did you ever truly doubt that Ratchet would do the very best he could for us?" Shortwave asked him, pointedly.
Soundwave smiled then, shaking his head after barely a moment of considering her question. He looked back at his tiny sister – awake now, looking around her the little she could with her optics just barely appearing to focus, and her faceplate showing barely a single hint of any real comprehension. He thought quickly of at least a dozen other broken bots he'd seen or met still so recently – far too many of them younglings – carried home aboard returning ships with their futures surely uncertain because of the damage.
"Too many centuries of caring for nothing but victory and power," he muttered before he'd realized he'd spoken up again at all. But when he had, he continued on, quietly, helpless, and staring at the shining metal of the walkway underneath his feet. "Refined energon byproducts and toxic waste, all dumped into the Boiling River, and the Sea of Rust for far too long, without a care for the consequences. Surely it could only have been utterly disastrous... Surely there were consequences... carried away in bot CNA onto a hundred fleeing ships..."
He thought again of each damaged bot, as he looked again at his own small and helpless sibling – currently the most damaged bot on Cybertron. He fought back his own rage... followed quickly by his sudden, crushing sadness.
But Shortwave was smiling – assurance and understanding clear on her faceplate as she led him gently forward on the pathway with a careful hand. She reached for Blast' too – letting go of Light's chair to do so for a second – shoving him gently, playfully forward so that would walk beside her on her other side.
"Soundwave," she said, turning her attention again to her first creation. Her voice was firm but calm as full realization seemed to dawn upon her. "Cybertron was never perfect. And neither were its people. The city you see now... the bots within it, including the damaged ones... that's not the result of the 'Con's actions – or the Autobots' either for that matter." She glanced toward Blastwave then. But he was already smiling, confidant – the look of a young bot who, at under a century old, knew so well already what Soundwave was still just barely learning after many centuries alive. "It's what the world would have always been if functionalism hadn't destroyed all evidence of anyone some appointed council failed to deem beautiful and useful to the world!"
They fell silent again – each bot thinking their own thoughts as they wandered through the quietness of evening. The sun was nearly down now entirely, and the city was lit now mostly by a thousand colored lights all around them – in bright while lighting strips along the edges of the roadway... in many colors from the windows and rooftops of occupied buildings.
Soundwave glanced as he walked, at the near complete frames of the city's newest housing structures – an identical pair of shining silver towers many floors high, on either side a newly finished roadway, with rounded edges and curving balconies that wrapped around the sides of the place, creating something modern and high-tech – beautiful against the backdrop of the city lights. He looked toward the marketplace then – its low roof lit with blue and green lights that hung from the edges. And then toward the public hall, and refugee center – tall and wide and majestic amid so many smaller, simpler buildings of the business owners of the city.
A pair of bots – so clearly a loving couple, from the way they held their hands together, swinging them playfully, laughing as they did so – passed them slowly, in their own idle strolling pace along the brightly lit walkway. And Soundwave saw then, just how young they both were – forth-frame younglings more than likely, and probably excited for their fast-approaching adult years in a world so filled with endless possibilities and so much each of them could be. The bolder of the two – a small framed silver bot with his paint highlighted in hints of bright blue - offered an enthusiastic, friendly nod to the carrier and her creations as they passed each other politely on the walkway. And Soundwave – too used to only harsh words, hurled insults and utter hostility from too many bots who knew well of his never-yet-forgotten past – smiled back with some careful hesitation, nodding his own neighborly greeting at both of the pair as he did so.
"How did you do it, Carrier?"
Soundwave spoke slowly, following many minutes more of simply walking in silence.
He looked to his left, at a youngling education center – its windows darkened with classes long let out for the day. Then he looked across the roadway, to a small and simple building with its roof sloping sharply to its front. The place had been empty for as long as he knew – and so he was surprised, though pleased, to see three bots now busy moving in a large crate of supplies through its propped-open door!
He looked back at Shortwave then – saw her looking back at him with her faceplate confused, exchanging helpless looks with Blastwave, who only looked back, equally uncertain. And so, he tried his best to further explain, his otherwise uselessly vague question.
"Two million bots or more died, just trying to flee Kaon on the night the city fell to Magatron... Bots murdered in the streets for refusing loyalty to anything but the Decepticon cause... and that was before the raging fires were set to the entire city..."
Soundwave spoke far slower now, his tone one of musing as he looked again at Shortwave. He watched the dark blue of her painted frame as it caught the dimming sun and rising city lights in a way only that paint color could. And he recalled in an instant that many centuries before, in the lights of a very different city that was long since no more, her paint had done the very same.
"Tell me, Carrier, how did you, of any bot, make it out alive?"
Shortwave laughed, just a little. And she paused then – hands still on the handles of the recharging, helpless youngling's chair. And she stood that way for a long moment, her expression whistful and considering, until finally, she simply laughed.
"I ran," she said – speaking at first, like that simplest of answers surely made all of the sense in the world. But then she laughed again, quieter now, glancing toward Blastwave – who looked up at her with interest and a kind of youngling expectation clear on his faceplate.
"Blast' loves this story," Shortwave said, smiling from one of her creations to the next before she simply began to walk again, as she spoke, slowly recalling said story at once.
"The world was a strange place for a while, before that fated day," she said. "A world that hadn't ever seemed to change the slightest bit in the years I'd been alive was suddenly in increasing upheaval – and the city I'd lived my young life in, was rapidly falling apart. Megatron rose to fast increasing power from his place within the fighting pits. And for a while, I, like so much of the city around us – the poor and mistreated, the voiceless Cybertronians who the council forgot – supported his cause. But everything was fast becoming violent.
"Somewhere, far across the world, and for the first time in at least a century, the Matrix had chosen a Prime – some young archivist, still every bit as baffled and confused as the rest of the world. That much was clear in the look on his faceplate when shown over every holo-screen in sight. Poor horrified young bot could barely make the simplest of speeches to the world without staring at his own feet, let alone change a world so in need of changing. I didn't know why this unassuming, awkward, and probably terrified young bot had Megatron so furious – I still don't bother myself about such complicated politics much if I'm honest. But Kaon's self-appointed leader so quickly went from something resembling reasonable and logically minded, to something close to insane. And I knew I could no longer even pretend to agree with anything he stood for anymore. One day Decepticon troops set fire to the center of the city, and I never took the time to even wonder why that was meant to possibly accomplish... it was spreading fast and everyone was running every which way in a panic. Surely no one noticed or cared less about one more bot running for her own life too..."
"I was there the day Megatron gave the order to burn the city to the ground..." Soundwave muttered the words, as his spark sunk fast and the world spun around him. He looked up again at his carrier – optics blinking slowly as he fought back his self-directed fury. "I... fully believed with all of my spark that you were offlined a century before. And, I, in my own bitterness and rage, wanted just as much as many bots to see Kaon burn. If... if I'd known you were still alive... still inside the city..."
'Everything could have, and would have been different...' the thought raced through his processor and crushed his spark all at once.
'If I hadn't been helpless and broken... If Creator hadn't lied...'
Soundwave realized his hands were trembling badly, in response to his fast-rising regret, only when Shortwave held them both tightly in her own – a carrier who still cared for her creation even after everything he'd done – or hadn't done – and after uncertain centuries apart and two other younglings to love and care for in his place.
He thought then, abruptly, of his own tiny son – who it was so easy to guess was near recharge at that time of evening, in the arms of his own devoted carrier. And through his grief and spark-break he smiled then, fully convinced that should terrible things ever happen in the world again - should his own small family be torn apart without more than a glimmer of hope, Firestorm would never cease to be Stormwave's carrier, any more than Shortwave had ceased to be his.
"We should... be getting back," he said slowly. And he pulled his hands away again gently, sighing slowly as she took another step forward on the walkway. Because a chilly wind was slowly picking up from the west of the city, and all around them the place had grown darker as night settled over them.
Notes/ The holidays held me up a little... then just plain dissatisfaction with my own writing as I edited, reworked, and tried again, held me up further. But finally... here we are. Another one posted! As always your feedback is much appreciated, as are your own ideas and your input. And thanks for much for the comments on the last couple of chapters.
What Lies Beyond – I decided I would very slightly address Ratchet's recent too-stubborn behavior in this one. Because you're absolutely right. And he ought to have known better!
Airreon Princess – Thank you! I'm glad to have been able to get back to this too!