Chapter Text
"I keep telling you," Rewind mumbled, "I'm fine."
"So you say," the other mech replied. She was a stranger to him, a teal-plated medic from a world he'd never heard of. He was still trying to remember her name, but his memory was feeling sluggish, suddenly. Uncharacteristically so. He was so used to everything being crystal clear, perfectly recalled and searchable. Things were moving sideways, now, too slow and too fast. What was her name again?
"No one hurt me," Rewind continued, "Not physically. Can't I leave yet?"
She looked uncomfortable. Evasive. Rewind wished she would just tell him why she was really keeping him here.
"Soon," she reassured him again instead. Rewind felt too tired to argue. He looked down and away at the floor, optics fuzzing.
The door opened. He looked up.
"Tailgate," Rewind commented. His name he knew, even though he didn't know the other minibot particularly well.
Tailgate's visor brimmed with light. "You're really here."
"I guess."
Tailgate crossed the room, his tiny legs moving quickly to join him beside the medical berth he was sitting on. "I can't believe it. It's a miracle."
"I guess," Rewind replied, and then corrected himself. "If you call that a miracle."
In front of him, Tailgate winced. "I'm sorry."
Rewind was silent for a moment, lost in thought, before he finally spoke. "Do you know me- or him- or me- well? Here?"
Tailgate lit up. "You're one of my best friends."
Rewind felt his tanks flip. "Ah. Sorry. I don't know you very well. You're, um- a kickboxer or something, right?"
Tailgate shrunk down, looking guilty. His optical display flickered downward to his arm, something he was picking at. "That's… no. It's a long story."
"I'm sorry," Rewind sighed, "I don't really have it in me for long stories right now."
Tailgate nodded grimly.
"Can you please, " Rewind said, when the silence grew heavy, "Please ask your Rewind to come here? If I can just sync my database with his, I'll- this will be easier."
Tailgate's visor flashed. "That's, uh- I-"
Rewind looked at him again, harder. Tailgate stood frozen, silent, terrified. Rewind didn't even need to turn around to sense the tension in the doctor behind him.
"He's dead," Rewind stated. It wasn't a question. Tailgate flinched hard and looked down at the ground.
Rewind expected the revelation to hurt. He expected to feel something. But the world was already spinning, the void already clawing it's way through his lines. Maybe it just couldn't get any worse.
"I suppose that means Chromedome's gone, too, then," he sighed, resigned. Chromedome had issues. Rewind knew about them. It was his greatest wish that after him, Chromedome would be able to do what Rewind never could: move on.
He wasn't stupid, though, and he was too tired to lie to himself.
"Well…" Tailgate murmured.
They all looked up with the alarm system went off, flickering red light through the room before it crackled to life.
"Chromedome! Perceptor! I need you on the bridge, NOW!" Rodimus's voice yelled over the ship's intercom.
Rewind sat straight up. "Chromedome's alive?"
Tailgate glanced past him, at the mech who's name he didn't remember. An unspoken question. Rewind felt his plating flare. "What? What the hell are you hiding from me?"
"It…" Tailgate tried again, but his reluctance was obvious. Rewind groaned and decided he didn't care what it was, or about Tailgate's feelings, or what this stranger's name was.
He dropped down from the berth and ran right out of the medical bay, toward the stairwell that led to the bridge, ignoring the voices calling halfheartedly for him to come back.
Rewind knew the way. He passed unfamiliar scratch marks along the walls, posters he didn't recognize, but the layout was the same. He knew where he was. He knew where he was going.
He burst into the bridge of the Lost Light panting, circuits overworked, spark bright to burst.
"Chromedome!" he cried when he saw him, feeling light well up in the corners of his visor.
Everyone in the room froze. Rodimus's wide optics stared back at him in a panic, while Minimus, out of his stupid armour, dropped the datapad he was holding. None of that mattered. He didn't care about any of them. He only cared about-
"Can I help you?" Chromedome said, visibly confused. He was standing in front of Rodimus, postured like he'd been mid-conversation. Rewind blinked, once, twice, processing.
"Chromedome," Rewind said again, slower, "I'm here."
Chromedome stared at him. "Okay?"
"Rodimus, deal with this," Minimus snapped. He picked his datapad back up and shoved it into the Captain's servos, before approaching him.
"Magnus, you shouldn't-" Rodimus began, but Minimus cut him off.
"I told you not to wait," Minimus snapped.
"We don't have time," Rodimus moaned, though to his credit, looked to be in genuine distress.
"What's going on?" Chromedome asked, but he was asking Rodimus, turning around. Rewind didn't understand. Something cold and sharp was in his spark, and it hurt so bad that when Minimus tugged at him by the arm and pulled him back into the hallway he let him.
"Rewind," his once-and-former brother-in-law said, lowering his voice, "I should have come to tell you myself. There wasn't time."
"Tell me what?!" Rewind snapped, "What's going on? What's wrong with Domey?! Why is-"
"He doesn't know who you are, Rewind," Minimus interrupted. "I'm sorry."
Rewind stared at him. "What?"
Minimus's hand on his forearm tightened. "Our Rewind died almost a year ago. Chromedome did something to himself. He doesn't know who you are. He doesn't remember what happened."
"No, that's…" Rewind stepped back and away, shaking off his touch. "He wouldn't do that."
"He did it. It's done."
"You're such a liar," Rewind snarled, and shoved past him, back through the doors and onto the bridge. "Chromedome! Who am I?" He demanded. Rodimus's optics darted back to Minimus behind him to glare pointedly.
"I don't know," Chromedome answered without looking up. His hands were occupied within Rodimus's split open wrist plating, wires clenched between fingers. "Can we figure it out later? I'm busy."
Rewind shook his head, vision tunnelling. "This isn't real."
Minimus pulled him back into the hall and then grunted when Rewind's knees buckled and he had to catch him and prop him back up against the wall. "This isn't how I wanted to do this. I asked Velocity to keep you busy."
"Velocity," Rewind mumbled, "That was his name."
"Her."
"Right. That's new, too."
"Rewind." He looked up. Minimus's voice had softened, unlike him.
"He doesn't remember me at all?" he asked, hating how pathetic his voice sounded. Minimus grimaced.
"As far as I can tell, nothing. It's difficult to say, though- even on a good day, Chromedome doesn't always seem to remember where he is. He doesn't even know who I am some days." He paused. "Who Ultra Magnus is, I mean to say."
"What?"
"Brainstorm thinks it's the result of erasing so much of the data in his memory banks without replacing any of it with anything. He's actually written up a paper at my request if you'd like to re-"
" Brainstorm?" Rewind snapped. "What does he know?"
"Rodsquad! Percy's lab, now!" Rodimus's voice snapped over the intercom. Beside them, the bridge doors opened and Rodimus stormed out, followed shortly by Chromedome and Perceptor. "Walk and talk, Mags!"
"Rodimus, I can't-"
"No time!" Rodimus didn't pause, and Minimus and Rewind had to jog to keep up with the much larger bot's larger strides, "That dumbaft is going to change the course of fragging history. "
"What?" Rewind burst.
"He built a fragging time machine!" Rodimus yelled, raising his hands into the air furiously, "Who does that? Who builds a time machine on my ship?"
"Brainstorm, apparently," Chromedome commented in a dry voice.
"Br-" Rewind started, hiccuping. He couldn't finish the thought. The hallway was swaying, the artificial gravity failing. Why wasn't anyone fixing it?
"Sorry, 'Winders," Rodimus said and Rewind looked up dizzily, "Wish I had more time to debrief you. Congrats on not being dead anymore."
"Rodimus!" Minimus snapped.
"I can't believe he didn't tell me he's been working on this," Chromedome shook his head, "I can't believe I didn't realize."
"How would you know?" Rodimus grunted, "For all you know, he told you everything yesterday."
"I would remember my only friend building a time machine and being a Decepticon ," Chromedome replied, unamused.
Rewind was reeling, but when the doors to Perceptor's lab opened, everything snapped into focus on the massive grey mech staring unhappily at a reading on a monitor screen. He looked up when they entered.
"Megatron!" Rewind screamed blindly, stumbling backward. Minimus caught him again and Rodimus ignored him, crossing the room toward the warlord with Perceptor while Chromedome glanced back and down at him.
"Right, you came off the other ship, didn't you?" He crossed his arms. "He's an Autobot now, or something."
Rewind covered his face with his hands, vents slammed open and gasping for cool air. The world was falling apart on top of him, sharp-edged pieces burying themselves in his chassis and pinning him to the ground. He couldn't breathe.
"Stay with me," Minimus's voice said distantly, "Rewind. Rewind!"
He wasn't staying with him. This was wrong. This was all wrong. He was dead, Chromedome was dead, Dominus was dead, Megatron was an Autobot, nothing was right and he didn't want to be here anymore. He wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare back in bed with his conjunx and never have to think about any of this ever again, he wanted to-
There was a familiar hand on his back. Someone was talking.
"There you go. Just keep breathing. You're alright."
His vision cleared and he realized he was on his knees, shaking. Chromedome was knelt beside him, holding him up by the shoulders so he didn't collapse forward into the puddle of bile he'd just purged from his tanks, apparently.
"There you are," he said gently, "You wanna count backwards from ten with me?"
He did. He really did. "With me" being the key phrase. Chromedome probably could have asked him if he wanted to jump off the ship "with me" and he would have said yes. He followed along, his own voice pitiful in his audials.
"Have you ever had a panic attack before?" Chromedome asked him.
Rewind thought about it, and then shook his head.
"Wow, you're better put together than me, then," Chromedome chuckled darkly. "You're not dying, even if it kind of feels like it. Promise."
"Yeah," Rewind mumbled.
"Chromedome! Come here!" Rodimus yelled.
"Don't let him fall over, Magnus," Chromedome said, pushing himself back to his feet. Rewind sat back on his ankles, hugging his arms. He watched Chromedome to where Rodimus and Perceptor and Megatron were arguing.
"What's going on?" Rewind whispered.
Minimus grimaced. "Brainstorm's done something. He set off some kind of poison bomb in Swerve's and incapacitated everyone there. He demagnetized my armour. Then he- evidently- used a time machine he built to jump into the time stream. It seems, as of now, his goal is to kill Orion Pax and ensure the Decepticons win the war."
"That-" Rewind shook his head. "Okay. That's happening. That's happened. What are we doing here? Now?"
"Perceptor is trying to trace his jump signature so that we can follow him," Minimus continued. "Chromedome is here because he knows Brainstorm better than anyone. He's the only one who can read his notes." He hesitated. "Megatron is here because he's co-captain."
Rewind took that last part and threw it into a locked cage to come back to later or maybe hopefully never. "Okay."
"He's coming along, too," Rodimus hollered, apparently eavesdropping. Minimus snapped up.
"He is not!" he scoffed, incredulous.
"Come on, who else is going to be able to guess his next move? We need him."
"I'll be fine," Chromedome added, "Besides, I don't have anything to lose."
Rewind's spark twisted.
"We're dropping in twenty," Rodimus announced, "Go get your armour, Mags."
Minimus appeared conflicted. Rewind pushed himself to his feet, wobbling. "I'll be fine," he murmured, "Go. There's not time."
Minimus stood, hesitated, and then nodded firmly. Rewind watched him go and then turned away, crossing the room to stand silently beside Chromedome.
"If killing Orion Pax is really his goal," his maybe-Conjunx said, "He's not going to just shoot him, just like that. He'll get gunned down himself immediately, and if he's anything, he's not suicidal."
"He's a coward," Rewind murmured, "He'll probably try for something easy, like while he's recharging, maybe."
Chromedome gave him a curious look. "You know Brainstorm?"
Rewind nodded dumbly.
"Rewind," Rodimus said in a warning tone, "If Brainstorm succeeds, that's the end of everything. The Cons win the war. Time is altered forever. We can do- you know, everything with you after this. But we can't frag this up."
Rewind glanced away from him and up at Chromedome. The mech he'd spent the last two million years with flickered his visor in confusion and tilted his head at him.
"Rewind," he said slowly, "I don't think he's mentioned you before."
Rewind thought that would hurt. It felt like it should. For some reason, though, he didn't feel anything.
"Friend of a friend," he replied, looking askance, "He never liked me, anyway."