Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cheetor is gone.

Not even his body remains, vanished in a flash of light as the Allspark restored Cybertron, leaving the Well empty save for Bumblebee. He said that he, as guardian of the Allspark, is now simply an extension of it. A part of Cybertron. And that he would be with Bumblebee, always. Watching over him or something. Bumblebee should be able to find… comfort in that, he supposes, but he doesn’t. He just wants Cheetor there with him, not as some ethereal spectator. Funny. All this time he spent looking for and revering the Allspark, and now that it’s back where it’s supposed to be, he almost feels resentful towards it. Especially when he should be resenting the Decepticon scientist lying dead on the ground.

“Where was the logic in killing our planet?” Bumblebee asks Shockwave’s corpse. His voice doesn’t carry the vitriol he had expected or wanted. It just sounds sad. Small.

Shockwave, of course, does not have an answer for Bumblebee. Color has already faded entirely from his sparkless body. Not even Ratchet could do anything to save him now, if they had any inclination to do so. Bumblebee stares at what’s left of him, alone and tired. He doesn’t want to, but… this is the start of peace. Hopefully. So he picks up Shockwave’s body and carries it with him as he exits the Well and emerges into a new, revived Cybertron. Cybertron lives. Cheetor doesn’t. Neither do Shockwave and countless others. How many friends has he lost in just this battle? Is it still being waged, or did the Decepticons finally see reason and have stood down?

I guess I’ll find out, Bumblebee thinks. His legs scream for him to stop, to not find out, to stay here close to Cheetor and remain in blissful ignorance, where he won’t have to tell Windblade that their friend is gone. He forces them to keep walking. If only so he can find someone to lean on.

Unexpectedly, his comm buzzes to life as he enters the untwisting red forests and he almost drops Shockwave as Windblade’s voice cuts through the silence. “Bee?”

“Windblade!” Bumblebee exclaims, laughing with relief despite… despite everything.

She laughs too. “There you are! I thought you’d- your comm wasn’t working for a while there. Are you still at the Well?”

“No, I’m headed back now”, Bumblebee says. Please don’t ask about Cheetor. Not yet. “Is it… Is the…”

“It’s over”, Windblade says. “The war’s over, Bee. The Decepticons have stood down. We won.”

“Oh”, is all he manages to say, staring at the sky with Shockwave’s head leaning on his shoulder.

Returning to Iacon is strange. Compared to its heyday before the war, it’s empty, quiet, a shell of its former self. Used to be home. Bumblebee wonders if it ever will be again. Even with the Allspark repairing the planet, it still lies in ruin, and somehow Bumblebee would have preferred the sound of battle rather than this roaring silence. Now it was just an aftermath, picking friends alive and dead from the wreckage while Autobots and Decepticons alike glare at each other with unmasked hatred. All itching to fight again, wreak vengeance upon each other for every lost friend, every injury, every so much as perceived slight. Peace seems a fragile thing. Unthinkable, even.

Normally, this is the point when Bumblebee, everybody’s pal, manages to bring a bit of good cheer and levity to at least the Autobot side. Normally, Bumblebee isn’t carrying the corpse of the Allspark’s attempted murderer. Normally, Cheetor would be at his side. And he still hasn’t found Hot Rod.

On his way back, he’d stopped where he last saw Hot Rod and Drift, but they were both nowhere to be seen. Just some spilled energon on the ground. It gave him some relief, some hope, when he saw that there were no bodies. Hope that maybe Hot Rod isn’t gone, that he was too quick to assume the worst just because Hot Rod’s comm wasn’t working. Yet dread still worms its way into his spark as he scans the surroundings for that bright red paintjob that screams “look at me!”. Drift might have won and taken Hot Rod prisoner for some desperate attempt at a Decepticon plot, maybe looking for some way to instigate a new war, or…

“Bee!”

Thank Primus for Windblade stopping him from finishing that thought. He looks up, mustering a weak smile as he sees her running towards him. Not flying, he notes, and sees deep wounds in her shoulder and wings. And she had offered to fly over and pick him up! “No problem”, she had said. He’s convincing her to go see Ratchet or Kaput or even Flatline as soon as possible.

She’s about to throw her arms around him when she fully processes what he’s carrying and she stops, clearly surprised. “Uh… is that… Shockwave? Why have you got that?”

“Yeah”, the haunting and familiar voice of Shadow Striker says, “why do you have that, Bumblebee?”

“Couldn’t just leave him on the floor in the Well”, Bumblebee shrugs, turning to face Shadow Striker as well. As usual, Soundwave isn’t far behind from her. “He should at least get a proper funeral.”

“Should he?” Soundwave asks dryly. Some music plays from his speakers – is that… sad clown music? Bumblebee even remembers sampling it back on earth when his vocalizer wasn’t working. It catches him off-guard enough that it shocks him out of his grief and dread, if only briefly.

“Wasn’t he your comrade?!” Windblade exclaims. Anger and raw hurt rises in her voice, the way it does when she thinks of Slipstream.

“Hardly”, Soundwave replies, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, let’s not get things twisted, Autobot”, Shadow Striker scoffs. “He tried to kill the Allspark and the planet. He failed. You won. You don’t have to pretend to care to, what, placate us? It’s pathetic.”

The word “pathetic” fires from her mouth like a bullet from a gun and Bumblebee takes half a step back, staring at her face intently. Watching her watching him and Shockwave with unbridled disdain. Keeping his optics from straying to the mosaic of corpses that her body had been turned into because of Bumblebee and Shockwave.

“You can think whatever you want of me”, Bumblebee says with a meek shrug. “We’ve all hurt each other. I don’t care about keeping score anymore.”

He realizes, a little belatedly, that what he said sounds condescending, especially when it was directed at Shadow Striker. Maybe he’ll apologize to her later. Right now, he just wants to free his hands and look for Hot Rod, so he turns around and starts walking away. Out of the corner of his optics, he sees Soundwave take a threatening step towards him, but Shadow Striker holds him back. Windblade narrows her eyes at them before she follows Bumblebee.

“Let’s take him to Wheeljack”, she says while the two Decepticons are still within earshot. “They were friends, once. Megatron will probably refuse him a funeral since he failed.”

It’s an obvious and perhaps petty jab at the ‘cons, but he can’t really fault her for it. She’s still thinking about Slipstream. That, and he doubts she’s wrong, for that matter. Since Slipstream had been branded a traitor, the Decepticons had left her body to rust away, and Windblade had taken it upon herself to see to it that Slipstream was given the respect she deserved. Wordlessly, Windblade falls into step with Bumblebee and helps him carry Shockwave. Yet again, she takes it upon herself to arrange a funeral for an abandoned Decepticon.

It takes them a while, but they finally find Wheeljack in the Threshold, undoing Shockwave’s damage to the place, ironically enough. He regards Shockwave with a sad smile, taking his old friend’s body with uncharacteristic gentleness and assures them he knows just what Shockwave would want, waving them off so they can take care of themselves.

“Are you sure?” Bumblebee asks. “We can help out. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“Nah, I’ll be just fine on my own”, Wheeljack says. “Ol’ Shockster would want it done quick. Efficient.”

“Your Shockwave impression needs some work”, Bumblebee says without thinking.

There is a crack in Wheeljack’s cheerful facade for just a moment, though he still grins wide. “Never could perfect it. Guess I lost my chance to.”

Great job, Bumblebee.

“No matter!” Wheeljack says a little too loudly. “You go an’ get yourselves patched up! I’ll get to it! Go on, git!”

Windblade shares a concerned look with Bumblebee, but they decide to oblige, so with great reluctance, they leave Wheeljack be, and step back into the streets of Iacon. There are still no petty battles being waged. Just people picking through the rubble.

The thing with war is that it numbs you to it – the violence, the smell of metal burning, the rivers of energon spilled between both sides, and the constant loss of friends. Your one comfort in wartime is that you don’t have time to process it all. What’s happened, what you’ve become, what you’ve lost, what’s left, these are all questions you don’t have time to reflect upon when you’re focused on surviving another day. Which means there is very little keeping Bumblebee from feeling the emptiness around him that should be filled by Cheetor.

“Bee”, Windblade murmurs, and he knows it’s over. “Where’s Hot Rod and Cheetor?”

God, he doesn’t want to say it. Makes it feel too real. But he has to. Windblade deserves to know, and she certainly doesn’t deserve this pointless stalling. He vents in sharply. “Cheetor’s gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Bee”, Windblade says in a voice that tells him she had expected that answer, and she pulls him close.

“He saved us all”, Bumblebee says, burying his face in her good shoulder. “He gave his spark for the us. He saved Cybertron. He… He…” His voice cuts out and he resets his vocalizer. “He’s gone.”

Windblade just nods and holds him tighter. When had they both sat down? Had his knees buckled on him without him noticing? Perhaps. Perhaps millennia of grief and dead friends chose this moment, this one moment of vulnerability, to come crashing down on him. On both of them. And she leans on him as much as he leans on her.

After a while, Windblade cautiously breaks the silence between them. “And Hot Rod? Did he… not take it well?”

“I don’t know”, Bumblebee murmurs. “I don’t know where he is.”

“What?” Windblade pulls away, breaking their embrace to look Bumblebee in the eye, alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“He stayed behind to stop Drift”, Bumblebee says. Wobbling terribly, he struggles to stand up. “Drift- Drift turned on us. He tried to take the Allspark for the Decepticons, so Hot Rod stayed behind to fight him while Cheetor and I ran for the Well. I didn’t see him on the way back and he’s not answering his comm, he might be hurt. I have to find him.”

Growing dread is plain on Windblade’s face. As is disbelief.

“He said he got it”, Bumblebee says, trying to reassure her.

It doesn’t work. “Where did you last see him?”

“By the Energon Rivers”, Bumblebee replies, frowning. “Though they had become black toxic.”

The dread and disbelief grows.

“He said he got it”, Bumblebee repeats, as if that means something. It should. It has to. And Windblade has to believe him.

She doesn’t, but she pretends to. “I’ll ask Jetfire to help you look.”

“Thanks, Windblade”, Bumblebee says. That’s alright. He’ll just have to prove her wrong.

Chapter Text

.begin boot sequence
brain module start. 11%… 32%… 69%… 84%… 100%
power online.
> initiate systems check.
> ambulatory systems at 72% efficiency…
> servo systems at 92% efficiency…
> sensor systems at 89% efficiency…
> optic systems at 95% efficiency…
> fuel pump contaminated…
> energon converter contaminated…
> internal chronometer malfunctioning…
> transformation cog damaged…
> brain module corrupted…
> processor damaged…
> neural cluster corrupted…
> hull damaged…
> fuel leaking…
> toxicity levels at 71%…
> energon level low…
> flamethrower systems OK.

final damage report: THIS IS REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD.

> initiate self repair attempt…
> remove stasis lock…

WAKE UP.

Hot Rod opens his eyes, and he immediately regrets it.
Contorted in a vengeful sneer of agony, Drift’s lifeless face stares at him, mere inches away from his. To add to his list of regrets, Hot Rod startles, and the sudden movement sends a rending pain through his circuits.

At least my pain receptors are still fine, he thinks with gritted teeth and kicks Drift off of him, letting the grayed and blackened corpse fall to the ground next to him. That movement wracks his body with more pain, enough that his vision becomes overcrowded with warning messages and he lets out a scream. The scream echoes around the walls of the cavern where he lies half-washed up on an underground outcropping. When his pain receptors manage to subdue the pain somewhat and locate its source, he finally looks down and sees the sword still stuck in his frame and the outcropping he’s washed up on.

Huh. He distinctly remembers Drift pulling that out before getting dragged into the toxic waste. While they were wrestling in it, Drift must have stabbed him again. Several times, actually, as he finds some additional cuts on his frame. Hot Rod fumbles around the sword’s handle, searching for the mechanism that will shut its energy blade off. He finds it eventually, and the pain subsides just a little bit. At least it won’t keep cutting into him each time he moves. Slowly, grimacing the whole way through, Hot Rod sits up and brings a hand to his wound. The energon leaking from it does not look right. Its color is off, almost black , and it’s boiling. His frame is naturally warmer than most on account of his flamethrowers, but it’s not supposed to heat up this much.

> toxin defense systems active.

Oh, so his frame’s trying to burn the poison out. Alright. Cool. He remembers Ratchet telling him… uh, well, he really wasn’t paying attention at the time, or maybe he forgot, or both, so he can’t really recall the details. Or any of it. Either way, the sensation of his own blood boiling within him is unpleasant. Trying to override the toxin defense manually floods him with a number of error and warning messages, though, so he supposes he’ll just have to endure it.

> self repair in progress…

Doesn’t work fast, now does it? Hot Rod glares at his frame, one he barely recognizes. The shape is right (not counting the dents, scrapes, cuts, and the gaping wound in his abdomen), but the color – much like his energon – is wrong. The toxic waste has burned into his paint, replaced his vibrant red and yellow with a plain black color. A few scratches of yellow, particularly around his flames, poke out here and there, but otherwise, it seems he carries the black river with him now. The black river, and Drift.

He glances at the corpse. His anger that had carried him so righteously through their battle has faded now, much to his dismay. Now he just feels like he’s murdered a friend. There is no great divide between the person he thought Drift was and the person Drift turned out to be, no great off-switch for the feelings Hot Rod had for him (which, really, they’re machines, why don’t they have literal off-switches for these things?). He adores Drift. He hates Drift. Drift was his friend. Drift was a stranger to him. Both versions blend and bleed together, melting into a convoluted mess in his apparently corrupted brain module, and he pulls his knees to his chest. Leaning his head against the hilt of Drift’s sword in his hand.

“I need to get out of here”, he says out loud and flinches when he hears his own voice.

> vocalizer damaged…

Oh, joy. He scowls irritably. Is there anything that isn’t damaged?

> flamethrower systems OK.

He waits for the prompted list to continue. It does not. Defeated, he vents out heavily and stares at the cavern walls. Where is he?

> navigation systems dama

“I get it!” Hot Rod hisses, waving the report away.

The energon river in front of him rushes violently through the caverns, strong enough to drag a mech with it. It must have done that to him and Drift, but the toxic river he’d fallen into had looked much calmer than this. Could it have been, what, an underwater current they’d gotten themselves caught in or something? Or maybe when Cheetor and Bee restored the Allspark, the ground rose up and formed a cavern around him. Can that happen? Probably. Maybe. Whatever. What’s important is getting out of here. If he was dragged here by the current, it stands to reason that he needs to go against it to find his way out.

> ambulatory systems at 72%…

So his legs aren’t operating at 100%. So what? 72% isn’t too bad! He can probably fight against the stream even in this condition. Just jump in and start running. Easy.

As he’s about to do just that, however, his optics linger on Drift’s corpse. There’s no way he would be able to carry Drift with him and fight the current at the same time. Especially not in his current state. There is a tunnel beyond the outcropping, but who knows where that leads. It might just take him further away from Iacon and he’ll end up lost. More lost. So… does he just leave Drift here to rust away? No funeral, no nothing?

He looks at Drift, optics wandering the lines of his face, the silent scream caught dead in his throat. Bumblebee wouldn’t leave Drift like this. Optimus wouldn’t leave anyone like this.

Hot Rod grips the hilt tighter. He’s no Optimus.

With that, he leaps into the river.

Adding to his list of regrets.

The sky is black when he finally, finally emerges from the river and clambers onto Cybertron’s surface. Not the black of night, but of some kind of thick smog enveloping the planet. It strikes him with fear, confusion, and a burning fury. This looks too much like a nightmare version of Cybertron. Like Megatron’s ideal version of Cybertron. The Allspark couldn’t have fallen into Decepticon hands, Bumblebee and Cheetor would never let that happen, so why-

His train of thought is interrupted as he spots something flying overhead and he drops low to hide. He expects to see a shuttle or a drone, but what he sees instead is a giant robot squid. It seems to scan for movement, so he decides to stay out of its sight. As much as he wants to fight, he is in no shape for battle right now. Interestingly, it doesn’t have a Decepticon insignia on it, and it certainly doesn’t seem to fit their general aesthetic. Unless Shockwave got into squids rather than arachnids or whatever those little robots of his are supposed to be while he was out. God, how long was he out, if Cybertron looks like this now?!

> internal chronometer malfunctioning…

Never before has he been this irritated with his own systems. Though, this is the first time he’s been damaged quite this bad, at least without having Ratchet or First Aid there to patch him up almost immediately, so it has not needed to bother him this much until now.

> energon level critically low…

And there’s that. He is still bleeding, his toxin defense system is boiling what energon he has, and fighting the current had burned through a lot of it. If he doesn’t find something to let him refuel soon, he’ll pass out again or worse. There is, of course, the energon river he just climbed out of, but for some reason, that does not look particularly appetizing to him. Maybe he shouldn’t be picky about where he gets his energon right now, but the mere thought of drinking from the river that killed Drift and did all of this to him makes his fuel pump twist.

So. He’s alone. There are strange alien squids flying around that look like they should be avoided at all costs. Something’s wrong with the planet, but the river is blue instead of black so the Allspark must be in the right place, at least. Almost all of his systems are damaged, malfunctioning, corrupted, or contaminated. Iacon looks eerily lifeless in the distance. And he’s alone.

What in the world happened?

No matter. Guess he’ll just have to drive to Iacon and find out. Find Bee and Cheetor and Optimus and everyone. They’ll know what to do. He cartwheels into his vehicle mode, as he always does – except this time, he does not transform. Instead, his transformation cog makes some ungodly noise, flaring with pain, and Hot Rod falls flat on his back.

> transformation cog damaged…

It just keeps getting worse.

Guess he’s walking.

> ambulatory systems at 66% efficiency…
> energon level critically low…
> initiate stasis lock? y/n
> n
> self repair in progress…

“Got a percentage on that?” Hot Rod asks out loud. The streets of Iacon echo with his lonely footsteps as he drags himself through them. He is uncomfortably aware of how any noise he makes could alert those squids to his presence, but the silence is driving him crazy. If he doesn’t talk, he’ll start thinking too much, and then he might not be able to stop.

> self repair in progress…

“Guess that’s an ‘n’”, he huffs. His foot catches on some rubble and he stumbles. He does not fall, luckily, but he does make a lot of noise. Scrap. He freezes up and waits.

Silence.

Then a familiar screech.

Scrap! With a burst of energy he does not have, Hot Rod runs to the nearest building and dives in through its broken window. He rolls with the fall and scrambles to crawl into the nearest, smallest space, gun readied in his hand. None of his systems are big fans of this move, he realizes, as his legs in particular scream in protest. As does his wound. Energon spills from it and rises up in his mouth, and he clamps it shut. He i s not throwing up, and he’s especially not going to throw up boiling blood. It’s enough that he’s leaking, can’t have his body rejecting perfectly good energon like this too. Outside, the squids descend on the streets, letting out low noises as they scan the area for him. Hot Rod stays still and small, doing his best to ignore his instincts to scream out of fear or pain. Maybe both.

Moments pass by. The squids root through the rubble. They’re beginning to lose interest. At last, they let out irritated hisses and move to leave. Hot Rod vents out in relief.

> comm link repaired!

“Yes!” Hot Rod exclaims, his spark flaring with hope and excitement for the first time since he awoke in that cavern.

And then, just as quickly, it vanishes into a deep, cold, dread as he hears the sound of the squids returning. Instincts tell him to fight, what little sense he has is telling him to run. His systems, however, tell him that he’s doomed if he picks either of those options. Both will drain him dry, and then his spark will collapse and he’ll really be dead this time. That is, of course, assuming he doesn’t get killed by the squids first since he is in a sorry state, unfit for a fight. Not to mention, he’s alone and there are at least two of these squids approaching.

So, the best thing he could do is to even the numbers, right?

He hunkers down in his hiding spot and presses two fingers to his comm, linking it to the Autobot frequency. “This is Hot Rod, calling any Autobots in Iacon! I’m, uh, in a tough spot here and could use some backup!”

There is a frightening moment where he is met with only static. Then, lifting his spark enough for it to soar, he hears a familiar voice. “This is Perceptor. Send me your coordinates, Hot Rod.”

“Perceptor, you would not believe how happy I am to hear from you”, Hot Rod beams, forcing his voice to remain a whisper. “My coordinates are-”

> navigation systems damaged…

“- ssssscraaaap.”

“Hot Rod, if you want my assistance, you need to give me proper coordinates”, Perceptor says, monotonous as ever.

“I can’t”, Hot Rod hisses. The squids have started breaking down the door. “Look, I’m in a house on Silver Street, and it’ll be really easy to know which one because it’s currently being attacked by giant robot squids, so, please, just send a squad my way!”

“I can’t do that, Hot Rod.”

“What?! Why not?!”

“Because”, Perceptor says, “there is no squad to send. There is only I.” He pauses, then adds, “And now you.”

Impressive. Though his head is reeling from this new information and his spark feels about ready to give out from hearing the squids breaking down the door, he still manages to retort: “Well, congrats, soon there will be only you once again, because these squids just got in!”

“They are Quintessons”, Perceptor says matter-of-factly. “Activate your stasis lock.”

“Huh?!”

“If you activate your stasis lock, they won’t be able to read your spark signature”, Perceptor explains. “I would guide you to a safe location, but since I do not have your coordinates, I cannot.”

“Won’t they be able to see me?” Hot Rod asks, quietly shuffling further into his hiding spot as the squids- sorry, “Quintessons”, make their way through the house.

“Yes”, Perceptor says. “But that’s only if they find you. Activate the lock now, before they do find you.”

“But I’ll be-”

“Now, Hot Rod.”

> initiate stasis lock? y/n
> y
> w#!¤%-- )139 when will y!=89?(- you w(198=#!* wake up?
> enter time: ERROR ERROR ERROR
> internal chronometer malfunctioning
> entering stasis lock may last indefinitely.
> continue? y/n
>
>
>

The red glare of the squids’ scanners fills the room.

> y
> stasis lock initiated. good night.

Primus must have decided to cut him some slack at last, because Hot Rod’s stasis does not last indefinitely. He wakes up in the same house as before, untouched by any Quintessons, and it’s still dark outside. Well, with that smog, it may always be dark, but surely the place would look rustier if he had been in stasis for six million years or something, right?

Only one way to find out, though. He connects his comm to Perceptor’s. “Percy, you still there?”

“I am here”, Perceptor responds. “Hello, Hot Rod. I thought you had been taken.”

“No, the stasis trick worked”, Hot Rod says. “Thanks. Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?! Why are you the only one here? Where are all the others? And what are the ‘Quintessons’?”

“You’re welcome”, Perceptor says, and rattles off answers to Hot Rod’s questions without so much as a pause. “Cybertron has been invaded by an alien people known as the Quintessons. I escaped their prison. They are keeping everyone else – and I mean everyone, Autobots and Decepticons both – imprisoned within a simulation. The Quintessons themselves, I have little information on, but they must be powerful to have overpowered us all in this way.”

Imprisoned. Okay. Okay, at least with them being imprisoned, there’s still a way to save them. They’re still alive. “How did this happen, Percy?” he asks next.

“I am unsure”, Perceptor admits with some semblance of reluctance. “I have no memory of the invasion. I assume they erase it to ease their victims into the simulation, to make them accept it at face value. I was honestly hoping you would have the answers to this question.”

“Why would I know anything about this?” Hot Rod asks incredulously, crawling out of his hiding place.

“You have been missing in action this last month and a half. I assumed you-”

“This last month?”

“And a half.”

“I… alright”, Hot Rod vents out, feeling like his processor is about to get crushed under the avalanche of bad news. “No, I was out this whole time. I only just woke up today.”

“Yesterday”, Perceptor corrects. “I spoke to you last yesterday.”

A curse is spat from Hot Rod’s lips. “Stupid stasis lock… Okay, yesterday, I only just woke up yesterday. I don’t know if you can tell, but I have no idea what’s going on. I mean now I have some idea, but you get my point.”

“Hmm. We should meet up. We will be better off together. I will send you my coordinates.”

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know if that will help. My nav’s malfunctioning.”

“Can you not simply use the coordinates and calculate my location on your own?”

Despite himself, Hot Rod lets out a snort. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Hmm.” Is it just Hot Rod, or did that “hmm” sound just a little bit irritated? “You are at Silver Street… very well. I will guide you to me verbally. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can do that. You got a plan on how to get everyone out?”

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

Having someone to talk to is a god damn relief. Perceptor has never been one to resent silences, but he does not quite thrive in them either. Silence means that there is a lack of communication, not just from people but the environment, which in turn means there is no exchange of information. And, sometimes, no companionship, something he has sorely missed since breaking out of the Loop. Turns out being on your own in an alien apocalypse for days leaves you a little starved for company. Even if they are currently preoccupied with a not particularly engaging conversation.

“Now turn to your left”, Perceptor says, viewing his internal map of Iacon while tracking Hot Rod’s comm signal. “No, your left.”

“This is my left”, Hot Rod insists.

“No”, Perceptor says. “Look at your servos, Hot Rod.”

“Spawn of a-”, Hot Rod mutters through gritted teeth and cuts out his own vocalizer for a moment, stewing before he continues. “I swear I’m not this stupid.”

There is genuine frustration in his voice and no trace of his usual carelessness, Perceptor notes. “I believe you. Your navigation systems being down for so long must be affecting you.”

“It can do that?”

“We are machines, Hot Rod. We rely on our systems more than we realize. Most of us only notice when one of them breaks.”

“Not you, though.”

“Not me”, Perceptor confirms. “Continue forward. You should be out of the alleyways soon.”

“Good, because this is making me dizzy”, Hot Rod replies.

It takes about another hour of careful guidance and Hot Rod seemingly fighting to keep his temper in check what with his growing frustration regarding his failing systems, but eventually, Hot Rod reaches Perceptor’s ramshackle hideout. Going to open the door for him and ushering him inside would probably be the polite thing to do. Perceptor remains seated, typing away at the accessible computer he managed to set up.

“You have arrived”, he informs Hot Rod. “There is a servo-scanner on the north side of the building. It will open the door for you. The door won’t raise all the way, so you will have to crawl under it. Make sure to close it after yourself.”

“Got it.” With that, Perceptor hears the now-familiar sound of the door to his hideout sliding open a few meters and then getting stuck, followed by a much less familiar sound as Hot Rod lets out grunts of effort while crawling in under it. A few more seconds of that, and then the door slides shut and footsteps approach Perceptor’s little office.

“Percy!” He can hear the smile in Hot Rod’s voice.

“Hot Rod”, Perceptor replies. “Welcome ba- oof!”

Before he can finish, something burning hot slams into him and wraps its arms around him hard enough that he almost falls out of his chair, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s Hot Rod hugging him.

“This hurts”, Perceptor states stiffly.

“Oh, sorry!” The arms unwrap from him and Hot Rod steps away. “I just… it’s been a tough day. I’m just happy to see a friendly face.” He pauses. “Uh, what happened to your face? Or your optics, I guess?”

“Desperate measures”, Perceptor says and elaborates no further. “Your frame is overheating. Are your flamethrower systems malfunctioning as well?”

Hot Rod spits out a single mirthless, sardonic laugh. “Hah! My grills are the only things that work as they should. Speaking of…” Perceptor hears the distinct sound of a mech collapsing. “… got any energon…?”

Perceptor is not fast enough to catch him before he falls, grasping only air, and Hot Rod hits the floor. Energon burnout. At least it is an issue he does not need medical expertise to fix, as long as he can keep his composure. Of course, helping someone who’s on the threshold of death’s door is never easy. Trying to keep someone from dying when you’re still getting used to getting by without your optics and the dying person burns to the touch, now that’s an ordeal. Perceptor initially tries to drag Hot Rod to the energon supplies, but his fingers can’t quite bear the heat and Hot Rod cries out in pain when Perceptor starts pulling him.

Strange, he thinks as he lets go, still feeling the heat radiating from Hot Rod’s frame, usually, frames get cold when they suffer energon burnout. An urge to scan Hot Rod almost overtakes him to sate his curiosity, but preventing Hot Rod from succumbing to what ails him takes priority, so Perceptor turns and runs towards the energon cubes, arms stretched out in front of him to keep himself from running into anything. He still bumps into the table with the energon. The layout of this hideout of his still eludes him. If he’s lucky, he won’t have to memorize it.
Regardless, he picks up three energon cubes and hurries back to Hot Rod, this time slowly feeling with his foot in front of him to make sure he doesn’t step on the prone mech. There’s a tink! of metal hitting metal and Perceptor drops down next to Hot Rod.

“Here”, he says, tilting Hot Rod’s head back and pouring the energon into his mouth. After some awkward fumbling to find where his face is, mind. Hot Rod is… unresponsive at first, but he drinks deep of the energon and when the last drop refuels him, he snatches the next cube out of Perceptor’s hands and chugs it like his life depends on it. Which, to be fair, it does.

Once all three cubes have been drained, Hot Rod lies back down with a tired ex-vent. “Thanks, Percy.”

“You are welcome”, Perceptor says. “Can you stand?”

“I don’t know”, Hot Rod mumbles. “I think I’m good here for a bit. Wake me if I pass out.”

Troubling. Perceptor raises his scope over his shoulder and takes this moment to scan Hot Rod to find what’s wrong with him.

The scan results almost give him a sensory overload. For once, it seems, Hot Rod had not been exaggerating. It’s a miracle that he had even managed to get this far, though marveling at his endurance will have to wait. Refueling won’t have much of an effect if Hot Rod keeps bleeding, after all, as he now discovers the gaping wound that has gone through Hot Rod’s transformation cog.

“Hot Rod, I’m going to attempt to seal your wound”, Perceptor informs him.

“Sure”, Hot Rod says, only half-present.
Perceptor figures that’s enough of an agreement. Scanning the room reveals that there is about zero medical equipment present, which means he’ll have to improvise with what scrap metal he can find. With no time to waste, he gets to work, crudely patching up Hot Rod’s wound the best he can. It is difficult for multiple reasons, one of those being that he can’t use blowtorches to aid him. Getting any flames even slightly close to the toxic energon leaking out of Hot Rod. Toxic energon is already more volatile than regular energon, but its raised heat has caused it to become essentially supercharged. A mere stray ember may set it off in this state.

Through extreme caution and an insane amount of luck, the operation does not result in a fire or an explosion. It is essentially just taped together rather haphazardly, but it stops any further bleeding, so it will do. There are still be some internal leaks, but that’s beyond Perceptor’s skill set and hopefully the self repair systems will be able to fix that. Beyond that, Hot Rod will simply have to keep hanging in there by a thinning thread until they manage to free someone with a greater medical expertise from the Loop. For now, Perceptor will try to keep his symptoms from worsening and make adjustments to his plan to account for Hot Rod’s condition.

“It’s done”, Perceptor says.

He hears the sound of Hot Rod lifting his head, presumably to look over Perceptor’s handiwork. “It looks terrible.”
“Does it?” Perceptor asks dryly. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, ‘cause of…” Hot Rod pauses to, Perceptor assumes, gesture toward the broken optics. At least he sounds suitably sheepish as he adds, “Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven”, Perceptor says. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m being lowered into a smelter”, Hot Rod says. His voice still sounds rough. The vocalizer must not be a priority for the self-repair system. “Better, though, I think. Thanks. Again.”

Perceptor nods. “It is crude, like you have pointed out, but it will keep you from leaking too much. However, that is the least of your issues. Are you aware that you are suffering from Blackblood poisoning?”

“Yes?” Hot Rod says in a tone that’s both sarcastic and a genuine question.

“A new phenomenon brought on by the war and the Allspark’s absence”, Perceptor says. “Usually, it’s fatal. It is likely you may still die because of it.”

It’s quiet enough that Perceptor can hear Hot Rod blinking rapidly. “Huh? I mean, I… guessed that, but I figured I’d avoided most of it. Or that my toxin defense halted it enough.”

“Not halted, no. My scans tell me it is still progressing, just at a significantly slower pace. I’m surprised you’re still alive. None of our doctors have ever managed to get to someone in time to properly treat them, the few times someone has fallen in the toxin. Excluding the time that Brainstorm tested the effects of the poison on himself and they cut off his legs to keep it from spreading.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes. It won’t for you, unless you would like to be decapitated and your spark taken out of your chestplates.”

Hot Rod groans. “I’m waiting for you to say something reassuring, Percy.”

“The fact that you are not dead yet is reassuring”, Perceptor insists. “Your toxin defense must be extraordinary. Or, perhaps, heat halts the effects in ways Kaput had yet to discover, which means it’s likely curable. At least for you.”

“Great”, Hot Rod grunts.

He does not seem reassured. Is reassuring him a priority right now, with everything that is at stake? Perceptor steeples his fingers together, weighing his options. Indeed, it is not the priority, and perhaps it will be another motivator for Hot Rod to focus. On the other hand, it might make him erratic and even more prone to his reckless behavior. Moreover, they need to know exactly how bad it is and how much time Hot Rod may have. Perhaps there’s a compromise to be made.

Just as Perceptor intends to reset his vocalizer, Hot Rod speaks up. “Did Bee and Cheetor make it to the Well?”

With a nigh imperceptible flinch of hesitation, Perceptor says, “Yes. We won the war, Hot Rod. Bumblebee said it was largely thanks to you.”

“Huh”, is the only sound Hot Rod utters. Perceptor had expected him to bask in the high praise. Instead he just sounds relieved, a hint of doubt in his voice. “That’s… that’s good.”

“Indeed”, Perceptor says, resetting his vocalizer. “There is something I must ask you. Has your frame rejected energon? By that, I mean”, he adds before Hot Rod can ask what he means by that, “have you vomited energon at all since you woke up?”

“What?”

“Answer the question.”

“No, I haven’t. Why would I?”

“It occurs when the poison fully corrupts the brain module, which means the victim is close to death.”

A long silence follows. “Right.” It sounds like Hot Rod sits up. “Okay, whatever, enough about me. You said you had a plan to save everyone, so let’s get to it. What have you got?”

“We should postpone that until we have at least located some medical supplies”, Perceptor says. “You are in no condition to ‘get to it’.”

“My ‘condition’”, Hot Rod starts, probably doing air quotes, a habit picked up from Earth as far as Perceptor can tell, “is only going to get worse if we don’t hurry. You said so yourself. Besides, what are we going to do? Cure a poison none of our doctors have managed to find a fix for with all that medical expertise we don’t have? No. We need to save everybody, and end this… stupid squid infestation.”

If his optics weren’t broken, Perceptor would narrow them at Hot Rod as he finds himself hesitating. Indeed, it is imperative that they break the Loop as soon as possible before the Quintessons drain all those caught in it of their sparks, but there’s no telling how much time Hot Rod actually has. Still, getting a medic out would help Hot Rod’s situation, and if Hot Rod manages to free even just one person, there’s still hope. Hadn’t Perceptor said about as much to Chromia? Better to be responsible for one bot’s death than every Cybertronian on the planet. The two of them are expendable compared to those numbers.

“I have an idea”, Perceptor says, resigned. “There is a cortical psychic patch not far from here that will allow you to connect to the simulation. Unlike the others, you will remain aware of what you’re there for. Once inside, you have to convince them to transform. That is how I got out. Alternatively, we could try to infiltrate the building where their physical bodies are kept and attempt to remove them from the simulation forcibly.”

“I like the sound of the alternative”, Hot Rod says. “Sounds quicker.”

“It is also riskier”, Perceptor says. “The building is guarded by Quintessons, and we don’t know how cutting someone out of the simulation will affect them. Since this machine is draining them of their sparks, it could have consequences.”

“All the more reason to hurry!” Hot Rod says, probably gesturing wildly. “We’re running out of time, Percy!”

You certainly are, Perceptor thinks, clasping his hands together thoughtfully. He can’t really argue with Hot Rod’s reasoning. He had, after all, escaped that building while alone and unarmed, so he knows the security isn’t that dangerous (though, after his escape and Hot Rod having made an appearance, that might have changed) and if removing everyone from the Loop is without complications, they should at least try it. Not that he doesn’t pity whoever ends up being their first test subject, but…

“Very well”, Perceptor says. “Let’s go.”

Navigating the tunnels of Iacon with one blind bot and one bot whose navigation system is corrupted is… an ordeal. It certainly would have gone faster if one of them was able to transform into a vehicle mode, but when Hot Rod tried to transform, his t-cog had made some kind of horrid noise Perceptor struggles to describe and he had gently dissuaded Hot Rod from trying again.

Now they make their way to the Loop Chamber, as Perceptor had taken to calling it, on foot at a leisurely pace. Looking over their shoulders every five seconds to see if they’re being followed and making sure the ceiling won’t come crashing down on them. Needless to say, it takes them quite a while before they finally reach the Chamber. Judging from Hot Rod’s gasp when they emerge into it, it’s not a pleasant sight.

“Primus”, Hot Rod whispers. “This is… horrible.”

“Yes”, Perceptor says. “I imagine it is.” He scans the area with his scope. “We need to move quickly. Who’s closest to us?”

“Hound”, Hot Rod says. “Are you sure we can’t look around more? I want to see if I can find ‘Bee.”

“We cannot be selfish, Hot Rod”, Perceptor says and approaches Hound. The Quintessons appear to be asleep, which at least means they have not tightened security since he was last here. “Remove the mask from his face.”

Hot Rod vents out hotly but does as he’s told. He tugs and tears at the mask to no avail, letting out grunts and growls of effort. After several attempts, he seems to give up. “It won’t come off! Should I try burning it?”
“If you want to melt Hound’s face, yes, go ahead.”

A slightly irritated pause and the sound of arms being crossed follows . “ Alright, smart guy, what do you suggest I do, then?”

“I detected a sword on your person when I scanned you”, Perceptor says, pointing his scope at Hot Rod again to make sure it’s still there. “Use it.”

“I, uh”, Hot Rod starts, “that’s not my sword. I don’t actually know how to fight with it.”

Perceptor stares blankly in Hot Rod’s direction. “You do not need to be a master swordsman to make a cut.”

Another pause, this one loudly embarrassed. “Right.” After a few seconds of fumbling for the activation switch, Perceptor hears the energy blade spring out with a low hum. It is held still in Hot Rod’s hands, as if he’s hesitating.

“Hot Rod, we do not have much time”, Perceptor says. “If you are having second thoughts-”

“No”, Hot Rod interrupts. “No. Don’t worry. I got this.”

With that, the blade is swung through the air and slices through the cable connected to Hound. The mask comes off with it and Hound startles awake, likely turning his head from side to side in shock and terror. “What in the world- Perceptor? And… no, you’re…”

“We can talk later”, Hot Rod says as seriously as he can, though it’s obvious he’s restraining himself from tackling Hound with a hug. “Right now, we need to get-”

He cuts himself off and Perceptor stiffens in alarm, scope scanning for approaching Quintessons. There are none as they appear to still be in standby mode , much to his confusion. If no alarm has been raised, then what’s the issue?

“Hound?” Hot Rod says, taking a step forward and seemingly shaking Hound by his shoulders. “Hound, snap out of it!” To Perceptor, he adds, “He’s glitching out, what do I do?”

A h. Now is that a side-effect of taking him out of the Loop improperly, or is this a previous condition of Hound’s that they were unaware of? He’ll have to ask later. “We can’t risk any loud noises. We’ll carry him out.”

Hot Rod doesn’t answer, just links his arm under Hound’s and starts dragging him with them.

“Oh, I just nodded”, Hot Rod says suddenly, stepping over wires on the ground.

“What?”

“I nodded when you said to carry him”, Hot Rod elaborates. “I just realized you didn’t see me do that, so…”

“That’s fine, Hot Rod, you-”

“- …you’re dead!” Hound exclaims and flails in Hot Rod’s grasp. If Hot Rod had been in a better shape or if he’d been prepared, maybe both of them would have stayed upright. As it is, however, the two of them end up falling to the floor. And here’s the thing about being giant war machines – falling is not a quiet thing. The noise of Hot Rod and Hound’s frames crashing to the floor could rupture organic eardrums, and it certainly wakes the previously sleeping Quintessons.

“Scrap”, Hot Rod hisses and shoves Hound. “Move! We gotta run!”

For once, Perceptor finds himself grateful that the war has ingrained itself so deeply into their psyches, because Hound’s soldier instincts kick in and he follows Hot Rod’s order without question. The three of them run out of the Loop Chamber and dash for the tunnels, which they practically dive into.

T he Quintessons descend upon them, but the opening is too small for them, so they end up slamming into it, scre am ing and biting at the air in frustration. Unfortunately, the impact on the already unstable tunnels has less than desirable effects. The ceiling shakes dangerously above them and Perceptor feels dust and pebbles showering his frame. He moves to keep running, but hears the sound of a transformation cog activating followed closely by an engine running.

“Grab on, Perceptor!” Hound barks, and Perceptor gladly does as he’s told. Tires screech as Hound tears off into the tunnel.

“Hound, wait!” Perceptor yells, patting Hound’s roof insistently. “You need to pick up Hot Rod as well!”

“What?!” Hound shouts back. “He’s got a faster alt mode than I do! And, again, ain’t he dead?!”

“Obviously not. Now at least stop and wait for him to-”

“Don’t worry about me!” Hot Rod calls. “Just go! I’ll catch up!”

“You heard the ghost”, Hound says and keeps rolling.

Until he doesn’t.

The stop is so abrupt that Perceptor is flung a good ten meters forward, tumbling and bashing his face against the sharp rocks. When he lifts his head from the ground, he glares in the direction of where he imagines Hound to be. That had better be him glitching and not some kind of petty way of doing as Perceptor had first told him to do .

“He’s glitching again!” Hot Rod shouts.

Around them, the ceiling begins to fall down in great chunks. What great timing.

Hot Rod runs into Hound shoulder first from the sounds of it, and starts pushing Hound forward. “Percy, help me out here!”

“Alright”, Perceptor says and stumbles his way over to Hound and Hot Rod. Silently, he hopes this is not where Cybertron dies.

Through their joint effort, they get Hound rolling forward. One large rock falls on Hound’s roof, likely denting it, but does not knock him out of his glitching as Perceptor had hoped it would. It instead just weighs him down and makes things difficult. More difficult, really. Perceptor tries to remove it, but he can’t get a firm grip on it and it’s much too important to keep pushing Hound forward. The tunnel’s collapse is closing in on them fast and if Perceptor or Hot Rod take too hard of a hit, it’s over. Their saving grace is the downhill ahead, even if it isn’t that steep. Just a little bit of a boost should be enough.

Then Hound’s engines rev, leaving Hot Rod and Perceptor a split second to react and grab on to Hound hard.

“Whoa!” Hound yelps. “Why are you holding on like that?! And why does my back hurt?!”

“Just drive!” Hot Rod yells, trying to keep his legs from being dragged on the ground. “Perceptor, would flaming out help him go any faster?”

“It might cause a small explosion behind him which would propel him forward”, Perceptor says, “but I don’t recommend it for your-”

“Great!” Hot Rod cuts off and shoves Perceptor up on Hound’s roof. Hound lets out an indignant “ow!” while Hot Rod aims his grills at the air behind them, and Perceptor can just barely make out the sound of the fans clicking on before all sound is drowned out by a fiery explosion. It does, as Perceptor had said, send Hound flying forward and hurtling downhill. However, he does not stay upright during this and ends up tumbling down along with Perceptor and (he hopes) Hot Rod. The two, hopefully three, come to a stop at the bottom of the tunnel where they lie dazed and battered, trying to get themselves up and keep running/driving. Before they can get up, the tunnel comes crashing down, coming to a stop just behind them.

Stunned, they wait for it to start rumbling again, but it appears to be done trying to crush them. For now. Hound transforms next to Perceptor and lets out a horrified noise, probably noticing the dent now. Or the transformation process was particularly painful with that new injury. Or…

“Hot Rod?” Perceptor asks, coughing to remove dust from his mouth and vocalizer.

“Yeah?” Hot Rod responds.

Perceptor relaxes just a little. “That was an inadvisable thing to do.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“It did work”, Hound agrees. Hands clasp and rubble moves, indicating that he’s helping Hot Rod to his feet. “Nice work, kid.”

“Not gonna keep calling me ghost?” Hot Rod smirks.

“That explosion might have caused part of the cave-in”, Perceptor points out. “And it could have caused you to combust.”

“Well, it didn’t”, Hot Rod says with what sounds like a shrug. “Keep moving. We don’t know how long this place is gonna hold.”

A hand is offered to Perceptor. He takes it and is pulled up. Hound transforms and the three drive back to Perceptor’s hideout, with the occasional stop as Hound starts glitching again.

Chapter Text

The trio have been at the hideout for about four days when it happens.

Hound and Hot Rod return from another patrol, bringing nothing but bad news and another batch of energon. The tunnels remain blocked, leaving only the most direct approach into the Loop Chamber, which is the least desirable place to enter an enemy prison through: Its front doors. Though they have, at least, located a safe route to the far more secure building that Perceptor had discovered on his maps of Iacon, so it is unfair to say that they have no good news. Their rounds were cut short, however, as Hot Rod felt it was time for another Hound checkup. That is to say, time for Perceptor to inspect an increasingly annoyed Hound for symptoms of a problem none of them know anything about, much less understand. Perceptor can’t blame Hot Rod for worrying – he’s concerned as well – but it’s frustrating to scan Hound for the same thing every time, and every time he tells them both the same thing, which is that he can’t find anything new and that he still doesn’t know how to fix it.

So imagine his dread when his scan finds something new.

“Is this really n-n-n-necessary?” Hound asks, bored already while Perceptor triple-checks the scan results.

“Your last glitch got really… weird”, Hot Rod says, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “You’re glitching even now. It’s happening way more often, especially after you transform. I’m wondering if you should stay here with Perceptor. I can patrol on my own.”

“Yeah, because what we need is a half-dead- dead- dead ‘bot roaming around”, Hound scoffs, “getting lost because not even his nav works.”

“My nav’s just been repaired, actually”, Hot Rod retorts. “Bet I’ll do better without having to stop every five minutes to wait for you.”

“Hound”, Perceptor says, interrupting their little spat, “how does your head feel?”

The question seems to catch Hound off-guard. “It hurts like hell whenever-r-r-r-r-r I start glitching out. out. out. Why?”

“There is something wrong with your neural cluster”, Perceptor says. “It has been damaged significantly. Have you not gotten any warnings about this?”

“No”, Hound says, though he sounds uncertain. “Not that I can-n-n-n-n remember… Is it bad?”

“Significantly”, Perceptor repeats. “I agree with Hot Rod. It may be best for you to stay here for the time being.”

At that, Hound rises from his seat in a manner that is likely supposed to be intimidating. “Now you listen here. I ain’t leaving the fate of the world in the hands of a two kids like you, you got that? You won’t get rid of me that easy.”

“It’s only temporary”, Perceptor says. “Until your symptoms subside or we find someone to help you. That is all.”

He hears the sound of Hound’s jaw opening to say something else, but no sound comes out. Perceptor sits still, waiting patiently for Hound to continue protesting.

“He’s glitching again, Percy”, Hot Rod sighs. “You might as well be talking to the wall. Not that it’s all that different from talking to him norm-”

Before Hot Rod can finish his sentence, a sickening sound pierces the air and he and Perceptor both jump. Instinctively, Perceptor moves back and takes a defensive stance, trying to identify the noise. Terror creeps upon him as he realizes it’s the sound of a spasm so violent that a metallic spine is being bent backwards and snapped in half, and that its source is…
“Hound!” Hot Rod yells, running to the glitching mech’s side. The screams coming out of Hound’s mouth are pure terror and agony.

“Be careful, Hot Rod!” Perceptor warns, having to shout to be heard over the noise of rending metal, wires being pulled apart, scanning the area for anything useful. “He can’t control himself right now. He may hurt you!”

“I don’t care!” Hot Rod retorts. “How do I help him?!”

Hound’s glitched screams drown out Perceptor’s initial stuttering, and then there is a sudden stillness. All the screaming and writhing come to an abrupt end, like someone hit Stop on a tape recorder. The room goes silent. Everything is silent. Everything, except for the sounds coming through the walls, of Quintesson Prosecutors screeching in the night.

“Perceptor”, Hot Rod whispers. It sounds like he’s kneeling down, hands grasping Hound’s shoulder. “How do I help him?”

Honestly, Perceptor doesn’t think he needs to scan Hound. But there is a second, just before his scope tells him what he already knows, that he gets to live in a world where maybe it isn’t too late.
“There is nothing we can do, Hot Rod”, Perceptor says. His voice sounds as cold as he feels. “Hound is dead.”

Hot Rod doesn’t say anything. Smoke rises from the back of Hound’s throat.

“His spark was greatly diminished when we had first taken him out of the Loop”, Perceptor says when he finds it too unbearable. It’s easier when he focuses on the hows and what facts he has, turns Hound’s body into just a thing, a piece of information rather than another dead friend. “According to Rossum’s Trinity, the spark, the brain module, and the transformation cog are interlinked. When one is damaged, the other two are at risk of-”

“I don’t care”, Hot Rod snaps. “I don’t care. This is all… if he hadn’t…” He pauses, clenches his jaw, and looks up at Perceptor. His voice is uncharacteristically small as he asks, “What do we do?”

Perceptor does not have an answer. Not until he hears the Prosecutors again, this time closer than before. They must have heard Hound. “There are Quintessons advancing on our location. This hideout is compromised. We must go.”

“So we just leave him here?”

“Yes.”

Hot Rod does not like that answer. Neither does Perceptor. He expects Hot Rod to rage and lash out at him for his callousness. Instead, Hot Rod vents out harshly and grabs Perceptor’s arm. “Fine. Let’s go. But the moment we’ve saved the world, we go get him.”

“Of course”, Perceptor replies, and he means it.

Chapter Text

Attempt #1

Hot Rod sticks the cortical psychic patch to the back of his neck and closes his eyes. The apocalypse slips away and a bright new reality replaces it, one filled with music and crowds cheering. A sun shines in the blue skies above and it occurs to Hot Rod how much he misses sunlight. The sensation of his metal frame absorbing its warmth does not feel quite right, colder than it is supposed to, particularly with his paint scorched black, but it is miles better than staying another second out under the black smog that covers Iacon.

No time to waste staring at the sun, though, he reminds himself, and walks out of the alleyway. He intends to carefully take in his surroundings before he approaches anyone, but then he sees a familiar yellow paintjob and all thoughts of caution and etiquette go out the window. Unable to stop himself, especially now that his legs don’t protest against his every movement, he runs right at the yellow mech and throws his arms around him. “Bee!”

Bumblebee responds with a surprised yelp, stumbling to regain his balance. “What-”

“I’m so glad to see you’re okay”, Hot Rod grins, breaking the hug to get a proper look at the shorter mech. “I mean, of course you’re okay, never doubted you for a second. I just got… well, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Stupid of me to worry.”

“I’m, uh, glad you’re okay too”, Bumblebee says, smiling awkwardly. That’s… odd. The look in his eyes is confused, embarrassed. Definitely not the reaction Hot Rod was expecting. “Listen, I have to go meet up with Windblade, so I’ll be seeing you!”

“No, wait!” Hot Rod says and grabs Bumblebee’s arm. “Listen, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna say it. None of this is real, it’s a simulation, and you need to transform to get out of it. Sounds insane, I know, but you need to trust me.”

Bumblebee looks even more confused and a bit concerned. Scratch that, very concerned. “Uh… I’m gonna have to be honest, I… don’t know who you are, and I have friends to see, so…” He gently wiggles his arm out of Hot Rod’s grasp. “I’m really sorry! I’m usually so good with faces!”

“What.” Hot Rod tries not to sound as offended as he feels. “Is it really the black paint? Bee, it’s me. Hot Rod.”

He expects Bumblebee to look properly ashamed and aghast and apologetic. Instead, Bumblebee just looks awkward and even more confused as he says: “Yes, um, well, I’m sorry, but I still don’t know you. I don’t know anyone with that name. Wait a minute, do you mean Hot Shot? You look different! New frame?”

“Bee, if this is some kind of joke, I’m really not in the mood”, Hot Rod says, feeling his energon beginning to heat up even in this dream world.

“Bumblebee, who is this?” A large shadow falls over them and Hot Rod and Bumblebee look up to see Grimlock towering over them. “Is he troubling you?”

“Grimlock?” Hot Rod’s voice wavers and he hates it. “It’s me. Hot Rod. Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you remember me?!”

They stare at him in awkward, pitying silence, and before they can respond, planes fly over ahead and the Loop resets.

Attempt #2

He doesn’t leave the alley.

Attempt #3

When the Loop resets, he bursts out of the alley and runs through the crowd, grabbing the first mech he can get to, which happens to be Kup. “Kup! Kup, you know me, right?!”

“Ack! Relax there, youngster!” Kup says gruffly, pushing Hot Rod off of him. “What’s gotten into ya?”

“Do you know who I am?!” Hot Rod persists. “Me. Hot Rod. Do you know who I am?”

“Ugh… look, I can’t remember every ‘bot I pass by”, Kup says, again with that pitying look, that “I’m talking to some poor soul with a scrambled brain module”-look. “I’m an old rustbucket and my memory bank’s not what it used to be. I’m real sorry, lad. I barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone-”

“You helped mentor me!” Hot Rod blurts out. “You taught me how to use a rifle! You trained me and- and Springer!”

“Springer?” Kup repeats. His eyes seem to hollow out and Hot Rod almost feels bad. Kup resets his vocalizer and turns away. “I don’t know who you are, but this is a parade. I’m not here to tear up old wounds.”

“But you remember Springer”, Hot Rod says, holding onto Kup’s shoulder plates tight, almost enough to make dents. “How come you don’t remember me? Your worst recruit? Made Ultra Magnus – Ultra Magnus, the biggest workaholic in Cybertronian history – wish for retirement several times over? Nothing?!”

“Nothing”, Kup confirms. The pitying look has gotten even worse and he gently removes Hot Rod’s hands from his shoulders. “You should go see Ratchet, lad. He’s not a head doctor, but maybe he can have a look at ya. Maybe you hit your head-”

“I’m fine!” Hot Rod retorts, slapping Kup’s hands away. “If you won’t listen, then I won’t waste my time on you!” He turns on one heel and runs off. “Arcee!”

Attempt #19

If he sees those planes again, he’s going to explode.

Attempt #20
He sees those planes again.

Attempt #52
And again, and again, and again…

“I’m guessing you were unsuccessful”, Perceptor says as Hot Rod returns.

Eloquent as ever, Hot Rod responds by punching a dent into the wall.

“Save your anger for the Quintessons”, Perceptor reprimands. “It is a waste of energy to take it out on inanimate objects.”

“I know!” Hot Rod hisses, then slumps against the wall he just abused. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll get back out there and try again. Just needed to get away from the Quintessons…”

“Rest and refuel first”, Perceptor says. “It won’t do you any good to go out there like this. Unless you have changed your mind and will let me accompany you?”

“And put both of us at risk?” Hot Rod asks, shaking his head. “No. It’s better if you stay safe. I’ll get someone out soon.”

Attempt #65

“Hey Ratchet, I’m dying.”

“No self-diagnosis, please.”

“I’m being serious. I need you to transform and, uh… give me a shock or something.”

“That’s for resuscitation. But fine, I’ll have a look at you. Where does it hurt? Or do you feel nauseous?”

“It hurts everywhere, my energon is literally boiling, most of my systems are down, apparently, I can’t transform, and yes, I feel nauseous because I am dying of poison.”

“Really? Because your frame’s cold, your t-cog’s not even misaligned, and my scan tells me there is no poison in your system.”

“Ratchet. Just. Trans. Form. Please.”

“If it’s so dang important to you, I can drive you to the hospital.”

“Finally! Thank you so much!”

“After the parade.”

“You’re kidding me!”

Attempt #79

“Hey everybody! I can’t transform! Can anyone here?!”

“… Buddy, you’ll just break your vocalizer if you try to shout over all this noise.”

“But you heard me, random M.T.O.! Well, can you transform?”

“Of course I can.”

“Yeah? Then prove it! Show me!”

“Why don’t you show me that you can’t?”

“I’m proving it right now! Look, I’m not transforming!”

“… Uh huh. Look, weirdo, could you have your… whatever this is somewhere else? We’re trying to enjoy the parade here.”

“The parade isn’t real, you-”

“Look, Optimus is the Grand Marshal!”

“Yeah great, could you transform to show your appreciation? Oh no, here come the planes again…”

Attempt #101

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve brought you here”, Hot Rod says to First Aid, Ambulon, Kaput, and Ratchet.

“Yeah, you-” First Aid starts.

“Too bad, no time!” Hot Rod cuts off. “There’s something wrong with me and Ratchet can’t figure out what. You three lucky transformers have the opportunity to show you can do better!”

“So you still explained it”, First Aid mumbles.

“All you have to do is transform!” Hot Rod says.

“Why would we need to transform to do that?” Ambulon asks.

“That doesn’t make any sense”, Kaput agrees. “We can’t examine you in vehicle mode. Or leg mode, in Ambulon’s case.”

“No arguing!” Hot Rod declares, glancing at the skies. “There’s a dying mech in front of you! Time’s a-wasting!”

The three doctors look at him unimpressed, then turn to their senior.

“Ratchet, did you put him up to this?” Ambulon asks, arms crossed. “Is this a prank?”

“Or some sort of… drill?” First Aid asks.

“I’ve never met this mech before in my life”, Ratchet says bluntly.

“Well, great, ‘cause we’re trying to watch the parade”, Kaput deadpans and turns away.

As Hot Rod tries to get them to come back, the planes fly overhead.

Attempt #122

“Never trust a Decepticon”, that’s what Drift had said. A part of Hot Rod hesitates, stuck on those words, on how betrayal still stings, and makes him think that maybe he doesn’t want a ‘Con on his side during the apocalypse. The larger part of Hot Rod, the one of rebellion and reason, wants to defy Drift and prove him wrong, for what little proving the dead wrong will do. There are no Autobots and Decepticons, just Cybertronians against Quintessons, and Hot Rod needs any help he can get.

Weaving his way through the crowd, he tries to find someone he finds to be reasonable, or at least likable. Unlike many of his friends, he has never had a nemesis (something he’d always been mildly disappointed by), so at least there won’t be any ‘cons with a personal grudge against him. Not one he is aware of, anyways. First he sees Swindle, seemingly selling dubious merchandise to the masses. Yeah, no, Hot Rod doesn’t want to get scammed out of energon during the apocalypse. Second to that, he spots Shadow Striker and Soundwave, standing together and chatting cattily about people. He did mock Soundwave that time he got “caught” by the Decepticons, and Shadow Striker was really frustrated when he evaded her and she hates Bee, he’s a friend of Bee’s, so… maybe not.

“Hey, is that an Autobot?”

Hot Rod blinks in surprise as he’s suddenly grabbed by his foot and hoisted up in the air, dangling upside down. The one who has grabbed him is Alpha Strike with Skywarp at her side, both regarding him like a piece of prey.

“I think it is, Alpha”, Skywarp concurs. “Now how did he get in here?”

“Funny story!” Hot Rod says with a nervous laugh. “I’d love to tell it if you would both transform!”

“Better yet”, Skywarp smirks, “How about Alpha and I play a game of ‘who can beat the information out of the Autobot on how he escaped his cell’?”

For once, he feels relieved when he sees those planes flying overhead.

Attempt #123

Okay, he thinks, so maybe I should’ve covered the badge. Idiot.

It’s a great day for a parade. The sky is clear blue, the sun is shining, there’s not an Autobot in sight, and Megatron’s the Grand Marshal, which means he’s in a good mood and won’t start yelling at anyone any time soon. Or kill another member of high command. And the music is nice! All in all, today’s shaping up to be a good day for Clobber. Now if only she could find Lockdown in this crowd. She doesn’t want to spend the parade next to someone like Soundwave, or any of the top lieutenants, really. Though who knows, maybe they’ll be nice on a day like this?

… She’s not about to try her luck. Healthier not to, both physically and mentally.

Making her way through the crowd is easy enough, what with her size and strength, and she apologizes half-heartedly to the comrades she pushes aside. Soon enough, she spots Lockdown on the other side of the street, stepping on Dead End’s foot. She grins and raises her hand to wave him over when she feels a hand grab her shoulder. Tensing, worried that she’s pissed off the wrong Decepticon, she reluctantly turns to face whoever grabbed her. “Look, I said I was-”

The face she’s met with is entirely unfamiliar to her. Sort of. For some reason, she feels like there’s some memory gnawing at her circuits of this mech, but she can’t put her claw on it, as if it’s always just out of reach as soon as she’s about to grasp it. Must be her imagination. She’s sure she would remember a mech with flames on his chest.

“This isn’t real”, the mech says, gripping both her shoulders tightly. He needs to stand tip-toe to do so, which makes him look a lot less intimidating. It would also detract from any of that authority in his voice if it weren’t for his intense, tired eyes that all but make up for the difference in size between them. “You need to transform.”

Clobber blinks twice, says “okay”, and does as she’s told. It’s what she’s good for, right? She may be Megatron’s most worthless foot soldier, but following orders without question is something she excels at, and it is something that is highly desirable among the Decepticons. She did not, however, expect to wake up in some kind of nightmare place that puts Shockwave’s lab to shame as a result of obeying the little mech.

Good thing there is no one’s around to hear her yelp. No one conscious, she should say. Everyone else there is standing stiff as statues with these gross masks on their faces, a cable connected to them and some machine above them. Judging from the mask that is now dangling from a cord in front of her, she had been the same until a few seconds ago. Until that weird little mech ordered her to transform. She frowns and edges forward slightly, still in her tank mode since it’s quieter. She can’t really spot Lockdown anywhere among the rows and rows of mechs, but she does spot, to her surprise, mechs with Autobot symbols on them. Not some kind of punishment for Decepticons, then, unless the Autobots decided to start imprisoning their own too. Maybe Shockwave came back from the dead and wanted revenge on them all for the whole Allspark thing? That would be his style.

A parade isn’t like him, though. No, he’d make it something miserable, like… a science conference or something. There is also just not enough purple around for it to be Shockwave’s handiwork, for that matter. So it probably isn’t Shockwave and he’s still wherever Wheeljack buried him. That would mean that there is someone else that’s doing this, which is… honestly comforting. Anything is better than having to become Shockwave’s lab rat again.

Clobber keeps cruising ahead, weaving between the rows cautiously as she searches for Lockdown and an exit. It takes her a while and she bumps into a few mechs along the way on accident, but she finds him, right next to Thrust. She transforms and tries shaking Lockdown by his shoulders. “Hey! Lockdown! You gotta wake up!”

No response. Lockdown just stands there with that ugly mask on his face.

“Hello?” Clobber says, knocking on his head. “Can you hear me in there? What did that mech say again… oh right, transform!”

Still no response. Now she’s getting frustrated. She tries to remove the mask, but it’s really stuck there, so she charges up her fist, digs her heels in the ground, and gets ready to shatter the damn thing.

“Don’t!”

The half-shout freezes her in place mid-punch, just about to connect with Lockdown’s face. Her fist powers down and she looks in the direction of the voice, one arm still raised and ready to finish what she set out to do. What she sees is the odd little mech from the parade, the one that had told her to transform, except now she remembers him. She doesn’t know why she didn’t before, but she recognizes his face and the flames. It’s the Autobot she and Lockdown captured back on Earth, the one that escaped the Decepticon fleet while treating it all like a big joke. He’s got a new paintjob, though. Rather than the bright red, orange and yellow that screamed “look at me!”, he is now black with red and yellow accents. Oh, and those flames on his chest, of course. Weird. Changing paint, even changing your frame, is far from unheard of, but she had not expected a mech like him to choose such a dreary color. Maybe he has had a change of…

… Wait. Wait, he’s an Autobot. “I don’t take orders from Autobots!”

“You can’t take his mask off like that”, the Autobot insists. What was his name again? And what has happened to his voice? “It’s bad. Believe me, you don’t want to see what it’ll do to him. Just step away, and let’s get out of here.”

“And just leave him here?” Clobber huffs.

“… Yeah”, the Autobot scrapes out. “I’ll help you get him out properly later, just not now, not like that. I got you out, didn’t I? Please. Trust me.”

Trust. That comes in short supply, in her experience. She knows for a fact that the Autobots – this Autobot in particular, in fact – would have been better off if he hadn’t been so trusting. Yet here he is, an earnest and desperate look in his dimming optics. Slowly, she lets go of Lockdown and lowers her arm. “This isn’t an Autobot trap, is it?”

“If it was, why would I break you out?” the Autobot asks.

She stops to think for a moment. “To… lure me into another trap?”

“Clobber, I promise I’m not luring you into a trap”, the Autobot says, beckoning for her to follow. “Now come with me.”

“You remember my name!” Clobber says, so pleased she hardly notices that she falls into step with him. Pleased and a little awkward, since she still can’t remember his name.

The little Autobot gives her a side-glance. Man, he looks tired. And like he’s in pain. Actually, a strong wind looks like it could knock him over, which is bad when you’re a twenty-foot tall machine of living metal. At least if he turns on her, she’ll be able to swat him easily. “Yeah, of course I do. You captured me once, remember? Anyway, let’s just be quiet until we’re out of here, okay? We don’t want the Quintessons to wake up. Uh, best if you transform again. Quieter and quicker that way.”

As always, she follows orders.

It’s only once Clobber and the Autobot have escaped the creepy tower belonging to those “Quintessons” and they have gotten about five blocks away from it that three things occur to Clobber in rapid succession.

One, “Hot Rod! Your name’s Hot Rod! I finally got it!”

Two, “Hey, you’re a speedster, why don’t you transform now that we’re out?”

And three, “Wait, didn’t you die?”

The little Autobot seems displeased with all three. “You didn’t remember…? Okay… Look, I didn’t transform because I can’t. And obviously I didn’t die.”

Can’t argue with that last part. The second part, though… “Sure you can. I saw it when you escaped back on the Nemesis!”

“I mean my t-cog’s damaged”, Hot Rod says, jabbing a finger at his chest plate. Even Clobber knows that’s not where the t-cog is.

“That’s not good”, Clobber says.

After about five solid seconds of staring at her with a slight frown, Hot Rod deadpans, “Yeah. It isn’t.” Weird, he looks like he wants to be mad, but it also seems like he’s stifling a laugh. The corners of his lips almost twitch into a smile and he quickly turns away, resetting his vocalizer gruffly. “Anyway, let’s get to the base. You look like you need to refuel.”

She’s not about to say no to that. In fact, now that he mentions it, she feels horribly drained and her spark pulses weakly in its chamber. Maybe he has an Autobot doctor that could have a look at her? Ambulon was always decent to her back when he was still with the Decepticons. Guess she will see when they get to “the base”. Hot Rod leads her through Iacon’s broken streets into a tall building that looks, compared to the rest of the city, fairly well-preserved. Nice, almost. It’s dark in there, heavily fortified, no holes in the ceiling, and most importantly, it doesn’t look like an Autobot prison.

“Percy, you left the lights off”, Hot Rod calls out as they walk through the final door, which opens up to what looks like barracks turned into a computer lab.

“My apologies”, an Autobot she immediately knows the name of says. Perceptor, one of the Autobot scientists. Supposed to be the smartest Autobot alive. Might be the smartest mech period, now that Shockwave’s gone. Not that Clobber is a good judge of that, anyhow. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Blind jokes”, Hot Rod says and turns on the lights in the makeshift computer lab. “I get it.” He jumps up on the table next to Perceptor’s computer and gestures to Clobber like he has just performed a mediocre magic trick. “Hey, look, I finally got someone out.”

"Look"? Is he doing that on purpose?

“So I hear”, Perceptor replies. He does not turn away from the computer he’s working on. “Clobber, I’m guessing?”

Clobber widens her optic. “How’d you know?”

“You have rather distinct footsteps.”

“Oh.”

“And because you were my prison guard just before the Allspark was restored.”

“… Oh, right. Was hoping you didn’t know that… Uh, no hard feelings?”

“None.” She’s not sure she believes that. “Has Hot Rod briefed you on the situation?”

“There are evil squids that are keeping everyone in a dream parade”, Clobber says, reciting Hot Rod’s words from memory. “And the only way to get them out is to get into the parade and convince them to transform.” She taps her claw on her chin in thought, then turns to Hot Rod. “Good thing you weren’t caught in the parade, huh? ‘Cause you can’t transform.”

It is a rather pained pause that follows as Hot Rod’s tired face falls. “Right. Hadn’t thought of that.”

“You hadn’t?” Perceptor asks.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind”, Hot Rod huffs. “Like ‘don’t get caught by the Quintessons’. Not ‘what will happen if I do get caught by the Quintessons’. We can’t all have the same foresight that you’ve got, Perceptor.”

“Evidently, Clobber does”, Perceptor remarks, still typing away at that computer. It must have some sort of sensor-based data transfer in its keyboard, unless he just likes looking like he is doing something very important. “You need to be careful. Clobber and I can be broken out again. If you get caught-”

“I get the picture”, Hot Rod cuts off with a bitter growl and jumps down from the table. “You two geniuses can swap thesises. I’m gonna get some energon.”

“Theses”, Perceptor corrects.

“Could you get some for me too?” Clobber asks.

“No”, Hot Rod retorts, probably wishing he could slam the door behind him.

“He means yes”, Perceptor says when Hot Rod has left the room. “Don’t mind him. He is not equipped to deal with stress at the moment. Have a seat. I need to run some tests on you.”

Oh, no. Clobber grimaces and reluctantly sits down, bracing herself for whatever horrible science weapon thing Perceptor wants to try out on her. Instead, his scope raises over his shoulder and scans her, putting the results into the computer.

“It is done”, Perceptor says. “Thank you.”

“Uh… you’re welcome?” Clobber replies, waiting for something awful to happen to her. Nothing. Perceptor just keeps typing at the computer. She resets her vocalizer. “What was that for?”

Oddly enough, Perceptor seems pleased to be asked a question, or at least doesn’t mind it. “I need to understand how the Loop has affected you and how it is affecting others. Previous data indicates that the Quintessons are draining our friends’ sparks, but I want to make sure I have not jumped to any conclusions. Especially given the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the other data.” He tilts his head in her direction. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good”, Clobber says. “A little tired, but I just need to refuel. Oh, and my spark hurts a bit? But it’s getting better. And, uh…” She shifts uncomfortably and looks away, finding herself glad that there aren’t any windows. Seeing the outside would just make her feel worse. “… I didn’t want to leave Lockdown behind. Can we get him out now? Hot Rod said we’d get him out ‘properly’.”

“That will be up to you and Hot Rod”, Perceptor says.

“Just us?”

“I am not a fighter. I would not be much help out there.”

“No, no, I get that, just… is this all of us?” She swivels her head around to survey the room, as if a few more mechs will pop out of the floor if she looks hard enough. “Are we really the only ones that aren’t in the parade?”

“Unlikely”, Perceptor says. “There are possibly others on Cybertron that have yet to be caught, but in Iacon, forming any kind of resistance against the Quintessons? Yes, it is just the three of us.”

“Oh.” The room seems emptier now. “That’s bad.”

“Yes”, Perceptor agrees. “It is.”

At this point, Hot Rod returns with the energon, handing one cube over to Clobber along with a hastily mumbled apology. She accepts both, of course, and the three of them refuel in silence while Clobber struggles to comprehend what, exactly, is going on.

The trio quickly fall into a routine. Perceptor sits by his computer and figures things out, doing smart guy stuff, and Hot Rod and Clobber go out on missions. They take turns watching for Quintessons while the other hacks into the Loop, standing at the ready should they actually succeed in getting someone out. It’s been three days and so far, neither of them have been successful in their attempts.

Judging from the look on Hot Rod’s face as he removes the cortical psychic patch from his neck, their tally of failures has risen yet again.

“How’d it go?” Clobber still asks. You never know, maybe facial paralysis has joined Hot Rod’s many medical problems.

“They won’t listen to me”, Hot Rod vents out, rubbing at his optics. “They don’t even remember me. Not even Bee.”

“I also didn’t recognize you when I was in the Loop”, Clobber says and pats his shoulder. “They’re gonna remember when we get them out.”

“Except you didn’t remember me once you were out of the Loop either”, Hot Rod remarks dryly.

“No, no, it just took me a while to remember your name, that’s all”, Clobber insists. “Didn’t have much of a reason to memorize it before. You’re not anyone’s rival or anyone scary.”

Hot Rod raises an optical ridge. “You mean the Decepticons don’t whisper the name ‘Hot Rod’ with fear in their sparks?” He wiggles his fingers for spooky emphasis.

Clobber brings a claw to her chin in thought, then shrugs. “Not really. Usually just when they’re irritated.”

“Yes!” Hot Rod says in mock triumph and pumps a half-hearted fist in the air. “Just how I want to go down in history: ‘The Decepticons’ Greatest Annoyance’.”

“I think Starscream might have beat you to that”, Clobber says apologetically.

To her surprise, Hot Rod lets out a burst of laughter. He immediately slaps a hand over his own mouth to muffle it, but she can see him smiling under there still. Come to think of it, this is the first time she’s heard him laugh since getting out of the Loop. “Scrap, you’re right. Guess I’ll have to settle for second place. Don’t think I’ve ever got that before.” He shakes his head. “Come on, we’ve been in one place too long. Let’s head back to base.”

Clobber nods and transforms. Something occurs to her as she sees Hot Rod start dragging his legs after him. “Do you want to hitch a ride?”

“What, with you?” Hot Rod frowns. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But it always takes so long like this”, Clobber says, gesturing with her cannon. “And you get like, in a real bad mood the longer it takes, and I just get bored of going this slow. We’d get back home to safety fast, too.”

“I guess”, Hot Rod admits, still frowning. “We’ve already been here like six hours…”

It’s been two hours. Clobber decides not to point this out – Hot Rod will just get confused with his malfunctioning chronometer again, and if his inability to tell how much time has actually passed will help convince him, then it’s not worth mentioning to him.

“… Fine”, he sighs eventually. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, you don’t weigh anything to me”, Clobber says as he climbs onboard. “Won’t make a difference at all.”

“Is that a jab at my frame? It’s not that scrawny.”

“No, I’m just that strong.”

Another laugh, this one a brief snort. “You know, once all of this is over, you should arm-wrestle with Arcee and Grimlock. We can turn it into a whole tournament at Maccadam’s or something.”

“I don’t know”, Clobber says, turning a corner to get off the streets for a bit. “We weren’t on good terms when the war ended, before all this happened. Nobody from opposite sides really wanted anything to do with each other.”

“Well, that’s gonna have to change”, Hot Rod says decisively. “We’re saving everyone. They’ll get over themselves.”

Chapter Text

“… so you have to deactivate cards in order to play cards with energon symbols on them, but some cards, like the Immortal Spark card, you can just keep deactivating without it being removed, and the cards that can trump other cards can only be played as many times as the number next to their spark. Got it?”

Frowning so deeply that his face plates may become permanently dented and his optics so focused on being focused that he has likely forgotten what he’s supposed to be focused on, Hot Rod glances away from the hard-light holo-cards that they had found in their hideout and up at Clobber where she sits across from him on the floor. “… Maybe half of it.”

“That’s okay”, Clobber shrugs with an unperturbed grin. It’s nice to be the one who gets to explain things for once. Makes her feel more like the smart one. “It took a while before Lockdown managed to teach me the rules.”

“Yeah, well, let’s not spend another four hours talking about rules”, Hot Rod says.

“It has been twenty-two minutes”, Perceptor informs him.

“Same thing”, Hot Rod grumbles, then quickly shakes his head and straightens his back. “How about we just start playing? I’m more of an… on-the-go learner.”

“A kinesthetic learner”, Perceptor says with a little rise in his voice, like he’s offering a helpful supplement to Hot Rod’s sentence. “I suggest you get on with your game now. One hour is what we agreed upon, and you only have forty-five minutes left now.”

“So like… eight hours for Hot Rod?” Clobber asks.

“Exactly”, Hot Rod says only somewhat sarcastically and looks to his cards. “So let’s play while we have time.”

“Okay!” Clobber says, lays her first cards down, and the game is on.

It is a bit of an uphill struggle for Hot Rod to fully grasp how the game works, but he wasn’t lying about learning as he goes. After about the second round, Clobber winning both times, he gets a good enough hang of it. And he stops looking mildly disturbed at the card animations that occur when a card is terminated.

“A previous version of the Immolation card game included voice clips of cards begging for mercy when sacrificed”, Perceptor comments when they start their third round.

“Are you browsing Witwiki right now?” Hot Rod half-smiles. “I thought you said you had work to do.”

“I can work and browse Witwiki at the same time”, Perceptor simply replies.

“Lockdown did have a deck like that”, Clobber says.

“Really?” Hot Rod asks, back to looking mildly disturbed. His hand hovers over a cassette card he was probably about to deactivate, hesitating as if worried that it will start screaming at him.

“Yeah, but we never used it, it made us feel too bad. Lockdown’s hook would start shaking whenever he tried to deactivate a singlehorn card, and that’s just with the silent cards.”

“Why play it, then? There’s gotta be other card games.” Hot Rod finally presses his index finger to the cassette and deactivates it, making a great effort to ignore its death animation before the card vanishes into pixels and is replaced with an Onyx Knight.

“It’s still fun. Lockdown just gets all mushy over singlehorns. Oh, and turbofoxes, too.” She puts a turbofox card down and terminates another of Hot Rod’s cassettes. “But it’s also because Immolation is the only card game that doesn’t have a Prime in the deck, so it’s the only one we could play ever since Megatron banned anything with Primes in them.”

Hot Rod rolls his optics. “Of course he did.” While he considers his next move, he glances up at Clobber, only slightly cross with his current predicament. “Were you like a card game champion before the war or something?”

“I can barely ever win against Lockdown”, Clobber replies, shaking her head. “I think you’re just making a lot of dumb moves.”

“Hey.”

“He is”, Perceptor concurs.

“Hey!”

“I was just a miner”, Clobber continues and helpfully draws Hot Rod’s attention to the hazard stripes on her wrists. “See?”

“I see”, Hot Rod nods with a slight twitch of his optical ridges, his indignity replaced with curiosity. “Did you know Lockdown from your miner days?”

“Kind of. We’re both from Kaon, but he wasn’t a miner, he was in construction. We met sometimes at the bar that me and my old mining buds always went to. We didn’t really become friends until we both joined up with the Decepticons, when we could hang out more. Before that we’d mostly complain about work.” She tilts her head back slightly, looking past the ceiling. “I guess things didn’t change that much for us when the war started? Just with more fighting.”

Hot Rod frowns and idly waggles his cards. “Do you like being a Decepticon?”

Her first instinct, which may be her survival instinct, is to say “Yes”, so she does. Then she pauses to actually think about her answer, once she remembers that neither Perceptor nor Hot Rod are inclined to punish her for saying anything different, and she slowly says: “… No, I guess I don’t. But I didn’t like being a miner either. I like wrecking stuff, and I get to wreck stuff with the Decepticons, and Lockdown’s there, so it’s better. It’s sort of like any other job, you know, it’s just how it is for people like me.” Noticing that Hot Rod has yet to make a move, she gestures to the deck. “You can draw a card.”

“That shouldn’t- Oh, right, thanks.” He does so without really checking what he got and keeps frowning, though this time he looks almost saddened rather than angry. Well, he’s angry too, he usually is, but it’s not directed at Clobber, she knows that much. “That shouldn’t be how it is.”

“Would be nice if it wasn’t”, Clobber agrees. “I figured it would be once the war was over.”

“Was it?”

“Not really.”

“Hm.” Hot Rod finally looks at what he’s got and appears all the more displeased, both with Clobber’s answer and with his hand. “This whole end of the war thing hasn’t really been anything like I imagined.”

“I don’t think anyone imagined the squids to be part of it”, Clobber says.

“That too”, Hot Rod sighs, terminates one of his cards, and replaces it with an insecticon card, ending his turn.

As they continue their game, silence falls over them save for the sounds of Perceptor typing and the deck humming as it generates the hard-light holograms. Whenever their temporary home goes quiet like this, Clobber almost feels like she’s back in the mines. The ceiling appears heavy and brittle, and the walls seem close in around them. Always makes it feel like the place could come crashing down upon the three of them at any minute. It forces them to become intensely aware of their situation. Or maybe they just forget to forget what is going on outside when there is little to distract them. It’s a familiar feeling by now, so Clobber can handle this silence, as can Perceptor.

Hot Rod, however, decidedly cannot. At all.

“Alright, new question”, Hot Rod blurts out soon after Clobber wins their third round of Immolation. His voice isn’t really that loud, but in the now-broken silence, it sounds glass-shattering. “Same thing I asked the others back on the Ark. Sort of the same…” He resets his vocalizer and makes a wide, sweeping motion with his right arm to the rest of the room, likely to the rest of Cybertron. “Let’s say there are no Mr. Squiggles around, just sunny skies and smiling faces or whatever, perfect peace. What are you gonna do?”

“Is this a verbal game of ‘choose your own adventure’”, Perceptor asks, “or do you mean what our plans for a post-war future on Cybertron are?”

“Yes”, Hot Rod says. He blinks, shakes his head, and corrects, “Wait, no, I meant the second thing.”

Perceptor stops typing for a moment. “Long term or short term?”

“Yes”, Hot Rod says again, this time with a brief smirk.

“That’s a big question”, Clobber remarks. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“You must have thought about it at least a little”, Hot Rod says. “There must be tons of things you want to do.”

“I don’t know…” Clobber says uncertainly, scratching the back of her neck. “Usually when I was picturing about that sort of thing, us Decepticons had destroyed the Autobots, and that’s not gonna happen. Obviously. And I don’t think I want that now.”

“Thanks for sparing us in your mental image of the future, Clobber”, Hot Rod says with a snort.

“You’re welcome!” Clobber replies and returns to humming in thought. “Uh… I guess Lockdown would be taking care of his souvenir collection, maybe find something new to collect since we won’t have missions anymore? He doesn’t like traveling much, so he’ll probably get a place here in Iacon and stay put if he can. Maybe he’ll start doing interior design like he said he would…”

Tilting his head to the side, Hot Rod frowns at her. “Okay, but that’s Lockdown. What about you?”

“Uh.” Clobber shifts and fidgets with the deck. “I don’t really know. There’ll probably be someone to tell me what to do. I guess I won’t be a miner again, so there’s that?” She shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t thought about it. What about you two?”

Hot Rod opens his mouth as if he was about to say something but he stops himself when Clobber turns the question on him and closes it again, setting his jaw. While Hot Rod appears lost in thought, Perceptor speaks up. “I intend to study more of chemistry and metallurgy, as I find they’re sciences I have not familiarized myself enough with, as my areas of expertise are physics and astronomy. My new lab will be set up here in Iacon. This building should suffice, with a few renovations.”

“Maybe Lockdown could help with that”, Clobber suggests.

“Maybe”, Perceptor says. It’s difficult to tell if he’s genuinely open to that idea or not. “Beyond that, I imagine I will have to get my optics cleaned up, which I have been putting off. I may also look into ways to alter my alt mode so that I can still move in it. Though I have no desire to be a speedster or anything of that ilk, being able to move around the lab without having to transform would be convenient if nothing else. In the long-term, I have ninety-six projects I would like to pursue when I will finally have the time, and hopefully the funding, to do so. Between those, I will be picking up a hobby and/or part-time job to keep myself busy without overworking myself.”

Somewhat wide-eyed and completely knocked out of whatever he was thinking about, Hot Rod raises his optical ridges at Perceptor and then glances at Clobber out of the corner of his optic conspiratorially. “I think he’s trying to one-up you.”

Though she’s fairly certain that he’s joking, Clobber squints at Hot Rod. “Is he?”

“Definitely”, Hot Rod says, nodding sagely. Yeah, he’s joking. “You’re gonna have to come up with a hundred year plan to retaliate.”

“It’s a millennium long plan, actually”, Perceptor informs them and starts typing again.

“Wow”, is all Hot Rod can say to that.

“I don’t know if I can beat that”, Clobber says.

“Me either”, Hot Rod concurs, shaking his head.

“Hmm.” Is that Perceptor being annoyed or bemused? “And you, Hot Rod? You have one minute and seventeen seconds to answer.”

“Huh. That’s not a lot of time.”

“Now you have one minute and-”

“Yeah, okay, I get it.” Hot Rod lowers his gaze to the blackened metal of his frame and his optics grow distant. “… I’d get a new paintjob, for starters, and then I’d just wing it from there. Could still go racing in the Lithium Flats, I don’t know.” He stops abruptly, seeming almost a bit embarrassed by the shallow contents of his future.

“That’s almost as short as my answer”, Clobber remarks, honestly a little surprised. “So you haven’t thought about it much either?”

“I thought I had”, Hot Rod says a little defensively. He frowns and murmurs in an aside, “I thought I had thought?” He shakes his head rapidly and waves his hand in dismissal of his poor choice of words. “I said I’d wing it, though, which technically means I’ve thought out the rest of my life, so really I think I win.”

“I don’t think that counts”, Clobber says, squinting at him again. If she could arch an optical ridge, she would.

“It totally counts”, Hot Rod insists.

“You may discuss this later”, Perceptor says. “Your time is up.”

“Right.” The two stand up, Clobber places the deck on the desk next to Perceptor’s computer, Hot Rod stretches his mildly malfunctioning legs, and they head back out into the ruined streets of Iacon, where Clobber transforms and Hot Rod climbs aboard.

They are supposed to be on high alert whenever they go outside, yet Clobber finds herself still thinking about the past and that imagined future, specifically about Lockdown. When she pictured her best friend earlier, she keeps seeing that gross Quintesson mask on his face, no matter what memory she revisits or what she imagines. Even now, as she tries again, that mask is still there.

She swivels her cannon from side to side, watching the alleyways warily. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it? “Hey, Hot Rod?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the skies.

“I know I owe you one, but can I try again with the Loop?” Clobber ventures.

“Go ahead”, Hot Rod says without so much as a pause.

“You sure?” Clobber asks.

“I’m sure”, Hot Rod confirms. “It’s not like I… I mean, I’ve already tried way more times than you have, so it’s only fair. And I get a break from that nightmare parade, so win-win, really.”

“Okay”, Clobber says and would grin if she could. “Thanks, Hot Rod. Guess I’ll owe you three now.”

“Eh, this doesn’t count.”

Some way, somehow, Maccadam’s looks almost exactly the same as it did before the war. Its lighting is worse, granted, and the glass on the doors is broken, and the only patrons inside are the lonely little resistance group consisting of two Autobots and two Decepticons, but other than that, it hasn’t changed. Maccadam himself seems to be as unaffected by the war and invasion as his bar, what with that perpetual grin plastered on his face as he serves engex to Clobber. Honestly, Dead End never liked Maccadam much. Sure, Maccadam’s the mech everyone likes, but what can he say? He’s never been a fan of smilers. Especially if they never stop smiling.

And yet, he thinks to himself as he watches Hot Rod pace back and forth in the bar with a grim expression, I still don’t count myself lucky with the two Autobots I got.

“Sit down, Hot Rod”, Perceptor tells the pacing mech. “I need to have a look at your wound.”

“Can’t I just melt it together with my flames?” Hot Rod asks.

Perceptor stares ahead of himself in unimpressed silence. “Were these normal circumstances, I would tell you that your frame is extraordinarily resistant to heat and would not be affected by your flamethrowers. Since these are not normal circumstances, I will remind you that the toxin in your energon has made it far more volatile, as has the boiling temperature your systems are keeping it at. Exposing your energon to open flames could trigger a dangerous chain reaction.”

“Uh huh”, Hot Rod says in that annoying tone of voice that obviously means that he either does not get it at all or that he’s stopped listening but he’s going to pretend that he does understand what Perceptor is saying regardless.

“He’s saying you’re gonna blow up if you try that”, Dead End says.

“Yeah, I got that”, Hot Rod lies through his teeth.

“I didn’t”, Clobber announces.

“Now that we have all ‘got that’”, Perceptor says, “Hot Rod, sit. Down. And let me get to work.”

Hot Rod grumbles something Dead End can’t nor cares to make out and finally sits down, letting Perceptor get to work while Dead End tries to make himself invisible. Unsuccessfully.

“Dead End”, Perceptor says as he takes out what little equipment he has, “come here.”

“Why?” Dead End asks.

“You have optics that still function”, Perceptor replies. Oh, there’s that patronizing tone already. Great. “I do not. Clobber is not trained in any scientific field, much less medical. Hot Rod is bleeding profusely. That leaves you.”

“And you were the one who ran me over and opened it up again”, Hot Rod adds. He’s not letting that go anytime soon, is he.

“Fine”, Dead End grates out. “If it will get you to stop complaining.” In an aside, he mutters, “Never had to work on a bomb that could whine at me before.”

“I don’t whine”, Hot Rod whines.

Dead End briefly considers dignifying that with a reply before he gets to work with Perceptor. Between the two of them, they manage to patch up the stab wound fairly quickly while Hot Rod pretends he’s not there, pointedly staring at anything but them. The patchwork looks decent, once they’re done. Decent enough. For being the work of a blind scientist and a demolitions expert, anyhow. He doesn’t feel any of that magical satisfaction of “saving a life” that he’s heard of, though. Just glad that it’s over and that he doesn’t have to tweak around with Hot Rod’s frame any longer, sitting so close to Perceptor of all people. How long has it been? One good thing about the war is that he has had little to no chance of running into Perceptor, on account of Perceptor mostly being confined to the labs.

Guess that won’t save him anymore.

“Well, that’s done”, Dead End says, puts down his tools, and makes a shooing motion at Hot Rod.

“Thanks”, Hot Rod says, frowning at the patchwork. Has this guy gotten worse since he stopped being all smiley or is this an improvement? Hard to tell just yet. So far, Dead End’s verdict is “still annoying but in a different way”.

“Hot Rod, wanna get some engex now?” Clobber asks, waving for him at the bar.

“More than anything”, Hot Rod says and hops out of the booth to join her.

That… makes things awkward for Dead End. He was about to go sit in a booth with Clobber, leaving Perceptor and Hot Rod to sit on their half of Maccadam’s. Autobots and Decepticons divided, as usual, but Clobber has other plans, apparently. Maybe she’s really buying into this “us” stuff Hot Rod was talking about, so Dead End just sits there, a little dumbfounded. Suppose that leaves him to sit here on his own, then. Fine by him. Preferable, really.

Except Perceptor doesn’t leave the booth either, remaining seated next to Dead End. Likely going over scans in his head or something. Dead End tries not to squirm uncomfortably in his seat, tries to sit as still as possible, and makes an effort to not so much as bend his neck as he glances at Perceptor out of the corner of his optics. There isn’t much to glean from Perceptor’s expression. It hasn’t even changed much from how he looked when he was patching up that living bomb – focused and virtually emotionless with a great disinterest in Dead End’s general existence. Great. Seems they will simply ignore each other until it’s too inconvenient.

Dead End would prefer to do so while they aren’t sitting right next to each other, though, so after about three solid minutes of stubborn silence, he excuses himself (why did he do that? He should have just gotten up without a word) and heads for the bar, making a point to stand beside Clobber rather than Hot Rod. The two are too engrossed in their conversation to notice him. Though he would rather ignore them as he asks Maccadam for a much needed mug of engex, he can’t help but listen in. Probably best to make sure the Autobot isn’t filling Clobber’s head with too much nonsense, anyway.

“… which reminds me, what was that you said earlier at the lab?” Hot Rod is saying in faux nonchalance before he continues, genuinely concerned, “Shockwave did what to you?”

“He wanted to check if it worked”, Clobber says simply while Maccadam slides a mug of engex over to Dead End. “The… the, uh… I forget what he called it. The experiment-thingy. It needed testing, so he used me for it.” She frowns at him with her one optic. “Were you never taken to be Wheeljack’s test subject?”

“No?!” Hot Rod replies, growing visibly more distressed and possibly more likely to punch something. Dead End inches further away from him. “Taken to- Clobber, did you not have a choice?”

“I don’t think so?” Clobber ponders. “Never really asked, though, so maybe I did? I don’t know. Shockwave needed someone to experiment on, so he usually got me for it. How did you avoid it?”

“Wheeljack doesn’t experiment on people”, Perceptor chimes in from his booth. “He tests his inventions on himself and his lab. It has resulted in many fires.”

“Huh… Maybe it was just Shockwave, then.” Noticing Dead End at last, Clobber turns to him inquisitively. “Hey, Dead End, did Shockwave ever take you to the lab?”

“No”, Dead End says and takes a swig of his engex. “Barely ever met him, and then he went to Earth, and then he died.”

“Shockwave’s dead?” Hot Rod asks, optical ridges raised.

“Yeah? Where have you…” Dead End trails off, seeing Hot Rod just stare at him with those dimming optics and scorched frame of his. “… Nevermind.”

“Uh huh.” Hot Rod looks back to Clobber, kneading the bar with his knuckles restlessly. “Do you want to wreck Shockwave’s lab once all this is over?”

Clobber’s face brightens in an instant at the prospect of indulging in a bit of wanton destruction. “Yeah! Could we wreck it from outside, though? I really don’t like being in that place.”

“You’re assuming this is ever gonna be over”, Dead End snorts.

“It is”, Hot Rod scowls.

“With the four of us against an army of those things?” Dead End asks.

“That’s why we’re getting people out of the Loop”, Clobber explains. “And I got you out, so it’s working! I wasn’t trying to get you out, though, that was kind of an accident.”

“Thanks, I know”, Dead End replies dryly. Leave it to Clobber to be brutally earnest. “What about Hot Shot? How many has he gotten out?”

“Hot Rod”, Hot Rod hisses with his teeth clenched together hard enough that Dead End can hear the pistons squeak. Seems that touched a nerve. “Just Clobber. We’re just gonna… we have to do something.”

“And what is it we ‘have’ to do, fearless leader?” Dead End asks.

The only response he gets is Hot Rod’s scathing glare.

“Yeah, like I said: Good luck with that”, Dead End says.

“You spent millennia fighting a war you would ultimately lose, Dead End”, Perceptor comments, not even looking in Dead End’s direction. “I’m sure you can spend some time working towards a worthy goal, regardless of the odds.” Inclining his head towards the bar, Perceptor then adds, “No offense to you, Clobber.”

“None taken”, Clobber replies casually.

A lot of things irritate Dead End, as do a lot of people. Not a lot of things, especially not a lot of people, can actually get Dead End to practically bristle with something akin to indignity. Of course, Perceptor would unabashedly proclaim that he is not like a lot of people, and Dead End would agree with that assessment, though in a far less congratulatory manner. To add to his frustration, Hot Rod loses that mopey look and gains a horribly smug grin in its stead that he triumphantly directs at Dead End.

Initially, Dead End thinks of just responding the obvious “go to hell” or perhaps a simple “frag off”, but he settles for a shrug with one shoulder and keeps his optics on his mug of engex. “At least Megatron had a plan. Come up with one, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Megatron had plans?” Hot Rod scoffs, though at least he stops grinning.

“We do”, Perceptor says to both of them. “We will continue to act according to it until we discover a better way.”

“Yeah, maybe later”, Hot Rod says, almost grumbles. “Right now we’re just staying here.”

“We are?” Clobber asks. “I thought you said we were gonna test the second patch.”

“I changed my mind”, Hot Rod mutters.

There’s a slight narrowing of Perceptor’s broken optics. He didn’t like that “maybe”. “We have been here long enough. The Quintessons should have given up by now. Unless you only mean to finish your drink first?”

“Sure”, Hot Rod says rather unconvincingly. His mug of engex remains untouched.

Perceptor doesn’t reply to that, furrowing his optical ridges and becoming absorbed in his scans once more with an air of disapproval about him. Likely sharing Dead End’s doubts now. If only because Perceptor can’t see it, Dead End spares him a quick glance. For what little it’s worth, he does at the very least trust that Perceptor knows what he’s doing. The same can’t be said for the other two, one of which seems to be slipping into a half-conscious state of self-indulgent malaise and the other being… well, Clobber. Better than the former, but still not exactly filling Dead End with a lot of confidence.

“Aw scrap, we left the Immolation deck back at home”, Clobber suddenly blurts out, apropos of seemingly nothing, and waves her claw at Maccadam. “Do you have any card decks here?”

“I do in fact have one”, Maccadam says. “It’s Primedom, not Immolation, though, and that won’t do.”

“Yeah”, Clobber sighs, disappointed. “I don’t want to get punished if Megatron finds out.”

“He can’t punish people over card games”, Hot Rod says. “Ban or not, that can’t actually be a thing.”

“I’m not gonna find out if it is”, Clobber replies.

“Primedom was banned on Caminus for depicting the Primes in a fashion that was not abstract enough”, Perceptor says automatically.

“Are you still on Witwiki?” Clobber asks.

“No, I got curious earlier when you mentioned the ban”, Perceptor says. “There was a link to a list of banned card games on Witwiki. It is a surprisingly long list.”

“I’m sure you could give us the whole list since you’ll be staying here”, Maccadam chuckles, much to Hot Rod’s visible chagrin, and dives under the bar to retrieve a cube from behind it, offering it to Clobber. “Will this do?”

At first, she just narrows her optic at it in contemplation, then she grins, accepts it, says “Yeah, it’ll do”, and hops off the stool to sit down on the floor and just… attempt to balance it on its side. Might be for the best. If Clobber used it for its intended purpose of tossing it about, Maccadam’s would end up with a lot more broken tables.

Which also leaves Dead End next to the now-mopey Hot Rod and by the perpetually smiling Maccadam, with Perceptor radiating dissent in his booth.

What a fun crew.

Whirl has never known peace, and that is a literal statement, not some attempt at poetry like that stuff Sky-Byte croons about. They were forged during the war sometime about two thousand years ago which, in the grand scale of the war, would be called the Great War’s “death throes”. According to Glyph, Whirl wasn’t supposed to have “woken up” when they did. Glyph and Lightspeed had collected sparks from the Well of the Allspark to ensure the sparks wouldn’t perish alongside Cybertron after Optimus Prime threw the Allspark through that space-bridge. The sparks were put on a refugee ship where they were kept in stasis and were supposed to remain that way until the war ended.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. The ship got tracked down by Decepticons after staying hidden for ages, the Decepticons were thwarted by an Autobot ship that had been tracking the Decepticons, and after the ‘cons were sent running or destroyed, the Autobots laid claim to Glyph and Lightspeed’s ship. Or so Glyph said. Lancer said that the ship was boarded and, upon seeing the sparks being preserved, she convinced Glyph and Lightspeed of the necessity for new soldiers to combat the tyranny of the Decepticons. Using the recent attack on their ship as an example, of course. Lightspeed has never had much to say about it. Mostly because, whenever Whirl asks him about that day, he is rendered mute.

It doesn’t really matter how all that occurred. Either way, that is how Whirl was born not just with a gun in their hand, but with a gun for a hand. Being a soldier just sort of came naturally to them from there under Lancer and Kup’s tutelage, which is probably how they even managed to live long enough to actually see the end of the war. The same can’t be said for… well, the point is, they know how to live in war. Peace has been far more difficult to get the hang of. Seeing Decepticon badges and not shooting them, rebuilding a city rather than a camp, going days without a single fight, people asking them where they will make their home, that has all been alien to Whirl. Not that everybody else seems to be any good at peace either, but most of the others are picking up where they left off before the war started. Trying to, at least. Even others that were made during the war seem to have some inkling of what to do, how to act. Whirl appears to simply be the aberration in this hard-earned peace.

In that sense, being shunted out of the parade and finding themself in a seemingly apocalyptic version of Iacon filled with monsters feels much more familiar. It still frightens them and sends them flying away to try to find some kind of safety, but their purpose and goal are clear. They have clear bad guys to shoot and run away from.

Thing is, though, they usually have someone to tell them where and who to shoot, so it is lucky that they find survivors so soon. Twice as many survivors than they expected, too (two is double of zero, right?), though both of them are definitely not what Whirl would expect.

So, once Whirl has shot down the monsters, it is with great urgency that Whirl leans in close to Hot Rod, raising their gun-arm to the side of their face as if to shield their nonexistent lips from being read, and points with their claw at the other survivor. “Hot Rod”, they whisper loudly, “you’ve got a Decepticon, right – behind – you!”

“Yeah, I’m aware”, Hot Rod whispers back. “That’s Clobber. We’re friends.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Clobber asks at a slightly lower volume than her normal speaking voice.

“Oh okay”, Whirl says, straightening their back to look Clobber up and down. “Since when?”

“We can explain later”, Hot Rod sighs, ushering for both Whirl and Clobber to follow him. “We’ve gotta get out of here, remember? You said it yourself.”

Monstrous shrieks that are far too close for comfort startle Whirl into instinctively transforming into their alt mode. “Right, yeah, you’re right. Let’s go! Where do we go?”

“To Maccadam’s”, Clobber answers as she, too, transforms. Hot Rod does not, hitching a ride with the Decepticon instead, and they set off for Maccadam’s, or as Whirl knows it, that one bar where a lot of parleys were held.

Weird that Hot Rod isn’t transforming. Weirder still is the fact that Hot Rod is moving about and talking, considering that he’s supposed to be dead. Had a funeral and everything like so many others once Bumblebee stopped trying to find him. It was a Decepticon that had supposedly killed Hot Rod too, so Whirl would think he of all people wouldn’t be buddy-buddy with one, even if it is with a foot soldier like Clobber. He still has an Autobot badge, so his death couldn’t have been an elaborate ruse to defect to the Decepticons. The body of Drift – Deadlock? Who knows what to call him – was never found either, so maybe he and Hot Rod staged the whole thing to elope. Unless that’s just a thing that happens in the romance movies Pipes and Novastar pick out whenever they get to choose what to watch for movie night.

Whirl doubts that the method behind Hot Rod’s survival matters much. What matters is that they have a base of operations to go to, someone to point them in the right direction, fellow soldiers to fight beside, and Whirl is back in their element.

Chapter Text

“How did I become the defacto medic?” Dead End gripes, reaching for another tool scavenged from Iaconus’ medibay.

Attach the circuitry back to the servomechanism first. Seal the fuel lines together.

“I believe we’ve had this conversation before”, Perceptor replies.

“Yeah, well”, Dead End grunts, “it begs questioning.”

Ensure the oil and petrolex is flowing. Check the vents again just in case.

“No one is forcing your hand”, Perceptor says.

“Branching out beyond the blind jokes now?”

Revitalize the electric current.

Perceptor pauses, and Dead End can’t quite tell if it is because the pun was unintentional or because he hadn’t expected Dead End to catch it. “Not in the long term, if you can manage to put my arm back together.”

One could misalign the current enough to give Perceptor a small, harmless electric shock in response to his cheek. In fact, Dead End is pretty sure Perceptor would have done so to him, if roles were reversed, as part of another joke of his. Maybe he would even find Dead End doing so to be funny, in his virtually emotionless way.

Dead End aligns the current as perfectly as he can.

“There”, Dead End says. “Try moving it.”

Perceptor obliges, his arm and hand move just fine, and his capacity for his particular brand of humor has been halved.

“Thank you, Dead End”, he says after a moment, looking at neither his arm nor Dead End, and gets up.

“Don’t mention it”, Dead End says. “Seriously, don’t.”

Neither of them mention that this time, there was no reason that Dead End would do this and not Hot Rod.

A thought flits through Whirl’s processor and just as quickly, before they even really have time to, well, process it, the thought escapes out their vocalizer. “We should have a team name.”

“What are you on about?” Dead End asks, sounding none too interested in what Whirl means and seems to wish most ardently that they would shut up.

“That’s easy”, Hot Rod says from where he walks at the front of the line, wary of Iaconus’ hallways as if worried that every part of the floor is a pressure plate. Which, from their experience so far with the War Titan, could very well be true. “Team Hot Rod.”

“We’re not getting a ‘team name’-” Dead End spits out the phrase like he’s purging it from his systems “- and if we were, we wouldn’t be called that.”

“Team Hot Rod 2”, Hot Rod says, undeterred and unenthusiastic. “The thrilling sequel.”

“No”, Dead End says firmly.

“You do better, then”, Hot Rod shrugs. “Everyone come up with a team name and then we vote on the best one. Otherwise we’re sticking with Team Hot Rod.”

“Where did the 2 go?” Clobber wonders, but doesn’t seem to worry about it for too long as she starts to, presumably, start thinking up team names herself.

“It has to be something cool”, Whirl says decisively. “Something dramatic. Something that will put fear in the Quintessons’ sparks, if they even have any.”

“Doubt it”, Dead End remarks. “I don’t think we’re even annoying them.”

“Because we don’t have a cool team name”, Whirl says with utmost confidence. “I think we could be like… Team Loop-break. No, that’s garbage. Team… Loopbots. Team Quint-killers. Quint-slayers?” They frown with their little eyebrows, reaching for a big red button Hot Rod has been staring at longingly when he isn’t trying to keep everyone from having fun in Iaconus’ heavily trapped corridors, like he thinks he's Optimus Prime or something. “This is harder than I thought. Perceptor, what have you got?”

“The Resistance Against the Quintesson Invasion”, Perceptor replies humorlessly while Hot Rod practically wrestles Whirl away from the incredibly enticing red button. “The Resistance for short.”

“That’s bland”, Whirl huffs, disappointed in both Perceptor’s suggestion and Hot Rod’s success at keeping them from pressing the button. “So Hot Rod and Perceptor are bad at naming things. What about you, Clobber?”

“I don’t know”, Clobber frowns. “Maybe a combination of our names?”

Whirl tilts their head at her. “What would that look like?”

“I don’t know”, Clobber repeats and frowns even more. “I guess like, uh… PercWhirEndClobRod…?”

“That’s nothing”, Dead End deadpans. “That is literally just noises.”

“I like the sound of ClobRod”, Hot Rod says, releasing Whirl’s claw once he’s certain that he’s made his point. “It sounds like a special combo move. Should we make that a thing?”

There’s practically a twinkle in Clobber’s one optic, which Whirl has recently learned always happens when she thinks of violence. “Maybe I could throw you at the squids and you punch them before you land on them?”

“And use my flames to roast them on impact?” Hot Rod adds, a similar excited glint in his dim optics. He is a lot more violent than Whirl had expected, from the way people spoke of him during the eulogies and the somber reminiscing murmured into engex mugs. The first time Whirl saw Hot Rod happy was when he got that big hammer in the training sim, after all, which seemed very different from the mech described by his mourning friends. Maybe dying changes people, almost beyond recognition. Would explain all other eulogies they’ve heard that were wildly inconsistent with how the person was when they still lived.

“Yeah, and then you’d explode”, Dead End finishes for Hot Rod before he and Clobber can go on.

“Indeed”, Perceptor says in a somewhat reprimanding tone, much to Team ClobRod’s visible disappointment (which Perceptor, obviously, does not see). “That is a move far too risky to do until you have been cured, Hot Rod.” He stops his sentence abruptly in contemplation, then adds, “And such a move would be more appropriately named ‘The Comet’ or ‘The Supernova’.”

His critique does not seem to have its desired effect, Whirl would surmise, because Hot Rod and Clobber look exuberant about this imaginary move after hearing Perceptor’s addition. Not to mention very likely to try it out. Hopefully, Clobber will make sure Hot Rod doesn’t decide it’s worth the risk.

“Oh so now you come up with good names”, Whirl remarks, looking pointedly at Perceptor. “Can we call ourselves Team Supernova?”

“No way, I’m saving that one”, Hot Rod grins. “For if I ever explode.”

“I’d rather you didn’t”, Perceptor says curtly.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound good”, Clobber agrees.

“Uh. Dead End?” Whirl looks to the only mech who hasn’t given a suggestion.

“No.”

Whirl groans. “Guess that makes us Team Hot Rod.”

“Is that really better than The Resistance?”

“Thanks, Percy.”

While Hot Rod is distracted, Whirl takes the opportunity to press that big red button, and a giant rogue steamroller chase later, Hot Rod imposes the “no more button-pressing”-rule.

“Don’t use your flamethrowers”, that’s what Perceptor had said.

“Using them could cause you to combust”, he had explained.

“You almost did when we escaped through the tunnels with Hound”, he had pointed out.

To Hot Rod’s credit, he really did listen to the parts of Perceptor’s explanations that he could understand and had intended to follow Perceptor’s advice. He did! He really did.

Emphasis on the use of past tense.

See, before this moment, he wasn’t inside the Quintesson ship, being pursued by Prosecutors and what he now knows to be “Bailiffs” (also Snouts, but they evidently do not feel any particular camaraderie toward him, possibly because of that one time he accidentally burned one of them and did not apologize for it). Before this moment, he was not about to get locked up in the Loop, forced to stare at that damn parade with all his friends who don’t remember him until his spark – until everyone’s sparks get drained because his stupid transformation cog still doesn’t work and he’s sick and he’s dying and he’s alone and he keeps picturing Hound and hearing the sound of a spine breaking and he does not want that to happen to him, even if maybe he deserves it, and right now he will do anything, anything to avoid that.

If I’m going down, you’re going down echoes in his head as the Prosecutors bear down upon him and he twists his body to face them, leveling his right flamethrower at them. Last time he said that, he thought it was going to be his last words. And last time he tested his flames, he didn’t explode. He likes those odds.

The fans click on, his toxic energon rushes to fuel the flames, and a great ball of fire erupts from his grills. Intense heat and the sheer force of the explosion push the Prosecutors off of him and knock them offline, their faces dented and partially melted. But the flames don’t stop there. No, the fire spreads into the fuel lines of his arm, into his boiling blood, and effectively detonates it.

He shouldn’t have liked those odds.

Hot Rod falls back, sent skidding across the ground. An immense searing sensation shoots through his systems as he feels every part in his right arm get taken apart, gear by gear, circuit by circuit. This is the first time that he has felt what it’s like to burn, really burn, not just the toxic waste scorching his frame and seeping into his mouth and optics. He wonders how long this moment actually is, the seconds stretching themselves into the wrong shapes, each of them a small eternity. Courtesy of his malfunctioning chronometer. Mental activity is supposed to keep him in the moment. Unfortunately, his mind is drawing a blank, a roaring repetition of how much it hurts, any chance of coherent thought lost deep within the pain.

> servo systems at 50% efficiency…
> hull severely damaged…
> fuel leak detected…
> brain module damaged…
> neural cluster damaged…
> toxicity level at 91%…

“Yeah?” Hot Rod mumbles, haplessly flailing his one remaining arm for something to hold onto, and feels a rising panic within his chest as he realizes not only how sluggish his movements are but also the fact that the sound of his arm blowing up must have alerted any other Quintessons to his location. Screeches draw closer to him.

Get up get up get up get up. Slowly, far too slowly, he rolls over and pushes himself up, staggering to his feet. Wincing, he brings his hand to his shoulder where the remains of his arm hangs in tangled, sparking wires, leaking black energon. When did it turn completely black? It used to be dark blue at least , but not this, like the black river itself…

> toxicity level at 91%, his systems remind him.

“Right…” He grimaces. It’s not that bad just MOVE.

With a hiss, he forces his legs to start running. His audio receptors are still crackling from the impact, making it difficult to tell how close the Prosecutors really are, and one of his optics has gone dark after a piece of shrapnel from his arm crashed into it. For a moment, he worries that it has been rendered non-operational, which would mean that Dead End would be the only one with two functioning optics, but then it reboots and the other half of his visual feed glitches back in. Lens cracked, but the optic itself is still operational. Good enough. He keeps running. Running and running and running through the endless twisting corridors until he finally reaches what appears to be the way out in the form of giant doors. He doesn’t stop – if he does he’s not sure that he will be able to start moving again – and indeed, the huge panels slide apart to let him back out into the world.

He also doesn’t stop running when the ground disappears under him.

His mind is such a mess of static and panic that he did not even register that the plateau beyond those doors did not lead into Iacon and certainly not the fact that it was quite so high up. Should have figured. Should have known. He kicked one of the Sharkticon guards down into that abyss in the courtroom, he saw how deep it was, and yet it didn’t occur to him, and now he’s falling to his potential demise. Even if he assumes that he will survive the fall, it’ll break his legs for sure, and then he will be down three whole limbs.

Great job, Hot Rod. Great rescue mission. Failed to rescue Windblade, risked getting your whole squad captured, and now you’ve royally screwed up saving your own sheen. How could you possibly mess up this bad? This never would have happened to Optimus…

“Grab me!”

Huh?

In spite of his messed up perception of time, or perhaps because of it, he just barely manages to grab onto Whirl’s landing gear in time and curls his fingers around them tightly, holding on for dear life. Premature relief washes over him and it is drained from him just as quickly as he notices the Prosecutors chasing them. Really should have learned not to relax by now. Frantically, he tries to tap Whirl’s side with the remains of his right arm. “Get to Maccadam’s!”

“I’m getting to it!” Whirl assures him, narrowly avoiding the Prosecutors’ laser fire. The maneuver almost causes Hot Rod’s fingers to slip away and he’s pretty sure he accidentally dents Whirl’s poor landing gear in his desperation. If it hurts, Whirl does not show it, they just keep flying towards Maccadam’s and they both tumble in through the door.

With the grace of two Titans attempting to waltz, Hot Rod lands headfirst on Maccadam’s floor while Whirl falls on their aft, though they are swift to scramble back to their feet.

“Thanks for the rescue”, Hot Rod says to Whirl, not bothering to lift himself off the floor. He’s not particularly interested in getting up at the moment.

“And thank you for my rescue.”

Hot Rod stills and then props himself up with his one arm, tilting his head back to look at whoever had spoken, because that voice is not one that belongs to his little crew. Towering over him and emitting an aura of unbridled scorn is Soundwave, with Clobber and Dead End huddled behind him. Even Clobber looks oddly small there, despite the fact that she is easily meters taller than Soundwave.

“… Don’t mention it?” Hot Rod eventually says, his processor buffering with aimless theories as he keeps staring at Soundwave uncomprehending. Was he not in the parade? Or had he evaded capture and they found him out there in Iacon? Did Clobber get him out of the Loop? Hot Rod is pretty sure Soundwave was in the Loop, but he could be mistaken.

“I would advise you to do the same”, Soundwave replies coolly.

It takes tremendous restraint not to roll his optics at that and Hot Rod leans to his right, intending to shift his weight onto his other arm as he has decided that he is tired of looking at Soundwave from this sixty degree angle. Since he no longer possesses his right arm and he lifts the one he still has to try to grab onto a table for support, he falls back down to the floor and hits his chin with a horrible resounding thunk.

Just as he lies there and thinks that surely, this situation, this whole day cannot get any worse, that’s when he hears a laugh track play from Soundwave’s speakers. If his energon wasn’t already boiling…

“You okay, Hot Rod?” Clobber asks while Hot Rod considers playing dead or at least pretending to be unconscious.

No, my arm exploded and I think the humiliation is going to be the death of me sooner than the poison. He shouldn’t say that. What would Optimus say? He pulls himself up on his own, purposefully neglecting to take Whirl’s offered claw to try to reclaim some dignity or maybe just to show that he can in fact stand up without assistance, and sweeps his optics over the bar to do a headcount. Whirl next to him, Clobber and Dead End behind Soundwave, and yes, there’s Perceptor over by the bar with Maccadam. Everyone is here. Good. Focus on them, not Soundwave. “I’m fine. Did everyone make it back okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good”, Whirl says. “What happened to your arm?”

“It got blown up”, Hot Rod says curtly, uncomfortably and intensely aware of everyone’s optics on him, especially Soundwave’s judgmental visor. Should he say that he took a gamble, that it was the only way to keep himself from getting captured? Would that be grandstanding or a proper explanation? Would it be seen as heroic, necessary, or another stupid move? What would Optimus say…?

“You should get an arm from one of the training simulation drones as a replacement”, Perceptor says. He doesn’t sound angry. Hot Rod had expected him to sound angry.

“I should?” Hot Rod echoes, because he honestly didn’t know that a drone’s limb could work as a prosthetic. Then he feels Soundwave’s visor bore into him and he quickly composes himself, straightens his back. He hopes he wasn’t slouching too much. “Right, I should.”

“You do that”, Soundwave says, all condescension and disdain that makes Hot Rod bristle and he cocks his head in a silent command for his fellow Decepticons to follow.

Clobber and Dead End automatically do as Soundwave indicates and file into the booth of Soundwave’s choosing. Soundwave himself remains standing, leaning against the table with his arms crossed and glowering at the three Autobots. The three Autobots that are now standing on the opposite side of the Decepticons. That’s all it takes: One member of Decepticon high command enters and the atmosphere changes, an invisible line in the bar is drawn between the factions. Guess Hot Rod won’t be able to ask Dead End for help in attaching that new arm. (Chances are Dead End would just have said no anyways – Dead End seems to only do things for himself, for Perceptor, and no one else.)

“I will accompany you, Hot Rod”, Perceptor says and feels his way to the back door.

Hot Rod wants to argue that he can get a drone arm on his own, but there is an urgency in Perceptor’s voice, a non-negotiability to it. Though his ego strains against it, already bruised and beaten to a pulp at this point, Hot Rod walks with Perceptor. Actually, his whole body feels like it has been put through one of those Earth car compactors (okay, really bad thing to think about, now he feels like throwing up).

He spares one final glance at the bar behind him before he steps through the door. Whirl is still on The Autobot Side, awkwardly treading in place as they stare at the three Decepticons, while Clobber and Dead End are hunched over the table. They’re looking to Soundwave and no one and nothing else. Soundwave himself has his back turned to the Autobots, arms folded, dismissing their very presence as he addresses Clobber and Dead End. He’s probably determined to be difficult. Hot Rod ex-vents and steps through to the elevator, optics forward. Another thing to deal with.

“What’s up, Percy?” he asks once the door has closed and the elevator plummets to Iaconus’ lower levels. “You’re not just here to keep me company.”

“Soundwave was removed from the Loop in the same manner as Hound.”

The boiling energon in his fuel lines goes cold.

“It was an accident”, Perceptor continues. “No one forced him out intentionally.”

“What do you mean, ‘accident’?! How do you do that ‘accidentally’?! I- We told them not to!”

“I don’t know. From what I could tell, I imagine it occurred when Whirl crashed after getting shot, when they were trying to help you.”

Hot Rod is glad Perceptor can’t see him wince at that. Chances are Perceptor could still hear that he did from the sound of his internal mechanisms squirming with the motion, though.

“It’s fortunate their rotor blades didn’t sever more cords”, Perceptor says when Hot Rod doesn’t reply. “Assuming that I am correct.”

“You usually are”, Hot Rod murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his optics squeezed shut. He hears small shards of glass crunch between his shutters when he closes his right optic, the one whose lens is still cracked. He doesn’t care. “What do we do?”

“We will proceed as planned”, Perceptor says. The elevator dings, having arrived on the desired floor, and the two step out. “A doctor has a far better chance of saving him than any of us do, so once we free everyone, he will be saved as well. I will inform Soundwave of his situation and tell him not to transform.”

“What’s transforming got to do with it?”

“My last scan of Hound revealed that his neural cluster had been put through a significant amount of stress due to his frequent transformations, which in turn spread to the brain module and likely caused more of his glitches. The violent spasm was likely the result of a misread and unwarranted transformation trigger from his burned out neural cluster.”

“Right.” Don’t think about it. Don’t think about how it looked. “So… that will only happen if he transforms a bunch?”

“No, it merely hastens one’s demise.” Perceptor stops by a computer monitor and starts typing at it, commanding it to deploy a dormant drone. “Even if you could not transform…” He gives Hot Rod a sightless yet no less pointed look. “… you would still succumb to the glitches, as it would eventually destroy your brain module.”

Still doomed, in other words. Hot Rod dislocates the right arm of the drone and pulls it out of the socket. “Look, I’ve got a plan to take down the Quintesson ship, and if it works, then… then that’s it. Someone will be able to help him.”

“Will we still have the help of the Decepticons in this endeavor?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course we will. We’ve had our differences, but we’ve all got a common foe. Even Soundwave’s gotta see that.”

In hindsight, he really should have seen the murder attempt coming. “You’ve outlived your usefulness”, that’s pretty much a warning and a promise, isn’t it?

Come to think of it, was it a murder attempt or assassination attempt? When does a murder become an assassination? Is there some kind of criteria for what the difference is? He will have to ask later, once the Quintessons have been lead far enough astray and he can return to Maccadam’s. Soundwave’s got to know the difference, since he ordered it.

Is it weird that the strongest emotion he feels towards this whole thing is slight irritation, of all things? It probably is. It definitely is. He imagines himself confronting Soundwave, hands on his hips, doing his best impression of Optimus’ “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed”-face, and just saying: “Come on, man.”

He should probably focus on getting away from the Prosecutors, not think about this. Not until he’s lost them, at least.

Hot Rod dashes into one of Iacon’s many broken-down buildings and hunkers down. The Prosecutors fly on by, not detecting his presence, and he thanks Primus for the Prosecutors’ sheer stupidity. Can’t even look for the fugitive Hot Rod properly. Fugitive, target of a tiny Decepticon plot… he’s really moved up in the world since it went to hell. Perhaps he should be flattered that Soundwave considered him to be enough of a threat in his sorry state to have him killed. Threat or liability, he supposes, once he thinks about it realistically. Funnier to imagine that Soundwave was just that impatient to speed up the whole Hot Rod dying process after taking one look at him, though.

Well, tough, Hot Rod thinks as he makes his way back to Maccadam’s. He’s not getting rid of me that easy.

Cold lightning jolts through Soundwave’s circuitry and resets his brain module, tearing him back to consciousness with an abrupt violence. Something like black fireworks flickers before his visor as his visual feed returns to him, and then color and light exploding mercilessly into his unprepared optics. The dim ceiling lamps in Maccadam’s aren’t – shouldn’t be bright enough to burn into him this way, his nerves sending faulty signals to his brain module that the lights are doing catastrophic damage to him. Regardless of whether the substandard lighting really is hurting him or not, his head feels like it’s being gnawed at by a frenzied scraplet with screeching needle teeth, so he brings a hand to shield his visor and transmits a command to reset his visual feed to get it to stop glitching. The old “turn it off and on again” method.

It works. It mostly works. In the edges of his visor, there are still tears and blocks of red and green flickering in and out, and it does nothing to remove the pain within his chest nor his white-hot headache. It certainly does not do anything to make him any less uncomfortably and intensely aware of the way everyone in Maccadam’s is just staring at him. Everyone except Dead End, who’s smart enough to mind his own business. The two Autobots, Maccadam himself, and Clobber, not so much.

Clobber stands a few meters away from Soundwave with the Autobot scientist at her side, a blinding blue light being emitted from the Autobot scientist’s scope. A glare is all it takes to make the scientist shut his scanner off (or, more likely, Soundwave’s glare coincided with the scientist finishing his scan, but his pride demands the less realistic explanation) and he seems to appraise Soundwave’s stature with his broken optics.

“You were offline for much longer than your last glitches”, he reports.

“Nevermind that”, Soundwave growls and turns to Clobber and Dead End (Dead End is sitting next to the Autobot flyer, rather than at the established Decepticon side, Soundwave now notes), dismissing the Autobot’s presence. “Did you finish the job?”

He doesn’t need to ask about Clobber’s special job being finished. The black Autobot’s absence tells him all he needs to know, but there is the matter of whether the “Bailiff” had been captured after he started glitching.

“Uh, no”, Clobber says, trying really hard to not look away from Soundwave, “but I did get the Bailiff. He’s in the dungeon. Oh, uh, Maccadam’s is actually a Titan – you remember Iaconus the Moon-Puncher? It’s him! That’s where Hot Rod got his drone-arm and it’s why it’s safe here. I can show you to the cells.”

Soundwave’s visor glows a little brighter after hearing Clobber say “no” and he gives a small nod, glancing at the Autobots out of the corner of his optics. Now they’re no doubt wondering what job Clobber didn’t finish. The one thing he thought he could trust Clobber to do without screwing it up, and already it’s gone to scrap. He’s only accepting her offer to have a discussion about this performance. (And because he doesn’t want to get lost in the Titan looking for the dungeon. He’s suffered enough humiliation today.)

Unexpectedly, Clobber speaks first once they’re crammed into the claustrophobic elevator. “I was going to… do the job, but Hot Rod stopped me.”

“Evidently”, Soundwave replies. “How?” The Autobot had looked half-dead enough that Clobber could probably have nudged him a little harshly and that would be it. Must have escaped with his alt mode again…

“He heard the parade song and figured you were in trouble, so he told me to deactivate him after we had helped you and Dead End.”

Soundwave’s processor ticks to a halt, going nearly still in his head with sheer incomprehension, enough that he almost thinks he’s glitching again. “What.”

“Yeah”, Clobber nods. At least she seems to be aware of how insane that sounds. “So we followed the music and knocked out the Bailiff.” She pauses. She pauses long enough that by the time she opens her mouth again, the elevator has brought them to the dungeon floor. “You know, he also said to carry you back to Maccadam’s while he lead the Quintessons away.”

She doesn’t need to elaborate. He remembers what he overheard when he was coming out of his first glitch, how Dead End showed a rare moment of enthusiasm at the prospect of killing Soundwave while he was powerless to stop them, how Clobber hesitated only because she was worried about any trouble she might get into if she did go along with that idea. There was nothing stopping them to go through with it this time. Nothing except the black Autobot.

“I’m, uh…” Clobber continues as she leads him toward the cells. “… I’m not going to do what he said. I’m not going to kill him later, I mean. And you shouldn’t either.” She pauses again, then adds, as if trying to soften the blow or something, “Sir…?”

“Leave”, Soundwave just says, staring at the unconscious Bailiff. “Do not disturb me.”

Clobber obliges, despite her current rebellious streak, and Soundwave is left alone to figure out both the appropriate interrogation strategy and what in the world that Autobot’s angle might be.

Chapter Text

The first thing Soundwave sees when he wakes is the same thing he last saw (and among the last people he wanted to see) before he started glitching: That black Autobot. Except this time, the black Autobot is not rearing his arm back to punch him. Instead, he is sitting down next to Soundwave, his optical ridges relaxing by an increment when he sees Soundwave’s visor light up again.

“Morning”, the black Autobot says with a voice too tired to hit the intended comedic tone and, in the ultimate insult, offers his hand to Soundwave.

Without so much as a nanosecond of consideration, Soundwave slaps the Autobot’s far too warm hand away and stands up on his own. The Autobot follows suit, wholly unsurprised by Soundwave’s refusal and doesn’t even have the decency to look indignant about it. He just folds his arms and meets Soundwave’s visor directly. For a moment, they stare at each other, glowing red visor and dull blue optics held equally defiant against the other.

“So the Bailiff told me what he knows while you were out”, the Autobot says after a few seconds, shrugging one shoulder to gesture to the Bailiff’s cell. The Bailiff grunts and keeps his back turned to them. “Which is nothing. But he did tell me who does know something, some scientist who’s hiding somewhere in the Quintesson ship. He’s got this control node for the Loop that we need to free everyone from the Loop, but it’s gonna take a few days before we can get to him.”

“Why?” Soundwave asks, his glitch-induced headache intensifying as fear claws at him. He doesn’t show it, neither fear nor pain. Of course he doesn’t.

A look of keen focus comes across the Autobot’s face as he frowns and presses two of his drone-fingers against his forehead. “Something about the Quintessons having a programming language different from ours and Perceptor needing time to learn more of it – he already knows some of it because he made the window thing for Windblade, though I guess you didn’t know about that. It did sort of lead to you getting- I’m getting off-track. Perceptor needs to decipher the whole language so that he can actually use the control node, says he’s gonna use that Prosecutor you caught and the Loop-helmets as like blueprints or something? So yeah, he’s gonna… he’s gonna need a few days. The rest of us get things ready for when he’s done and we can go grab the node from the Scientist.”

Soundwave tilts his head slightly. “And who would lead this mission? You?”

“Maybe I will”, the Autobot says in a huff. His patience, if he had any, seems to have run out. “Look, I get that you don’t like me and you don’t have to, but this is too big for us to waste time getting hung up on that. We have to work together here, Soundwave.”

“Together.” Were he the optic-rolling type (and if his visor permitted it), Soundwave would roll his optics. This Autobot is no Optimus Prime, but he sure is trying to sound like one. It’s like being back at the latest attempt at parley.

“Yes, together”, the Autobot says. “We don’t have time to fight over who’s in charge. I mean, hell, we even had the same ideas. You know, I would start saying what we should do, you’d interrupt me with the same thing… or maybe you were being helpful and just finishing my sentences?” The Autobot raises his hands in surrender when Soundwave displays an obvious lack of amusement. “I’m just saying, we could work well together if we try, just until this is dealt with. Without any backstabbing this time.”

The Autobot says it… he doesn’t say it like it’s easy, no, though he does say it with a certain lightness that makes Soundwave wonder if the Autobot realizes what he holds over Soundwave right now. The words being said should feel like a loaded gun held to Soundwave’s head, but it’s like it’s being held by someone who is either fondling the trigger with far too much spiteful cheer or has forgotten what’s in their hand and expects a handshake.

He’d like to reject the offer and adamantly declare that he doesn’t need to rely on this Autobot’s pity disguised as generosity to remain in some resemblance of control. He’d like to tell the Autobot that he doesn’t owe him anything.

The lingering headache from his latest glitch says otherwise. So does, he now notes, the lack of a fist-shaped dent in his helm. Seems the Autobot didn’t continue to take his frustrations out on Soundwave after the glitching started. That does nothing to warm Soundwave to the Autobot, mind – just makes him feel weak and, worse, vulnerable – but it does make him wonder how the Decepticons ever lost to these cesium sparks. It does make him think back to what Clobber told him.

“Fine”, Soundwave growls at last and walks past the Autobot to head back to the bar, contemplating whether it would be too petty to not share the elevator.

So begins the few ensuing days of waiting, aimless patrols, and continued Loop-breakout attempts, which Hot Rod figures will assuredly end with their little group going just about half-mad with stir craze. As if Dead End, Clobber, and Whirl haven’t proven to be difficult enough to reel in already, given their actions during their explorations of Iaconus’ facilities. Not to mention that Hot Rod himself may be pushed closer to being driven off the edge from being idle too long. In Hot Rod time, days are beginning to feel like years. He would like to say that it is yet another courtesy of his broken chronometer, but honestly, he has never been a patient bot and he would probably have felt the same even if his chronometer was shiny and new.

It is fortunate then that the others have found ways to busy themselves while Hot Rod was making sure Soundwave was actually going to wake up from his glitch. Perceptor has already put himself to work and Dead End, likely keen on being far away from Soundwave and not getting roped into another Titaneering quest, is helping him with the whole deciphering process. Meanwhile, Clobber and Whirl are outside, doing what Whirl calls “important reconnaissance” to see if the Quintessons are upgrading their security at all after the whole disaster that followed their attempt to rescue Windblade. Frankly, Hot Rod doubts that it’s necessary and he certainly doesn’t enjoy staying behind while the two of them put themselves at risk out there, but Whirl was sure that the recon is necessary and Clobber wanted to keep Whirl out of trouble. That, and it is something for them to do, rather than to sit around and wait since they can’t do anything to assist Perceptor. He can’t blame them for not wanting to feel powerless. Or rather, get some sort of reprieve, however brief, from feeling that way. So he agreed and just told them to be careful and to check in via comms every now and then.

Thing is, though, with everybody else off on missions or locked in Iaconus’ computer lab, that leaves Hot Rod alone with Soundwave in Maccadam’s. Even Maccadam himself goes off to go get more energon the moment Hot Rod enters the bar, cheerily asking him and Soundwave to man the bar for him while he’s gone. Actually, no, he asks Perceptor to man the bar for him while he’s gone, and when Hot Rod points out that neither he nor Soundwave are Perceptor, Maccadam simply shrugs and says that he supposes they will do for now. Then he vanishes and Hot Rod wonders whether he ought to worry that the old barkeep is going horribly senile or if he should get mad that Maccadam is screwing with him at a time like this.

Regardless, the result is the same. Maccadam exits and Hot Rod’s only company is Soundwave. Until any of the others return or decide that they’re in need of a refuel, anyhow. He had kind of thought that maybe it would be less weird now that he has declared a truce of sorts with Soundwave, a partnership even, and he sees that maybe that was a bit naive of him. There is still the utter lack of respect Soundwave has for Hot Rod, and there is still the lingering irritation Hot Rod has over the whole usurpation thing. Though at this point, to be honest, he’s more irritated that Soundwave can’t even hold an elevator for a time-confused bot.

At least they aren’t stuck in a horrible awkward silence. They’re not chatting, obviously, but for the first time in literal ages, music plays in Maccadam’s. Not from its ancient jukebox, but from Soundwave’s speakers. Perhaps that would have been a novelty if it wasn’t for the fact that the music Soundwave has chosen to play is the most grating piece of mashup pop music that Hot Rod has ever heard. From what few words he can make out, none of which he can understand because they’re all in Earth languages and his translator is about as far as it can get from his self repair systems’ main priorities, he thinks that quite a lot of the sound bites may not even be from actual songs.

He looks Soundwave dead in the visor, his face plainly asking “are you kidding me?”. Soundwave, meeting Hot Rod’s gaze, turns the volume of the music up.

Hot Rod isn’t sure what he expected. He stares at Soundwave another second or so with the same unamused expression before he shakes his head and heads to the bar, deciding to have a look around it. It’s something he’s only ever really seen from the front, after all, and he finds himself curious of what Maccadam actually has back there. And Maccadam did tell them to man the bar, so if he’s not supposed to have a root-around, then that’s really on Mac.

Usurpation, he thinks as he opens a cabinet and squints at its paltry contents. Is that a word? It feels like I might have made that one up. It doesn’t look right… He opens the next cabinet and his dimming optics light up as they catch the glint of a bottle with a very interesting label, if it’s what he thinks it is. He grabs the bottle, pulls it out into the light, and raises his optical ridges in surprise as he sees what it says.

“Nightmare Fuel?” he reads out loud. “I didn’t even know you could order that here. Or maybe you can’t and this is Mac’s private stuff…?”

“Then he should have kept it locked.”
A yelp clogs in Hot Rod’s vocalizer as he startles and clutches the bottle of Nightmare Fuel maybe a little too tight to make sure he doesn’t drop it. Once he’s sure he won’t, he glares at Soundwave. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Soundwave doesn’t bother dignifying that with a reply, pointedly letting the loud music – if you can even call it music – continue to assault Hot Rod’s audial.

If this had been before the river, before Drift, which seems like half a lifetime ago now (his chronometer tells him it must have been a decade ago, his boiling processor says “yeah that sounds about right”, and his mildly corrupted brain module protests with great fervor that there’s no way that’s right), this would have been the point where Hot Rod plays at being a bartender for a bit. Wiping the counter for no apparent reason, jokingly asking Soundwave about his troubles, serving up drinks, those sort of things. That version of himself feels distant from whoever he is at this point, someone who’s always tired and hurting and angry, so he sets the Nightmare Fuel down and asks, “Did you want something?”

“Information”, Soundwave replies. The volume of the music lowers a little, enough that Hot Rod can hear himself think again. Not quite enough that he doesn’t get distracted trying to remember any Earth words to get an inkling of what in the world this song is about, though. If it is about anything.

“Right”, Hot Rod says, putting his hands on the counter. “Anything specific in mind?”

As it turns out, it isn’t something specific, but rather a bit of everything regarding this apocalypse they find themselves in. Where everybody else is and what they’re up to – being rather insistent that they should be working – is one of the more specific queries. Hot Rod thinks back to Soundwave rejecting his idea of taking down the Quintesson ship, saying it would take too long, and wonders if Soundwave is always in this much of a hurry or if this is all a product of wanting to cure his current glitch condition.

At the moment, though, he mostly he wonders what this song is and if Soundwave could be persuaded to play literally anything else. Hot Rod ex-vents harshly and gestures to Soundwave’s speakers and the bouncing wavelengths. “This must get annoying for you, too. Don’t you have any decent music?”

“Not for you”, Soundwave replies. After a slight pause, though, he asks, “Did you have a preference?”

The word “preference” is said with a whole new level of condescension, and Hot Rod has no doubt that whatever answer he gives, he can expect to be mocked. Regardless, he shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything but this? If I get to pick, then you should play Jazz – the musician, I mean. I actually went to a concert of hers the one time I wasn’t flat out broke. Uh, where and when was it… Before the war- oh, duh, of course it was before the war, it was in the outskirts of Nyon… Rosanna was performing at it too…” He frowns and pinches the bridge of his nose. “My memory bank better not be mal-”

He’s so busy rooting through his memories that he does not notice that Soundwave has gone quiet. Like, properly quiet, no horrid mashup music accompanying him at all, and when his speakers come to life again, Hot Rod stops mid-word and shoots up, staring at Soundwave in surprise. The music Soundwave is playing is a bit less clean than usual – it has background voices, the buzz of excitement, music equipment being adjusted further away, it has all the sounds of a live recording – and it starts with the voice of Jazz announcing the song. Just how Hot Rod remembers it.

“Shut up!” Hot Rod exclaims, beaming despite himself, despite Soundwave, despite everything, really. “You were there, too?”

“Of course”, Soundwave says, sounding almost insulted, but his body language seems… pleased? Or appreciative? Maybe Hot Rod’s projecting. Not like it’s easy reading this mech.

Whatever, Hot Rod’s too excited to try to ruin it by examining Soundwave’s body language, something both of them would surely be uncomfortable with. Instead he leans forward with his elbows on the counter, smiling wide, feeling like he’s back at the concert instead of in a dilapidated bar that’s the one safe haven in the slow apocalypse. “Is this one your favorite?”

“No”, Soundwave says and tilts his head to the side. “… It’s Sparkbreaker Blues.”

Possibly the last words Hot Rod ever expected Soundwave to say, or any Decepticon for that matter. Soundwave doesn’t say it like he’s ashamed of it, either. Which makes sense, really, it’s just the name of the song, and it’s not like Soundwave’s favorite song is a dark Decepticon secret that simply cannot fall into enemy hands. That, and he doesn’t think that Soundwave cares what anyone’s opinion of him is, least of all an Autobot’s.

Hot Rod grins. “Yeah, mine too. Though the Love At First Explosion album is her best one.”

“You’re an idiot”, Soundwave scoffs, though not quite unkindly.

“Yeah? What’s the best one, then, Mr. Music Snob?” Hot Rod snorts.

The conversation sort of devolves from the serious questions and plans for getting the Scientist from there, as they just keep talking about music with Hot Rod receiving the occasional message from Clobber and Whirl in between. Soundwave even tells him what that mashup song thing was, part of something Earth humans call “meems” or something. It’s maybe not as amicable as Hot Rod feels it is, or maybe it is about as amicable as Soundwave is able and Soundwave gives him a look when he casually mentions that not even his translator works right now, but it’s much more comfortable than it was before. It goes on until the doors behind Hot Rod open and Maccadam returns with more energon and he smiles at the two of them.

“I see you found the Nightmare Fuel”, Maccadam says, nodding at the bottle that’s still on the counter next to Hot Rod.

“Oh”, Hot Rod says and widens his optics as he had completely forgotten about it, now feeling like he’s been caught with his hand in the energon goodie jar.

“Don’t worry, I know you didn’t drink any of it.” Maccadam gets behind the bar, careful not to squish Hot Rod, and refills the cabinets with energon. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to save that one for special occasions only.”

“Keep it locked if you don’t want anyone to take it”, Soundwave says.

“I don’t believe that would stop anyone here”, Maccadam laughs, jabbing a thumb in the direction of where the secret door concealing Iaconus’ elevator used to be.

“We wouldn’t have done that if you had told us about the Titan earlier”, Hot Rod grumbles, stepping away from the bar.

“I’m not so sure about that”, Maccadam says cheerfully and takes the bottle of Nightmare Fuel in one of his large hands, turning it over to look over the ancient logo. “Why don’t you take it?”

“Which one of us?” Hot Rod asks.

“The Autobot scientist?” Soundwave guesses wryly.

“You, Hot Rod”, Maccadam says, presenting it to him. “Soundwave here won’t take it.”

Soundwave tilts his head and crosses his arms in a way that Hot Rod thinks means “you’re right, but I don’t like the way you said it”.

Hot Rod, however, accepts it, putting it in his subspace compartment where it’s safe unless he decides to blow up, which he isn’t planning on doing again any time soon. He isn’t sure if there are any good special occasions awaiting him and Team Hot Rod 2, but if it all fails and they find themselves at the end of the universe, he figures it would do them some good to be able to go blackout drunk right then and there.

Less than a minute after that, Clobber and Whirl return with news of little change in the Quintessons’ tactics, and the planning begins anew.

“What do you intend to do with the Bailiff?” Soundwave asks.

“Hmm?” The black Autobot raises his head from his hand, optics unfocused and looking like the very picture of exhaustion. Makes one wonder why he insists on going out on these excursions to the Loop with Clobber if he can barely handle it. “What to do with the… what?”

“The Bailiff we caught”, Clobber tells him helpfully where she sits across from him, next to the Autobot flyer.

“Oh, him”, the Autobot says, thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. “Nothing, probably.”

“Nothing”, Soundwave repeats. Emoting is not his strong suit, but he is a master of looking unimpressed even without any change in his body language.

“Probably”, the Autobot finishes and rests his chin on his hand again. “I don’t know, what would you have me do with him? ‘Cause we’re not killing him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“What else?” Soundwave says. “We have no more use for him.”

“You said the same thing about Hot Rod, and you didn’t kill him”, the flyer counters.

Soundwave, the black Autobot, and Clobber go just a little bit still. Maccadam keeps synthesizing a whistle while he cleans a mug.

“Why did you all go quiet like that?” the flyer asks.

“Look, Soundwave”, the black Autobot sighs, glaring now, “I don’t know how the Decepticons do it – I mean, actually, I sort of do, but I don’t really care. You’re not hurting him again. None of us are.”

“Guys?” the flyer says, uncertain now.

“I mean, there’s not any downside to keeping him in the dungeon”, the black Autobot continues.

“It’s a waste of space and resources”, Soundwave says.

“Is it?”

“It is.”

“How? Explain it to me in detail, complete with graphs and diagrams. I will not pay attention to what you’re saying and I won’t get what the lines and circles mean, but I will be satisfied. And then I’ll say no anyway.”

Is he being insufferable on purpose or is this all coming to him naturally? “Once we have our army back, we can’t spare any energon for someone we don’t need.”

“Uh huh.” The black Autobot doesn’t look convinced at all and he strokes his chin in mock-contemplation. “Guess we have to let him go, then.”

Okay, Soundwave is sure it’s on purpose now. “Not even an Autobot would be that stupid.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” the black Autobot asks, raising an optical ridge pointedly at Soundwave.

“I’m confused”, the flyer announces.

“Do you want me to let him go?” Clobber asks. Her question is directed at the black Autobot, not Soundwave.

“No”, Soundwave and the black Autobot say in near unison, something neither of them are pleased with. They exchange a quick glance/glare before they both look back to Clobber and the flyer with the shared blatant intent to ignore that ever happened.

“I don’t know what the Quintessons do to escapees”, the Autobot says. “It’s probably safer to keep him here for now.”

“His safety is not our concern”, Soundwave says. “He worked for the Quintessons. He needs to pay for that.”

At that, Clobber raises her claw a little. “I did hit him really hard when I caught him and now he’s in a cell, Soundwave. I don’t think he’s, uh… unpaid?”

“Did you shoot him with your cannon?” the flyer asks. They appear to have been dying to see Clobber’s cannon in action for some time now, judging from how their optic widens at the prospect. Having few, if any at all, Autobot tankformers must make Clobber something of a novelty to them.

“No, I didn’t want to accidentally terminate him, so I ran him into a wall”, Clobber replies with a big self-satisfied smile at the memory. “It was also funnier that way. I knocked him offline in one hit!”

“Almost flattened him”, the black Autobot grins before returning his attention to Soundwave. “See, he’s paying for it. No need to worry about it.” He pauses, thinks for a moment. “Maybe you should grab a mug of energon. You look like you need it.”

“Keep your opinions to yourself, Autobot”, Soundwave growls and turns to leave. “I’m going to check on the scientist’s progress.”

The black Autobot deflates somewhat with that “disappointed but not surprised” expression, the same one he had when Soundwave rejected his offered hand. Soundwave doesn’t know what the Autobot expects from him, much less what the Autobot wants from him, but a shared taste in music does not distract Soundwave from the fact that his life is still very much being held in the Autobot’s feckless hands. Just because the Autobot can pretend that that’s not the case doesn’t mean Soundwave is as willing to ignore it simply because they’re “working together” now.

Once Soundwave has left, Clobber observes Hot Rod with a scrutinizing optic. “Trying to see if Soundwave has a face, huh?”

“What?” If he’s feigning innocence, he’s really good at it. “No, I…”

“It’s okay”, Clobber says. “I don’t know either. We had a betting pool on the Nemesis about it and everything.”

“That seems a bit rude”, Whirl says, squinting and tilting their head to the side.

“Yeah, that’s why we kept it secret so he wouldn’t get mad at us over it”, Clobber nods. “I’ve been Soundwave’s go-to foot soldier for centuries and I still don’t know if that’s a retractable battlemask or just his face.”

“How come?” Whirl frowns. “Has no one seen him refuel?”

“Nope”, Clobber says. “Shadow Striker and Lazerbeak might have, but no one else has. I don’t wonder about it and Lockdown didn’t either until he heard of the betting pool, then he became really interested in it and convinced me to bet too so we could split the winnings.”

“Have any of you tried just asking him?” Hot Rod asks next.

“Now that definitely would be rude”, Whirl says. They think for a moment, then decide, “I’m gonna ask him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea”, Clobber grimaces.

“You did say that would be rude”, Hot Rod agrees.

“So? He’s a jerk to us”, Whirl says while they try to make their way out of the booth by getting past Clobber who does not budge. “Only fair at this point… Clobber, could let me out?”

“Whirl, the rule of pushing no buttons includes not pushing Soundwave’s buttons”, Hot Rod reprimands.

“Didn’t you get into a fistfight with him last night?”

“To defend someone else!”

“Then can I get in a fistfight with Soundwave?”

“No fighting in Maccadam’s”, Maccadam reminds them from where he’s still cleaning out that mug that he has been cleaning for a really long time, enough time that Hot Rod’s chronometer probably thinks that he’s been doing it for days on end. At this point, even Clobber thinks Maccadam is being way too obvious about his eavesdropping.

“What if I fight him outside Maccadam’s?” Whirl asks.

“Well, in that case, I can’t stop you, now can I?” Maccadam smiles.

Hot Rod frowns at Maccadam indignantly and then points a stern finger at Whirl. “Don’t… dis… ugh, what’s an official, authoritive- authoro-whatever way to say ‘don’t do what Mac just said’?”

It takes Clobber a second to realize that he’s asking her and she taps her chin. “Megatron always just yelled ‘silence’ really loudly at us so we would stop and listen to whatever he wanted us to do instead.”

“Is that official?” Hot Rod questions.

“It’s authoritative”, Clobber shrugs.

“That’s how you say that word!” Hot Rod says, putting his fist in the palm of his drone-hand. “So Whirl, shh. Silence. Whatever. We’re not gonna start arguments for no reason. We don’t have time to fight each other.”

“All we have is time”, Whirl huffs and slides down the bench. “Perceptor’s the only one who’s really doing anything. We’re just waiting for him to do half the work so we can do half of the other half of the work, and then he still does the other half of the other half.”

After about the third “half”, Clobber finds herself a bit lost. Half-lost, anyhow, she thinks she gets what Whirl means, not so much why they have an issue with it. Perceptor is the smartest one here, probably the smartest mech in the galaxy, so it makes sense that he’s the one who does most of the stuff when it’s computer related. Still, if Whirl wants to work – and she is certain that only mechs of non-labor classes would clamor for such a thing – she sees no reason to not give them some. “You could take watch while me and Hot Rod go into the parade. We have two patches now, so neither of us can see the real world while we’re in.”

“I could do that!” Whirl agrees, spirits successfully lifted.

“Or you could go in the Loop instead of me”, Hot Rod suggests, raising his head with an awakened glint of hope in his optics.

“No thanks”, Whirl says and turns their head away.

“Whirl, I will pay you real Cybertronian shanix if I never have to hear that parade music again.”

“Aw, but the music’s one of the best parts!” Clobber says.

“How are you not tired of it yet?” Hot Rod asks, genuinely baffled.

“It’s a good song, Hot Rod.”

“Is it?! No, really, is it? I can’t even tell anymore.”

Day two of the unspecified number of “few days” that the Autobot scientist needs to translate the Quintessons’ computer language and Soundwave already finds himself restless. The Autobots have given him a short list of things he should not or cannot do because of his glitching: No transforming to avoid putting stress on his neural cluster, no going in the “Loop” since there is no way to tell what that will do to him in this state, and to not go outside Maccadam’s until it is time to get to the Scientist. Not much of a list, really, and the last one is more unspoken and Soundwave’s own decision. Glitching out in the field is a serious disadvantage already, he would have to be carried back every time it happens, and if the black Autobot isn’t around, the others might just leave him out there.

Transforming being prohibited doesn’t bother him, as he has never been particularly attached to his alt mode, but the other two things listed do. For one, he does not have much faith in the Autobot and Clobber’s capabilities, and for another, he doubts that they have much reason to try to get Shadow Striker out. And that leaves him stuck in Maccadam’s, playing his music, gathering information, and attempting to get in control of the situation, the latter of which he is largely unsuccessful at. Mostly due to the fact that there isn’t much to control, in part because this motley crew strives to be ungovernable.

The glitching doesn’t help. Obviously. It wrenches control from him in a much more visceral and literal way, makes everyone look at him with the knowledge that any glitch could be the one he “never recovers from”. Their perception of him interests him about as much as Sky-Byte’s poetry, but that doesn’t mean he likes feeling like his condition is a spectacle, a death watched in slowed time.

It’s really annoying. Clobber and the Autobot flyer are recharging, Dead End and the scientist shouldn’t be disturbed, and the black Autobot has wandered off somewhere in the halls of the Titan, leaving him with no one to order around and no Prosecutors to take down. There is still the training sim, he realizes, and so he makes his way to the elevator.

When he arrives on that floor, however, he sees the black Autobot hunched over a computer terminal by the training sim and the music flowing from his speakers changes. Maybe the Autobot had a point when he said that they often have the same ideas after all.

“Hey Soundwave”, the black Autobot says, briefly glancing at Soundwave and then continues to stare at the terminal. He’s clutching some kind of computer chip in his left hand while his drone hand is gripping the terminal like he’s interrogating it for vital information.

“Autobot”, Soundwave acknowledges tersely.

“Hot Rod”, the black Autobot corrects with a slight huff. “Autobots have names too, you know.” Before Soundwave has an opportunity to talk back, the Autobot continues, “Look, I’m busy with trying to fix the training sim here, so unless you’re here to give me an important update or know computer stuff, glare at me somewhere else. It’s distracting.”

Fix the training sim? “You broke it?”

“I didn’t break it!” the Autobot says and waves the computer chip at him. “I’m fixing it! Mac said that the drones in the sim are based on some old enemies of his so that the citizens of Iaconus could learn to fight them, so I asked him if we could make them look and act like Prosecutors, and he said ‘sure, if you have any brain modules of theirs’, and so I said ‘that’s gross but we do have a Prosecutor’, so I went to Perceptor’s lab-”

“Autobot.”

“- Still not my name, and so I told them about the training sim and asked Dead End if he could give the Prosecutor’s brain chip because Perceptor said it has a chip and not a module because it’s sort of like a drone already, and Dead End said ‘that’s gross, grab it yourself’, so I said-”

“I don’t care.”

“- I don’t care that you don’t care, so I said ‘yeah let me just reach into its brain, should I use my explosive hand or my jittery drone hand’, and Perceptor said ‘Dead End, give him the chip’, and he whined about it but he finally handed me the chip, so now I’m trying to figure out how to… I don’t know, install it? Upload it? Whatever the term for it is. I thought it could be useful, for us and for… when we get everybody else out.”

Hm. Begrudgingly, Soundwave has to admit that it’s not a bad idea and a display more foresight than he would expect from the Autobot. Not something he’s willing to admit out loud, though. He steps to the Autobot’s side to see what’s taking him so long.

One look at the terminal and Soundwave immediately notices a prompt to open a port to download new behavior patterns for the drones within one of the wall s of text. Without a word, he reaches over and presses the prompt. A port opens up next to the terminal’s ancient keyboard with a satisfying click-chhk sound and the Autobot stares at it, miffed.

“Huh”, he says and slots the chip into the port. “Thanks. How’d you find that?!”

“I looked”, Soundwave replies.

“I was looking”, the Autobot insists, glaring at the terminal and its clumps of information. “I just can’t read when it’s like this. The letters get all jumbled.”

“Is your visual processor malfunctioning as well?” Soundwave asks dryly.

“Sort of”, the Autobot mutters and rubs the back of his neck. “That’s not because of the-” He taps the black paint on his frame. “- that, though, it’s- whatever. It’s done downloading. I’m gonna check if it worked.”

H e walks into the training sim and Soundwave follows. It’s not like his plans have changed. If anything, beating up Prosecutor lookalikes is all the more appealing to him. The Autobot spares him a curious glance while considering which weapon to pick.

“This reminds me”, the Autobot says as Soundwave picks a proton glaive, “I meant to ask, was that a murder or an assassination?”

Low, suspenseful music starts to play from Soundwave’s speakers unwittingly. “… Depends on your rank.”

“My rank? I don’t know if I have one.”

“Unsurprising.”

“Okay.” The Autobot rolls his optics and he puts his hands on his hips, straightening his back in a semi-pose. “You’re right, the Autobots just keep me around to look pretty.”

Also unsurprising is a response that is dangerously close to escaping Soundwave’s vocalizer and he stuffs it deep in the recesses of his mind, off in the corners where words go unsaid. Rather than saying anything, Soundwave decides that the conversation is over and waits for the Prosecutor drones to descend.

It appears that the Autobot disagrees with Soundwave’s assessment, though, as he remains by the weapons and scrutinizes Soundwave’s appearance with some manner of apprehension. “Are you sure you should be fighting in your condition?”

“I don’t want to hear that from you”, Soundwave retorts and prepares his soundblast systems.

“I’m not-”, the Autobot begins, but is interrupted by a brief coughing fit that rattles wetly in his throat. He doesn’t look embarrassed, just resigned as he concedes, “… Yeah, fair. Ratchet would kick both our afts.”

“Maybe yours”, Soundwave says, resting the glaive on his shoulder.

“Oh right, because you’re superior”, the Autobot snorts. A glint appears in his optics, bright and eager in contrast to the waning light behind the lens. “Feel like proving it?”

“I don’t need to.”

“So you don’t want to see who can take down the most drones?”

Soundwave pauses and looks over his shoulder at the Autobot, indicating for him to continue.

The Autobot catches on. “It’s simple. One drone destroyed is one point. Whoever scores the most points wins. You in?”

Soundwave considers it a few more seconds before he accepts with a nod. The Autobot grins and takes the spear from the weapon rack.

“CITIZENS”, a booming voice from above them says, causing Soundwave to look up in slight surprise, “PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE ULTIMATE TEST.”

Without further ado, a panel slides open next to the Autobot and a Prosecutor in lighter colors and green eyes emerges, only to immediately get knocked offline as the Autobot plunges the spear straight into its head. For safety’s sake or perhaps some petty cruelty, the Autobot twists the spear and leaves it there, sticking out of the drone’s body.

“TRAINING LEVEL 1 COMPLETE”, the same voice as before announces.

“And one point to Hot Rod”, the Autobot adds with a smug look that tells Soundwave that he knew it was going to appear there. Makes sense, given the fact that the Autobot has gone through this sim before. Not like Soundwave is about to give the Autobot the satisfaction of looking indignant, though, and honestly he can appreciate the not-quite-cheating, so he just turns and heads to the door leading to the next level.

He expects to hear the proton spear being wrenched out of the drone’s head, perhaps with a brief struggle from the Autobot’s end. Instead he just hears the Autobot run up to walk beside him into the next chamber, no weapon in hand. It’s only once they’ve crossed the threshold that the Autobot grabs a sword hilt attached to his hip and activates it, causing a blue hardlight blade to spring forth.

“I don’t actually know how to use swords”, the Autobot explains when he notices Soundwave glancing at it. “I’ve only had a few lessons on it. But this is a training sim, and I had decided that I was gonna use this opportunity to practice before you came along, so you have to promise not to laugh.”

Soundwave responds by playing clown music from his speakers.

Cold lightning, black fireworks, flickering vision, a splitting headache, all that is starting to become worryingly familiar to Soundwave by now. As is the unwelcome sight of the black Autobot watching him, face full of frown until he relaxes with relief upon seeing Soundwave come back online. “Welcome back”, he says.

“Hmm”, Soundwave grunts in response, glaring at him and their surroundings. There were still two drones left when he had started glitching, but they’re all dead now, splayed out on the ground in broken pieces and sparking wires. He glances at the Autobot, who is slumped against the wall and appears to be a bit more dented than when Soundwave started to glitch, while Soundwave himself doesn’t have any new injuries beyond a shot in his shoulder. Either the training sim is coded to leave incapacitated “citizens”, or the black Autobot proved too much of a distraction for the drones to focus on an immobile opponent. Or both.

“You were out longer than usual”, the Autobot says. Is that concern in his voice? It better not be.

“How long?” Soundwave still asks.

“Six million years.” The Autobot holds up his hands in surrender when Soundwave’s glare intensifies. “I don’t know, honestly. Chronometer’s still broken. Hours feel like days to me.”

“Is there anything about you that does work?” Soundwave asks.

“My winning smile”, the Autobot grins without his spark in it and winks.

A shard of the cracked lens protecting the Autobot’s right optic pops out when his shutter rises back up from winking and the shard falls to the floor, where it shatters into tinier pieces. They both observe its descent with their optics and stare at it where it lies in pieces on the floor in silence for several seconds.

“Evidently not”, Soundwave says.

“Ouch.”

Soundwave lets out a light scoff and scans the room for his proton glaive. During the fight, it had been knocked out of his hands and he had resorted to using his soundblasts, and then– well. Cold lightning and black fireworks. He spots it next to a drone he terminated earlier and reaches down to pick it back up. As he does, his head splits with a ringing agony and he goes rigid, clutching his helm. Belatedly, he realizes that the parade song is still playing from his speakers.

All while the Autobot watches with that pitying expression. He opens his mouth, lets the words he wants to say hang unspoken in the air a moment. Then he stops hesitating and asks Soundwave, “Are you sure you want to continue?”

“Yes”, Soundwave hisses, trying to force his frame to stop shaking. At least he manages to shut down his speakers, leaving them in silence.

“Soundwave…” the Autobot vents out and stops to think. “… we should check on Perceptor’s progress. The others must be getting idle without you there to boss them around.”

“You’re a terrible manipulator”, Soundwave remarks.

“You know that’s a compliment, right?”

“No wonder you can’t get anyone out.”

There is a second where a fire lights in the Autobot’s optics and he looks like he wants to lunge for Soundwave, picking up where their previous fights left off. He very well might have, had his own body not rebelled against him as he doubles over and vomits a concerning amount of black energon. Soundwave startles only slightly at the display while the Autobot quickly covers his mouth, forcing any further rejection down. Exhausted, he slides down the wall and sits down, optics flickering between the black liquid staining his hands and Soundwave.

Eventually, he just flicks the energon off of his hand and sighs. “Whatever. Level Number Frag-All awaits us.”

“Another malfunction”, Soundwave states rather than asks. One does not need to be a medical professional to know that throwing up black energon is indicative of being in very poor health.

“Yes, it is”, the Autobot grates out. “The worst one, so you can lay off Clobber. Congratulations.”

Soundwave doesn’t reply. The Autobot is glaring stubbornly off to the side and Soundwave thinks that it’s because he doesn’t want to look at Soundwave watching him.

He doesn’t want to see his illness become a spectacle.

Soundwave glances at the energon on the floor, still bubbling like it was being boiled, before he orders the training sim to end and heads to the elevator. “You need to refuel.”

Hot Rod blinks in surprise but joins him. As they ride the elevator back up, there is a silence between them. A different silence. It lacks their usual animosity and exasperation. Maybe it’s because they’re both hurting, they’re both tired, and have at this point seen too much of each other at their worst and weakest. So they just stand there side by side, two mechs slowly dying together.