Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Would you like me to take over, Ratchet?” Optimus Prime asked.

Ratchet's hand twitched away from his work.

“No, no, I’m currently doing some last-minute searching of the human internet,” he grumbled, “someone needs to ensure no one on the Ark ends up as a grainy picture on a conspiracy website.” “Then I’ll need to input our current stock of energon and medical supplies,” Ratchet added. “Ah,” was all Optimus said back to him.

They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, which Optimus very much enjoyed. He listened to the wind outside and to Ratchet not-so-quietly cursing at the human-made tech he was working with. It was a quiet night and before he had come inside to check on his team’s medic, he was looking at the stars he could see in this planet's sky. It was a beautiful sky, but unfamiliar, and made him feel homesick for his own planet. The feeling did not take away from the peacefulness of the present. There were very few peaceful moments throughout the war, and this happened to be one of them.

To Optimus Prime’s knowledge, things were running smoothly on the Ark, the human military base he and his team were currently in has not been discovered by the Decepticons, and Miko, Jack, and Raf were all getting returned to their homes after a rather productive day of identifying possible locations for Decepticon mining operations.

The sound of one of their own transforming behind him made Optimus turn to see Bulkhead walking into the hangar.

He’d just returned from dropping Miko off and would be the last one to return to base that day. Arcee was still watching over Jack in motorcycle form, and Bumblebee was parked on a street corner close to where Raf lives, which also happens to be close to where Miko lives, in case either of the children needed help.

If worst comes to worst, the Prime had reasoned with other Autobots, they will just call the two back to base. A ground bridge could also be sent to them if there was an emergency.

Bulkhead lumbered over to Optimus but before he could start a discussion on Miko’s weird joy at seeing robot guts, “Prime," Ratchet shouted “you’ll want to see this!” Both Optimus and Bulkhead glanced at the monitors and noted the point on what appeared to be a map of very uneven terrain. “It appears to be an energon signature,” Ratchet continued “and as you can see it looks like it’s next to some sort of cave system, which could very well be a Decepticon energon mine.”

He turned to face Optimus “We are low on energon both at this base and the at Ark, and I do not know the next time we will be able to raid a Decepticon mine, so I recommend raiding it immediately. “
“Maybe we should send Bumblebee or Arcee to scout first” Bulkhead cut in “I don’t think running headfirst into the unknown is a good idea.”

Optimus narrowed his eyes at the screen, and after a second of silence said “I do not think this is an opportunity we can afford to give up, given that more energon is always needed, and not taking it when we can may cost us dearly in the future.

He looked at Ratchet “Tell Arcee to return to base, she will assist us in bridging the energon cubes back if Bulkhead and I are able to secure them.”

Ratchet nodded and began putting the coordinates into the ground bridge and pulled a lever down. A portal made of swirling green light with streaks of blue and white, radiating warmth and buzzing with energy appeared before them. “Autobots-” Prime started, then paused and looked at Bulkhead, “Bulkhead,” he said, “roll out!” He then transformed into a truck, and Bulkhead transformed into a car, and they both drove into the swirling light in front of them.

Once on the other side of the ground bridge, they drove through long grass and tall trees as quietly as they could to reach their destination. Ratchet had bridged them outside of the exact location of the signal so they could scout the area, and not fall into an enemy trap if it was one. Any energon they found wouldn’t be that useful if they were offline because they stepped out in front of the enemy army.

On their drive, the two Autobots witnessed no enemy soldiers, nor any view of the “Nemesis.” Although there were plenty of situations where finally learning the location of the enemy ship would be a cause for celebration, seeing it lurking about now would not be one of them.

They edged closer to the cave entrance, the one from which the energon signal was coming from. The lack of guards was already a cause for concern. Well aware that this could be a trap, they carefully stepped into the looming, hungry, mouth of the cave that seemed to seep darkness, especially since it was night. Inside it the void that materialized from the shadows would be enough to terrify any human that looked at it simply because of how not visible anything was. Good thing neither of them were human. They walked through the wide chambers and tunnels with their weapons raised, more and more confused by the lack of personnel, and by the clearly damaged mining equipment that Bulkhead almost tripped on. Finally, they came across a rather suspicious looking pile of energon cubes, which weren’t suspicious because the energon looked wrong or poisoned, per say, but because they sat in a neat pile, in an empty room, clearly mined recently, and yet in a cave full of damaged equipment with no workers.

Optimus and Bulkhead shared a look before edging closer to the pile, which wasn’t large by any means, and both walked around it from opposite directions. The pile of cubes was a cube or two shorter than Optimus, and about as wide as Bulkhead. There was nothing behind it. Bulkhead looked at the pile and carefully took one or two cubes to look inside the pile, but it appeared to be just a pile of energon cubes. There was no bomb wired to explode when they were moved, or spy tech attached to them. There was also no assassin in the walls ready to blast their heads open while they were distracted by the energon. The cons had Deadlock, and he may be a fragging good sniper, but if he was crouching somewhere in this cave, they would have spotted him by now.

Bulkhead shrugged and said “I mean we made it this far so why don’t we take them back to base. Optimus Prime said nothing before requesting Ratchet send a ground bridge so they could take the energon back to base. When the ground bridge opened, Arcee stepped out. Together, the three began to move the cubes, a couple cubes at a time, through the glowing green portal. They stopped their work once when Arcee thought she heard the sounds of blasterfire and shrieking, but they were only met with hollow silence, the unsettling symphony of crickets chirping, and the wind.

Although no threat was discovered, all three found themselves eager to leave the eerie mine, Optimus and Arcee approached the few cubes that remained of the pile to take them too, and Bulkhead, seeing that they wouldn’t need him, turned and started heading towards the open ground bridge.

Unfortunately, before any of them could fulfill their intentions, a vehicon ran into the room from one of the tunnels, he slammed into a wall but that did not stop him from falling into what was left of the energon pile. Arcee reacted fairly quickly but not fast enough, as she automatically leapt into the air, weapons already pointed at the vehicon, Bulkhead whipped his head around before getting into a fighting stance and Optimus fired at where the vehicon was getting up.

“Oh fra-" was all the vehicon had time to say.

The flames and dust from the exploding energon, caused a chain reaction of explosions from whatever energon remained in the cave's mine's walls, not one of the three Autobots saw where they were firing. The last thing they heard was a distressed shout, and the last thing they saw were the bright flames that enveloped them, before the mine gave in and collapsed on top of them.

Chapter Text

Optimus came online after one or two minutes, and then took another minute to realize he was awake, and lying on the floor. In trying to get up, he was made aware of being stuck in a wall of rocks. Sighing, knowing it would be a pain to get free of, he decided his first order of business would be to call ratchet. He opened his comms and was met with the very frantic and panicked voices of the bots trying to reach him.

“Optimus!” he heard Bulkhead shout.

“Are you alright,” Ratchet asked “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Where are you?” Arcee asked.

“What happened?” Bumblebee added, apparently now at the base with Ratchet.

“I am fine,” Optimus replied, as he looked around. “it appears I am still in the mine, currently pinned under a pile of rocks, assistance would be appreciated.”

“I am making our way to you right now,” Arcee said “Once I find a path that leads there.”

“We still haven’t regrouped,” Bulkhead helpfully explained “but don’t worry boss, I’m sure we’ll only take a sec.

With that he cut comms.

With time on his hands he scanned the surrounding area trying to find anything useful that could be used to pry a rather heavy rock off of him.

In the corner of his eye he caught movement, and that’s when he noticed the vehicon staring at him from one of the few openings into the room he was in. They both froze, neither moving an inch or saying a word.

It couldn’t be the vehicon that ran to the center of the blast, he mused, there is no way he could have survived that.

The vehicon then made a noise, wait- not a noise- he said a word, but he was too far away to hear it and the vehicon himself seemed to have stopped while saying it. Suddenly, the vehicon made a step forward, paused, and hesitantly looked at Optimus, and then began walking towards him. Finally processing that an enemy soldier was getting closer to him, Optimus charged his blaster and pointed it at the vehicon who flinched, froze, and threw his hands up. The vehicon slowly backed up to the entrance and started walking away, leaving Optimus to listen to his footsteps quicken and break into a run.

Optimus was then left to ponder the interaction.

A few tunnels away Bulkhead was trudging to approximately where he thought Optimus Prime would be, having been updated by the Prime that there were still vehicons in the tunnels, he now carefully looked for more traps, when he heard the quickly approaching footsteps of someone running. They sound fast and light, so he assumed it’s Arcee.

“Arcee?” he calls out.

The only answer he receives is a vehicon popping into view, shrieking, jumping over him, and said vehicon using his face as a springboard to launch himself ahead.

“Get back here!” Bulkhead shouts.

Now upset and with a dusty footprint on his face, he started to chase him forgetting that Optimus was most likely in the opposite direction.

He may be big and heavy, but that didn’t make him that slow, and his blaster fire reached where he couldn’t.

His blaster fire bounced off of the walls leaving burn marks on the ground and splitting open rocks, the vehicon barely dodging each shot. The vehicon was slowing down, and it was evident that soon Bulkhead would have him cornered at a wall Now within reach, Bullhead swung at the vehicon thinking about how it was almost to easy, but before Bulkhead’s fist collided with his face the vehicon ducked under his arm and kept just out of reach again, and began running back in the direction he came from. Bulkhead turned, now even more annoyed only to see the vehicon jump into a hole in the wall he hadn’t noticed before because of the angle and shape of its outer edges. He quickly approached it worrying about how small it was, wondering if blasting through the wall to fit through it was worth it to catch one vehicon. But as he looked through it all he saw was the darkness from another hole, there was no ground, only a very steep drop.

He now felt a twinge of sadness for the vehicon. Dying alone, in the dark, underground, after almost escaping from an enemy sounded like a terrible way to go.

But then again, it was only a vehicon.

He shook his head, now wasn’t the time to feel bad about some drone, an enemy without feeling or thoughts.

Looking around he almost began panicking thinking he was lost, but remembered Optimus had mentioned a vehicon, and both assuming and hoping that he just fought the vehicon that Prime found, he started heading in the direction it came from, hoping it would eventually lead him to Optimus.

It did.

He helped Optimus out from under the pile of rocks, and he, Arcee, Bumblebee, and Optimus bridged back to base. There they would find an exasperated medic, vexed that any energon they got from this mission didn’t make up for what was used on ground bridging, and that most of it would be used to heal their injuries.

Now out of, and far from the caves, the Autobot wouldn’t notice a groan coming from beneath a pile of rocks right below the center of the explosion.

Chapter Text

Right foot.

Good.

Now left foot.

Steve stumbled, but made sure to stay standing. If he collapsed he wasn’t sure would be able to get back up again.

He waited for the world to stop spinning and focused on the blurry blob of light in his distorted vision, hoping it was an exit he continued towards it.

Right foot.

Ignore the pain.

Left foot.

He cringed at the stabbing jolt that shot up his leg. But he was alright. In terrible shape, but still standing. He was doing great.

And now right foot.

“Steve!”

He didn’t fully process what he heard before he heard it again.

“Steve!” Someone cried “Steve is that you?”

He looked up wondering if he was hearing things, or if his audial receptors were broken, but if they were then so we’re his optics because he could make out two blurry figures running towards him.

Was he really hallucinating?

No, he wasn’t. He could feel the arms wrapping around him to help him stand and he leaned into them.

He could hear a panicked voice trying to reach him but was unable to discern what it was saying. The world spun again, and in a few muddled thoughts he became certain the one holding him was Wendy.

Good, he thought, I made it out of the caves. Then the world faded to black.

Chapter Text

He woke up on a comfortably flat surface, taking only a moment to realize that he was no longer getting dragged across sticks, dirt, rocks, and organic fauna by his panicked friends as they tried to drag him back onto the nemesis. He remembered little of how they had got him back onto the ship since he had been drifting through different states of consciousness, nevertheless he was currently on the Nemesis, in the med bay, alive, and that was what mattered.

Steve began running a self-diagnostic to try to understand why his frame hurt so damn much.

Only once he finished clearing the cascade of error messages did he bother to online his visor. The sight of the med bay’s dull purple ceiling greeted him, then the cracks that ran across his visor, then his two friends that were resting on the medical berths next to him.

That was what finally woke him from his post-getting-blown-up daze.

He wasn’t old by any means, in fact he was part of a batch of vehicons created only two or three centuries ago, which wasn’t old enough for vehicons like Flare-Up to consider him anything more than a sparkling. He was still alive for long enough to grow numb to the feelings of panic that followed the deaths of his friends. Numbness was not apathy, and although he couldn’t quite name what he was feeling, he noted that he was glad they were alive. They were alive because they were lying next to him on a med berth, if they were dead, they simply would have gotten scrapped for parts.

He made an effort to sit up, feeling too many of his sensors unresponsive, his upper body feeling heavier than it should. He looked at the monitor next to his own berth and checked the rate of progression for his healing process. The information he scrolled past showed no irregularities except that he woke up earlier than he should have, it was quite different from what his internal diagnostics were saying, and that meant the program worked.

He frowned slightly, unsure how to feel about that as well. Everything sucked right now, and they’d need to find another way to make a deal with the autobots, but at least Lazerbeak hadn’t lied to him.

He may be a bit slow-witted, but he wasn’t a fool, and he definitely wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Lazerbeak wasn’t informing Soundwave of everything she saw him do, but he decided that worrying about Soundwave’s indifference towards his treasonous behavior was something he’d worry about later.

With a tired sigh he clicked on Knockout’s report to see what slag excuse was used to justify him being in the medibay and not getting torn apart for treason. “Accident in the mines” the report said. ‘Good,’ he thought, that meant their back up plan worked, and Xolotl succeeded in getting them an alibi in the nearby mines. He would need to thank him later, maybe smuggle him one of Wendy’s energon treats. Everything went according to plan. Or at least their back up plan for when things didn’t go according to plan.

He didn’t really have time to think about that since his optics caught a request with his name on it on the report. It was a request for certain parts, ones his frame didn’t have before, and only then did he notice the wings on his back. So, they didn’t have the vehicon parts to fix him, and used Eradicon parts instead. So he was an eradicon now, a flier… neat!

His gaze fell on Wendy and Screw, both who were farther from the center of the explosion and yet more damaged than he. Wendy’s face looked peaceful while he lay in stasis, if Steve didn’t know him, he would have assumed Wendy was a chill guy in real life, not at all the emotionally constipated, panicky, overdramatic, obsessive planner Steve knew he was. Screw lay next to him, her mask and visor were undamaged, so they remained unremoved, and Steve wondered if she looked the same as Wendy beneath it.

The Decepticons hadn’t bothered to give vehicons many variations when it came to faces, if they gave them at all. Those who did have faces all looked the same, although Steve felt as if he could swear on his spark that he could differentiate his friends based on face alone.

For some reason despite their faces being exactly the same, he believed he could recognize them by face alone. In some spark-deep way, he felt they made their faces their own.

Steve really wanted a face.

That’s not important now.

What’s important were his friends lying in stasis in front of him.

How would he fix this?

He didn’t know. Thinking and planning was Wendy’s job. Planning was something Wendy did perfectly, like the flawless plan he came up with to get them into contact with the Autobots. Steve couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else he could have done to protect those who cared for him, perhaps he never should have convinced them to join him.

Well, actually, Wendy was on board and planning their little “mission” before he was, it was only really Screw that took convincing. Screw was the perfect soldier, she always followed the rules, always had a noble spark, it would probably take a while until Steve would be able to convince her to help him again.

A strand of bitterness bloomed in his spark, what was the point of him having some ‘special’ spark if he couldn’t use it to help his friends. He quickly shut that strain of thought down and began to activate the programs necessary to get his friends out of stasis.

Anyone who knew Knockout’s racing habits knew that their medic wouldn’t be back in a while, and only a quick look at his friend's vitals told him they were ready to be awoken. Screw’s visor flashed and her hand twitched as she came online. Wendy shifted and then sat up.
Steve stuffed any bad feeling into his gut, his field of warmth and joyful anticipation, and settled on saying “thanks for saving my aft, you’ll probably be doing that more often now huh.”

Screw glared and Wendy sighed, and Steve decided that instead of dealing with his problems this week, he’ll be running from them while daydreaming about outmaneuvering Starscream, and shooting Prime (although he literally just tried to align himself with him) in the face! Yeah, that sounded more fun.

Chapter Text

“But do you think our movement really needs ‘Towards Peace,’ Screw asked, “human literature has done enough to develop our basic principles, and most of the vehicons are probably not aware the book exists. They probably don’t know much of cybertron’s history anyway.”

“Even if that is the case, we need to learn more about the cause we want to split away from to make sure our cause doesn’t make the same mistakes, and that starts with getting our hands on that book, "Wendy replied.

“Do you think there could be a copy on the ship,” Steve said. “Perhaps,” Wendy answered. Steve didn’t like to read. He knew why he needed to read, and why these books about history and society were important, but boy did he not like to read. Books, and words in general, be it the reading he did for his barely blooming cause, or the reports he always had to file, were inevitable annoyances, that he would gladly give up and throw into an incinerator once the war was over, and they were all living happily ever after.

Speaking of inevitable annoyances, several surprised shrieks in the hallways announce the arrival of the local winged thing. Lazerbeak zips through the doorways and predictably tackles Screw from behind, leaving Screw, resigned, face first on the floor. Screw picks herself up, now with a certain giddy, mechanic, oversized backpack.

“Oooooh you will never know how happy I am that you are alive!” she twittered, “Primus, from the angle I was looking at it looked like Steve exploded, and I thought he was dead now, like for good this time, and I lost track of Wendy and Screw, and then I found Screw being chased by an Autobot–,”

“Lazers,” Screw cut in “vent, and let me vent please.”

“Sorry,” she said, and loosened her grip on Screw.

Steve watched her extra winglets droop, and her field flare with both guilt and relief, and he almost regretted what he was about to say. Almost.

“And where were you,” he asked, making sure his voice remained firm, his field pressed tight against himself so as not to show his apprehension, “that night when we needed you?”

“Oh-,” Lazerbeak squirmed and the light in her optic shifted to face him, “I am SO sorry, I panicked, I didn’t know what to do, I was already panicking before because I thought you thought I was there to spy on you, and well I was, but not in a bad way, and then I couldn’t find you-,”

“Lazerbeak,” said Steve.

“ I didn’t know what to do,” she continued “I flew straight to Soundwave cause’ he picked up on the explosion in the mine, and I could feel him being worried through the bond, and I was scared of the Autobots that were still probably roaming around-,”

“Lazerbeak!”

Lazerbeak quieted and went still when Steve raised his voice, “Why were you even there in the first place?” he asked.

Lazerbeak’s field twinged with a bit of hurt and fear, and Steve hesitated, he did feel a little bit sorry, after all there was a chance Lazerbeak could have been honest about her side of the story. It was possible that she really only followed them to see what they were doing, it technically was possible that she had overheard their ideas of defection and agreed with them, and it was probably possible for her to be able to hide all of those things from Soundwave.

“Steve, please,” Wendy said, “we already had this discussion.”

Steve looked at Wendy, the guy that never pulled his weight, who always hid and drew back from a fight and only ever spoke up to disagree with him.

No.

No, no, no, no.

That was wrong to think.

Wendy pulled his weight, in his own way. His mind was irreplaceable, and Steve wouldn’t have survived this long without him. He was simply soft spoken, and comfortable enough to speak his mind around Steve. Yes. That is what Steve wanted. That was a good thing, and Steve also knew that he was the one leading his friends, his kind, caring friends down a path that could get them all killed.

He looked at Lazerbeak and as much as every part of his processor was begging him to give her a hug and try to laugh it off, he knew he needed to be a strong leader.

Because a strong leader was what they needed, right?

He needed to be strong because of the position he put himself in, to protect his friends.

Because his friends, like him, wanted to see the good in other bots, and so he had to be the skeptical one, something he wasn’t used to being, but knew he’d have to be anyway.

“I promise I was only worried about you guys,” Lazerbeak said, “I followed you out of curiosity, I did not mean to startle you in the caves or make you think Soundwave was coming for you or something, you didn’t really listen to my explanation, and I did not tell him anything about your plans when I returned, or that you were in that location with me, I promise.”

“Are we supposed to believe that?” Steve asked, ignoring how Screw was starting to look annoyed.

The disapproving looks Screw and Wendy sent him bored into him. Lazerbeak stayed quiet.

“Do you really expect us to believe that story, especially that Soundwave wasn’t involved in you being there, and that he doesn’t know about us and our plans either. People mistake Soundwave for being a drone because of his inherent creepiness, but they mistake you for a drone since you only ever act as an extension of him. Are we supposed to act as if that night you just up and decided to start acting with your own free will.”

“...what,” was all Lazerbeak said in return.

Steve shifted on his feet, he for some reason felt as if he wasn’t standing flat, “And what kind of bot, worried about someone else, follows them into a situation where they could screw it up for them, if you actually did that you must be glitched.”

“Steve frag off,” said Flare-Up as she entered the room, Xolotl following close behind her.

“But-,” Steve started, Flare-Up held up her hand “no buts, knock it off, immediately, you’re being rude and unreasonable.”

“You’re one to talk,” Steve grumbled, and was quickly silenced by a glare from Flare-Up.

“Is there anything you need us to help you with?” Wendy asked, clearly desperate for a change in conversation.

“Yes, we're looking for Xolotl’s things. We wanted to catch Lazerbeak and bribe her to tell us their locations in trade for energon,” Flare-Up said, and pulled two miniature cubes from her subspace. “I hid them in the engine room, the seekers quarters, and Breakroom A4, I thought it would be funny to hide your things in places you can see but can’t reach,” Lazerbeak said, her voice tense but lacking any anger, “I don’t need the cubes, and I’m sorry,” she then quickly flew out of the room.

“Well, that went faster than expected,” Xolotl observed.

“Are you proud of yourself?” Screw said looking at Steve, “you’ve upset her.”

It seemed as if gravity was working weird because they now stood at a barely noticeable angle to the floor.

“I did what I had to,” Steve answered, trying to sound calm, “we need to go about this logically and currently the biggest threat to all of our lives is Lazerbeak.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Screw asked, “If we want to start, or at least survive our attempt at starting a movement during a war, we’ll need to trust our friends and allies not shun them.”

The floor was very obviously leaning now but no one had commented on that yet.

“ Look, Screw,” said Steve, “ If there is anything I know about war or the Autobots, it’s that you can’t survive if you have to rely on others, you can’t be weak because then what you care for will be taken from you, and to protect those close to you you must keep those that can possibly to harm to you far away from you.”

“You know nothing of war or Autobots,” Flare-Up snapped, “and who’s flying this piece of slag- is the ship flipping, rolling, what’s happening right now!”

The loudspeakers crackled to life, and in the dullest, most monotone voice, definitely not reflective of the gravity of whatever situation the ship was currently in, Soundwave answered her question. “ENGINE 3: COMPROMISED; VEHICONS: REPORT TO ASSIGNED STATIONS.” His voice echoed through the now tilted hallways of the nemesis, slowly getting drowned out by the running pedesteps of vehicons trying to get to where they needed to go.

Chapter Text

And so, they took off running in different directions. Steve, Wendy, and Screw, to the Command Bridge, and Flare-Up to the labs– probably– no one could ever really tell what Flare-Up’s job was.

The usual solemnly quiet, ominous, command bridge, was now filled with an anxious energy, probably due to the increased number of vehicons quickly tapping away at different screens, the soft humming of machinery that seemed to be louder than normal, and the fact that Soundwave, although standing in his usual spot, clicking through information at speeds no other mech could replicate, almost seemed stressed. His movements more jagged, with his head occasionally twitching left or right, probably to look at another screen.

The three of them quickly rushed to the nearest monitors and began their last assigned roles as they waited for Soundwave to send orders to each of them.

Vehicons didn’t really have a specialty in anything, being created once the war had started meant not getting any chance to truly learn anything while getting moved from battle to battle. They kept dying, so Steve guessed that’s why Decepticon High Command decided to just not waste resources on educating them. Although some vehicons were better at certain things than others, most just kind of rotated through jobs on the ship and had to know a little bit of everything. They’re job was whatever they were ordered to do.

Wendy started sifting through security footage of the last cycle, Screw began looking through the roster and checking in with the teams to make sure everyone is accounted for.

Not everyone was. Screw only just started and there were bots missing.

Steve opened the roster that included all crew members personal comms– or at least he tried and wasn’t able to.

“Medical Lock” was the reason that popped up onto his HUD. That did not make sense since the only Reason he would be kept from working in this way, was if he had some kind of critical injury, and shouldn’t be working on certain tasks while healing.

As if reading his mind, “S0015: RECOVERING” Soundwave helpfully, impassively, added.

If Steve had eyes they would have narrowed.

“I have not been notified,” he said, “I also don't feel like it's needed.”

His friends, and several others were now looking at him like he was insane, and he decided that maybe questioning Soundwave right now was not the best idea.

“S0015: RECOVERING FROM HALF-BODY REFORMAT,” was all Soundwave had to say to that “S0015: TO ABSTAIN FROM UNNEEDED ACTIVITY AT THIS TIME.”

Steve could have stopped talking after that, but he decided not to. “I wouldn’t call the search for missing crew members unneeded,” he gritted out, probably sounding more aggressive than he wanted to, “and I am functional and flight– capable, there is no reason I should not be able to partake in looking for those who may need help!” Steve really wished the other vehicons would stop trying to signal him to stop from behind Soundwave’s back, it was distracting him from… whatever he was trying to do here.

Soundwave had paused and was now fully facing him. Steve really wished those several vehicons avoiding eye contact, turning away, acting like he was a dead mech, to cut it out because maybe then one of his arms would stop shaking.

Something pinged on his HUD. It was permission to do solo flight testing, allowing him to finish his flight hours on his own without the supervision of someone like Knockout, who could never be found. He was also pinged with the number of hours he had left to fly, and number of maneuvers he had left to accomplish.

Did Soundwave expect him to just go and do flight practice now? After everything I just said.

Soundwave was already turning back to his screen.

Before Steve could say something, he would regret, Soundwave spoke. “S0015, Lazerbeak: TO SEARCH FOR ANY MISSING MECHS.”

 ___ ___ ___ ___

That is how Lazerbeak and Steve ended up awkwardly standing in the hallway as they were both sent a file about the first place where a mech was stuck on the ship, and then another with the location of a group of mechs trapped in the ship.

“Well, since there’s two locations, we should each probably just pick one and get each done,” Steve stated, trying not to sound two relieved, “you know, to be more efficient, you go help the guys in the lab, I’ll go help the guy in storage.”

Lazerbeak nodded by tilting her whole body forward, then back, Steve transformed into his jet mode and then they both sped off in different directions.

Thank primus they were heading in different directions.

Then he turned around and sped in the other direction because at least at first, he needed to go that way two. He did not acknowledge Lazerbeak as she looked at him, confused, as he passed her in the hallway.

After several more twists and turns, flying through the corridors of the Nemesis, Steve found the door he was looking for, the door to the storage room, for wish the keypad didn’t work, meaning the door was jammed shut, probably barricaded on the inside by loose things that fell. According to the readings being recorded by the ship there was currently an injured, most likely unconscious vehicon inside, and Steve needed to get him.

Now, Steve wasn’t a normal bot, so he could probably break open the doors if he tried, but 1) he would risk injuring the bot inside and 2) Soundwave was a snitch and would get him experimented on because of his abilities.

Time was ticking and he felt a thin strand of dread make itself known in his spark. He did not know what to do in this situation.

Suddenly, an incoming comm flickered on his HUD, from Lazerbeak, and he accepted it.

“Hey, Steve, sorry to bother you but does the storage room you’re in have any of Shockwave’s stabilizers for experiments, the science team kind of has a… situation… in their lab and they’re saying they can fix it.”

Steve caught sight of the ventilation shaft above the storage room and had an idea. He cringed at the thought of asking Lazerbeak for help, especially because he still felt guilty of what happened earlier.

“ I can’t get into the room, so I really need your help,” he said, “do you have any experience creeping around in ventilation shafts?”

“Pfffff, you mean my hobby,” she replied, “wait there I’ll be there in a klik.”

Despite knowing she was coming, Steve jumped as the smaller figure came up from behind him, and then flew up to the ventilation cover, carefully and quickly detaching it with her data cables. The cover fell, and Lazerbeak was in the vents before it had time to land and make a “thud.”

“Can you get him out through the vents, or will you need to un-barricade the door?” Steve asked over comms.

“The door is not barricaded, but a a data pad did get smashed into the keypad, which is probably why you can’t open it,” Lazerbeak answered, “this guy is small enough for me to get through the vents with, it’ll just be uncomfortable and take a little while.”

“Alright then,” Steve sighed, as he woefully listened to the screeching, audial- damaging noises of metal being dragged against metal, with a worrying amount of thuds and clangs that made Steve certain the poor vehicon would be in the med bay for a while. All the screeching and clanging suddenly grinded to a halt.

“Uhhh, Steve–,”

Steve instantly saw a problem, the entrance to the ventilation shaft was too small to get their vehicon through. “Hold on, he said,” using his thrusters to keep him in place next to the vent opening. He transformed his blaster out and angled it to one of the sides, he saw Lazerbeak visibly bristle from behind the vehicon. He set the power to low and shot at the edges, careful not to hit either of the two mechs inside. The metal wasn’t very damaged, but it was somewhat heated– and moldable (at least for him). He started punching it (ow) and when the entrance was wide enough Lazerbeak pushed the vehicon out, and he fell into Steve’s arms. Yeah, he had definitely taken some damage from whatever fell on him when the ship tilted.

Steve then looked up at Lazerbeak “... thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, then scurried back into the vents to get the stabilizing agents as Steve whisked the vehicon in his arms to the med bay.

Chapter Text

Steve and Lazerbeak loitered outside the doors to LAB 2B as a line of their giddy scientists filed out. Calling them scientists was probably inaccurate since none of the vehicons ever received a formal education, but the sciency types found jobs they liked, and stuck to them. Since there was a lack of non-vehicon bots onboard with skills needed for the very much in demand engineering and medical positions, no one complained when vehicons filled those roles.

Scientists or not they had just survived result of a poorly secured lab, when the ship started to tilt, many of the chemicals and experiments lying unsecured on flat surfaces fell, there containers shattered, their contents spilling and mixing creating a terrifying variety of chemical reactions, and probably a couple explosions, based on the singed and twisted metal Lazerbeak saw on some of them.

They were also able to keep a dangerous, possibly lethal gas that came from this from harming them, and kept it from going into the vents and harming everyone else.

Steve knew their actions would never be celebrated or recognized.

“They got it” Lazerbeak said.

“They got what?” he asked.

“They figured it out. The problem with the ship,” Lazerbeak answered “Soundwave said it’s fixed now.”

“Oh, you’re talking about the command bridge guys,” Steve muttered.

“-and Flare-Up’s engineering Team.”

Lazerbeak glanced at Steve before starting to hover away, then Steve called for her to stop. “Look, about what I said before, I didn’t mean any of it,” he looked away and let regret and anxiety seep into his field, making sure Lazerbeak could feel it, “ I didn't mean it, I said what isn’t true only because I knew it would hurt.”

He vented in.

Then he continued “I was stressed and worried about my friends while forgetting you are my friend too, that doesn’t justify me hurting you, I’m sorry for being a jerk.”

They stood in silence for a second.

Lazerbeak hovered in the air and opened up her field. It was filled with relief, a little sadness, a bit of bitterness, a bit of stress, and a little grief.

Steve knew he had been forgiven but was left confused at feeling grief.

“Why did you run from me that night, Steve?” she asked.

Steve took a moment to reply, “I was worried about protecting Wendy and Screw, I had already stressed so much about whether or not they should be there, since I didn’t want to drag them down with me, since it was dangerous, and when you showed up, I assumed something automatically went wrong.”

“You weren’t supposed to be there Lazers, and you can’t deny that you are one of Soundwave’s best spies. I panicked, and by panicking I was probably the reason our whole plan went to scrap.”

“Sorry for treating you like a traitor, you didn’t deserve that.” he added, quietly.

“I understand wanting to protect your team,” Lazerbeak started, “I feel like few bots understand how it feels to worry for those you care about when everything in this world seems to be trying to take them from you.”

She tilted herself upwards and pointed a data cable at a scratch on the ceiling, “you see that, that was done by Rumble?”

“Uh– yeah.” Steve stammered, surprised by the change of conversation.

“The idiot tried to recreate that Autobot’s, Jazz’s weird magnetic pedes cause' he thought the creepy way Jazz walked on ceilings was cool,” the grief in her field grew “that, like most of his other little science experiments, failed, and Soundwave had to scrape him off the ceiling after he realized he was stuck.”

Steve just nodded.

“Which batch are you from, maybe you met him?” she asked.

“Batch 1,” he answered.” however this is my first time being stationed on the Nemesis, so I have never met Officer Rumble, although I have heard of his passing.”

“You were unlucky, he was one of the best people to be friends with,” Lazerbeak added. “Soundwave, Rumble, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Ravage and I have always been our own little unit, filled with people that we could always trust, always depend on, always protect. We stuck together in the streets, in Kaon’s gladiator pits, and in the war. They were everything, I never thought of a life without any of them, and I don’t think I could have imagined one if I tried. Rumble wasn’t the only mech, he wasn’t the only fellow cassette I had lost, but he was the first, and he shattered my unspoken belief that no matter what we would always be together and safe. He was shot down during an intel mission gone wrong and I realized, at that moment, I wasn't strong enough to protect any of the bots I cared about.”

She took a moment to restart her vocalizer then continued “I would do anything to protect them from harm, and I understand the need to be cautious of someone with the potential to hurt you, I am simply hurt that a friend considers me dangerous to those they deem important.”

Lazerbeak floated into a room with a large window and Steve simply followed.

They ended up looking out at Earth’s sunset, the colors that filled the sky were beautiful, neither of them, on any other planet, had seen anything like it.

“It’s fine that you ran, Wendy and Screw did too” she paused, then spoke “I understand why you did so, and I should have made my presence known earlier, in fact, I probably shouldn’t have followed you in the first place, sorry, I guess it just hurts that you don’t trust me, all though I guess it can’t be helped.

“No, you are my friend, and I should have trusted you,” Steve stated, “I should not have blamed you nor jumped to conclusions without any evidence, especially when you have never given us a reason question your actions, and when you truly do appear to be helping hide our… after-hour activities… from Soundwave.”

“No- I understand the thing about Soundwave,” she started, “you don’t need to be nice to me to keep me from spilling your secret, I won’t tell him I promise-”

“You have helped us in more ways than one, you figured out of our plans to create a new faction and to make deals with the Autobots a while ago, and yet it truly doesn’t seem like you have let Soundwave or any other bot know, and the only reason you followed us when we tried to make contact with the Autobots, and strike a deal with them using energon, was because you were curious and concerned,” he said.

“If we had told you our intentions beforehand this would not have happened, you wouldn’t have followed us, we wouldn’t have left to investigate the sounds you were making, when we saw you, we wouldn’t have panicked and ran, and if we had never left our posts the Autobots couldn’t have surprised us… or we wouldn’t have surprised them.”

Lazerbeak stared at him for a second, optic bright, and a field that flickered with happiness before she pulled it closer to herself.

They sat together watching the last of the sun's rays as it dipped below the horizon enjoying the company that the gentle wind and the few stars that could be seen in the sky offered.

Everything would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the monstrous explosion that rocked the ship. As the ship began to fall from the sky it was pretty clear that none of the engines were working.

Apparently, Primus hated them all, so the nose of the Nemesis dipped into the dark depths of the ocean below, and they all started their long descent down to the dark, sandy, bottom. Steve wanted to sigh but the water that had flooded the sinking ship didn’t let him do that properly.

Chapter Text

There was something about the pathetic attempts of Flare-Up’s “peers” to act as engineers that made her want to protect them. Vehicons being vehicons, spawned during wartime when all past accredited institutions had long crumbled, and credible teachers had fled or offlined.

That meant there was no vehicon with formal qualifications for any job, none of them had any degrees or certificates and certainly no formal education. This showed in the group of vehicon “engineers” Flare-Up was assigned to. Her group was currently scouring through all available data the ship had archived on its engines.

She walked up to one of her fellow vehicons, and slowly, while making optic to optic contact -actually it was visor to visor contact but who cares about the semantics- clicked on the screen he was looking at, so that it no longer showed the specs of one of the ship’s vertical antigrav engines, but the design specs of engine 5, in the back, the broken one he were supposed to be looking at.

His field prickled with embarrassment, a bit of resentment, and a bit of admiration as she walked away.

These were the bots being sent to do dangerous jobs each day, which required knowledge, experience, and skill.

Primus how did they survive this long.

They made her want to wrap them in a tarp and leave them on some dusty cliff somewhere on this mudball planet, and let the ship or whatever else combust without them on it.

No ship, no problems.

She shouldn’t tell Lightbright that.

And these naive little batch 2 and 3 nobodies would probably be safe and free to stare at the clouds in the sky with their new free time, or do some other stupid slag.

Unfortunately, although unofficially, it was her job to lead these nobodies into doing things useful to the cause, a position she had unintentionally fallen into due to her having experience that they lacked.

She couldn’t help but feel jealous of Lightbright, who was in a similar situation, and yet somehow avoided falling into a leadership role despite being the responsible one.

She sighed and flicked on the monitor in front of her, letting its screens flickered to life. She looked at the new data Soundwave had sent. He sent the blueprints of the Nemesis’ original design plans for the engines in an attempt to help them find the problem. Which was nice but she didn’t find it particularly useful. She scrolled through the blueprints on one screen, comparing them with the modifications done to the ship on another.

The only thing she discovered was mind-numbing boredom.

She scrolled through what seemed to be an endless stream of information that had absolutely nothing of value to it.

She looked back and it didn’t look like her team was faring much better.

Begrudgingly, she turned back to her terminal, her burning hatred for deskwork refueled.

She really wished they had Shockwave on deck because then she would probably be assisting him. In fact, Shockwave might have deemed the current situation to be beneath his help and just continued with his experiments, which would be a lot more fun to help with then endless, pointless scrolling.

She paused, and stretched by swinging her arms above her head, before she turned to face the room with her hands on her hips.

“Hey, you,” she called out to the guy on the terminal closer to her. He paused, and so did everyone else in the room, and they stood in dead silence. The guy she was staring at hesitantly pointed at himself.

“Yeah. You.”

He hesitated before walking over, and the quiet tapping of fingers on screens started up again. She grabbed his arm and tugged him in front of her monitor once he was within reach, and to comfort her new, nervous, friend, she patted him on the back.

“Don’t be shy, you’re that guy that found a faster way to refine energon for us, right?” she stated “Impressive.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me, it was-”

“I don’t care,” she said, and she didn’t care, she just needed someone to throw her work onto.

“You look like one of the smarter ones so I thought I would give you the opportunity to test your intellect, to prove yourself both to yourself and to your cause, to test your limits… you know.”

She grabbed the chin of the bot in front of her, who clearly wasn’t buying anything she was saying and gently nudged his face to face her screen. “I’m sure you’ll find something here,” she said, “ you have the makings of a mech built for more than… whatever you were doing before.”

Before he could object, she was out the door and on her way to the engine room.

When in doubt (or dying of boredom) there was nothing wrong with taking a more hands on approach. This was something she learned from Wheeljack.

This situation, or at least the “trying to desperately figure out what was wrong with a contraption before it kills you” part, brought back memories of Wheeljack's lab. Truly, the finest entertainment was the explosive kind. That train of thought would lead her to thinking of the autobots, of Chromia, Elita-1, or Warpath…

Those thoughts wouldn’t lead her anywhere useful, so she decided to think of something else.

Like pulling out everything she knew about engines from what was saved in her processor. She didn’t specialize in spaceflight-worthy engines but she considered herself a good enough mechanic to do a good enough job at fixing certain parts.

Her speciality was exploding things, not fixing them. She liked exploding things, but detonation wasn’t always a useful function of tech. To be useful onboard the nemesis, with no need for new explosive technology, one must be good at fixing things.

And so, fix things she shall.

Her steady walk turned into a light jog as she commed Lightbright.