Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dust had settled uncomfortably under Knockout’s plating, leaving him quite itchy. He could hardly recall the last time he’d properly buffed his plating, let alone taken an oil bath – having one of those again truly seemed like a distant pipe dream. He’d even settle for one of those human car washes at this point!  

…Okay, maybe he wasn’t quite so desperate yet – the humans thought it appropriate how harshly they handled his delicate plating, not to mention that they used water! Cold water!  

He shuddered thinking about the last and only time he’d tried going through a car wash. And they called decepticons cruel!  

Speaking of cruel…  

Knockout smacked his cuffed servos into the door to his – and a servoful of vehicons’ – cell. “Hello!”, he yelled at the same time, still not having given up on the possibility of receiving an answer. “This is cruel and unusual punishment, keeping us away from any sort of hygienic equipment!”  

‘Cruel and unusual punishment’ was a phrase he’d picked up from one of his visits to earth. He’d found it amusing at the time, imagining Megatron – or any decepticon, really – laughing in the humans’ faces when they accused him of such.  

The autobots, on the other servo, tended to think more along those lines. Not to mention their little human pets. Surely using earth-inspired language would catch their attention!  

…except the door remained stubbornly closed.  

With a harsh, annoyed ex-vent, Knockout smacked the door again. “Come on, you can’t do this to us! Do you even know how many scratches I have in my paint?! At least give us access to a buffer!”  

…Nothing.  

“Urgh. Of course. So much for the autobots’ moral high ground!”, he yelled at the thick piece of metal separating him from the outside. “At least we gave prisoners access to cleaning equipment!”  

That wasn’t true, but Knockout wasn’t too bothered by the lie. At this point it was clear that there was either nobot on the other side listening at all, or they didn’t particularly care. And if it was the latter Knockout would certainly pull out all the stops to make them feel guilty!  

While guilt-tripping had never been a particularly effective manipulation technique within the decepticon ranks, he wasn’t unfamiliar with it and he wasn’t above using it to get access to a proper buffing station.  

To Knockout’s surprise the door actually began rattling after another short moment of pause.  

He backed up a few steps, watching in bafflement as the door shook a few times.  

He positioned his arms on his hip plating as best he could with his wrists still cuffed, pulling his faceplate into a sneer. “About time!”, he exclaimed, disguising the fact he had not expected his tactic to yield actual results. “Do you know how long I’ve been---”  

“Shut up!”, an unfamiliar voice hissed into the room as the door finally opened.  

“Oh?”, Knockout replied, eyeing the yellow scout with hardly-concealed amusement. “Did I hit a nerve?”  

Again, the use of a human phrase was quite deliberate.  

The bot in the door huffed. “Hardly. But I need you to stay quiet.”  

“Oh?” , Knockout leaned in, a grin stretching his faceplate, showing off the fangs that had denoted him, long ago, as lower caste. “Is the autobot golden boy actually breaking the rules? For little old me? I’m quite flattered, Bumblebee!”  

The bot pulled a face that made it clear he already regretted having opened the door. “ Listen .”, he hissed, “The vehicons love helping with construction but some of them—I’m sure some of them have been disappearing, hiding their injuries! And I don’t—“, he trailed off for a moment, shook his helm. “You’re a medic, aren’t you?”  

The smug grin was still firmly in place as Knockout moved his optics from the yellow autobot to his claws. “I could be persuaded to be one, I’m sure.”, he remarked, optics half-lidded.  

A frustrated beep emanated from the scout. “ What do you want? ”  

“Hmmm…”, Knockout pulled his servo close again, tapping at his chin with one pointed digit in thought, “What do I want?”, he turned back to Bumblebee, the bot’s expression already harshly aggravated. “How about an oil bath and a chance to prove that I, truly, wish to redeem myself?”  

The first request had the yellow bot rolling his optics, but the second seemed to take him by surprise. “You actually want to--”  

A faint voice cut the bot off. His optics widened and he leaned back out into the hallway, before quickly pushing the door open farther.  

“Fine!”, he agreed, “Just come along and be. Quiet!”  

Knockout gave a chuckle as he stepped out of the cell, curiously eyeing his surroundings – as if he didn’t know exactly where he was. The nerve of these bots to imprison them on their own former warship.  

“Come on.”, he whispered and waved Knockout along.  

The race car followed, not bothering to put any particular speed into his gate for once. That only drew an irritated pulse from Bumblebee’s EM-field that Knockout quite relished.  

“Sooo…”, he began, after a moment of silent walking, “You need me to take care of a few vehicons?”  

The yellow scout ex-vented in annoyance – though the emotion appeared not to be aimed at Knockout himself.   

“Yes. I think. I’m pretty sure.”  

“How convincing.”  

“Look!”, the scout whirled around, cutting their walk short. Knockout took a discreet glance around the hallway, noting that it was one of the more remote ones. “I know vehicons have been disappearing lately and always after some kind of accident! And, with Bulkhead and the others refusing to notice anything—and Optimus not---“, the bot cut himself off to vent once more, before shaking his helm and continuing, “I think the vehicons are disappearing whenever they get injured because they don’t trust us to take care of them properly. But you—”  

“---But I was their medic for megavorns and am, therefore, trustworthy, yes?”  

The bot nodded.  

Knockout chuckled. “If only everybot was as naïve as you are. The war would have been over megacycles ago!”  

The bot’s optics narrowed. “I can always put you back in the cell.”  

The medic moved past the yellow scout. “Now, now! There’s no need to be so hostile all of a sudden! Let’s go find those injured vehicons, shall we?”  

This was a terrible idea. This had been a terrible idea from the moment it had spawned in his processor and Ultra Magnus was certainly going to punish him extra hard once he found out.  

Because there was not a single doubt in Bumblebee’s mind that they would be found out. Knockout was about as subtle as a predacon in a chinashop.  

His red plating, while somewhat faded from lack of maintenance – and Bumblebee did wince a bit at the thought, promising himself he would at least improve the prisoners’ life, even if his stupid plan turned out to be the failure he knew it would be – was still quite noticeable against the backdrop of Cybertron’s newly revived metallic plating.  

The long string of complaints that he was currently lodging off in Bumblebee’s direction certainly didn’t help either.  

The former scout was growing more and more agitated with every word that left the medic’s intake. While his voice remained somewhat dampened, the emptiness of Cybertron lent itself well to carrying noise much farther than one expected.  

“…of course, why did you have to put me in the same cell as Heartwringer? He is such a brute, you know, hardly ever even buffed—”  

“Wait.”  

Bumblebee whirled around to face Knockout, feeling his own optics widen in confusion.  

“Who’s Heartwringer?”  

The potentially-former decepticon raised an optic ridge, staring at Bumblebee as though he was the daftest bot on the planet. The former scout did kind of feel that way after realizing just what he’d asked.  

“Why, one of the vehicons you imprisoned me with. Don’t tell me…”, now Knockout leaned in, amusement pulsing outward through his field. “You didn’t know the vehicons have names?”  

Bumblebee didn’t pull in his field quick enough to hide his embarrassment. The definitely-not-former decepticon broke out into sudden laughter, holding one clawed servo to his mouth.  

“Oh, dear.”, he remarked, hardly calming down from his fit. “No wonder they refuse to come to you for help.”  

The yellow bot huffed a vent and crossed his arms, optics narrowed. “Are you done?”  

The medic hummed. “For now.”  

Rolling his optics, Bumblebee turned to continue onwards – soon enough they’d reach the end of this rubble field and actually be able to drive in their altmodes, rather than having to walk.  

“Bumblebee? Is that you?”  

His systems froze into inaction for a moment.  

Knockout barely had time to look around for the source of the new voice, before the yellow bot shoved him behind a nearby piece of rubble.  

“Hide!”, he hissed, pre-empting the disgruntled noises the maybe-probably-former decepticon used to display his displeasure.  

Once the red plating had fully disappeared farther down the rubble, Bumblebee straightened up and turned around finding himself faceplate-to-faceplate with an incensed motorcycle.  

“Heyyyyy, Arcee!”, he greeted awkwardly.  

Her optics narrowed. “Bumblebee. What are you doing out here?”  

“Ah, you know…”, the yellow bot replied, optics darting around with the faint hope of finding an explanation for his presence. “…just wanting to assess the damage Cybertron took…?”  

The other bot retained her searching stare for a few breems longer before breaking the optic contact with a sighed vent. “Yeah.”, she replied, her own gaze dragging over the rubble they were standing in. “I get that.”  

A mirthless smile curled her faceplate. “Our home.”, she remarked, voice dry, “Entirely in ruins. Because of us.”  

“Because of the decepticons.”, Bumblebee corrected, reaching out with his EM-field to comfort her bruised and melancholic one. “Because of Megatron. We’ll be the reason it’s rebuilt – restored to it’s former glory!”  

Arcee sighed, her smile taking on a bit more of a genuine edge. From the edge of her optics she looked at Bumblebee, field tinging with amusement.  

“You’re taking Optimus’ absence surprisingly well, Bee.”  

The sudden urge to change the topic overcame Bumblebee. “Ha, yeah, well, you know me!”, he replied, optics darting with sudden frantic energy over the surrounding rubble. Where had Knockout gone off to? “Uh, anyway, I gotta, uh, head back to HQ! Report to Ultra Magnus, you know how it is. And you should finish your patrol! Definitely! Don’t let me keep you!”  

The blue bot raised an optic ridge, something knowing in her expression and her field. “See you later, Bee.”  

She transformed and sped off, expertly dodging and weaving between pieces of debris. Sometimes Bumblebee envied her nimbleness.  

“See you later!”, he called after her.  

He waited until the noise from her engine had grown faint before he turned around  and began frantically searching the piles of rubble around him.  

“Knockout!”, he whisper-yelled, moving in the direction he’d seen the red decepticon disappear in. “Knockout, where the frag are you?!”  

“Right here, Bee , don’t get your plating in a twist.”, the medic responded, sauntering out from behind a particularly large piece of debris. His grin was still firmly in place, despite the new layer of dust on his plating. His field radiated smugness.  

“What.”, Bumblebee demanded, already feeling the anger rush back.  

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all.”, the other responded, moving past the yellow bot, “Just thought it was quite interesting that the moment daddy leaves the planet, you’re breaking all the rules! And for little old me?”  

The former scout grit his dentae, glaring at the decepticon before him.  

“Why, Bee, I almost feel flattered.”  

“Don’t call me that.”, Bumblebee spat, before rounding past Knockout to continue farther out of the rubble. The urge to burn away all the emotions boiling under his plating, by driving along Cybertron’s surface as fast as his engine would allow, was growing stronger.  

“Oh, I’m sorry, only autobots get to call you that, hm?”  

The yellow bot whirled around, EM-field an expanse of prickly anger. “ Shut. Up.”  

“Alright, alright, no need to get all… worked up.”  

Something had gotten stuck in his ped struts and was making quite the nuisance of itself with every step Knockout took. Presumably he had picked it up when Bumblebee had shoved him into that pile of debris for cover.  

Honestly, the scout should know better than to try and sneak him out when that zealous blue bot was patrolling. Even Knockout knew how high-strung she tended to be.  

He'd had to patch up Airachnid quite a few times after their encounters, after all, and most of those injuries had been… gruesome , to some extent or another.  

He found himself throwing a glance over his shoulder, just to make sure he couldn’t spot the motorcycle anywhere in the surrounding rubble. But all that met his optics was eerily dead-looking grey.  

The sight made his plating shrink back against his protoform in unease.   

Being surrounded by the exact shade of grey a dead cybertronian usually sported was, by far, one of the less pleasant experiences he’d endured over the vorns.  

When he finally turned his gaze back toward the front, he found Bumblebee sending him a displeased glare. The yellow bot had his arms crossed, too.  

Generally Knockout relished being a nuisance, but moreso because he was doing it purposefully. Seeing the expression without knowing the cause wasn’t quite as satisfactory.  

“What is it now?”, he questioned, pulling up one of his optic ridges, as they both came to a halt.  

The rubble had become much more scattered here, dying out until a wide expanse of grey flatness stretched out before them.  

The scout vented a sigh and rolled his optics. “You need to pay attention to me and where we’re going. Follow my path exactly, alright?”  

“It’s alright, Bee, I’m a big mech. I can find my way across a plain field.”  

“I’m serious, Knockout.”, the bot replied, voice hard as the metal they were standing on.  

“Alright, alright, I get it. You’re touchy about being seen. I’ll make sure to pay special attention to the way you move.”  

His grin was received with exasperation as Bumblebee stepped away, closer toward the edge of the field.  

“Good.”, the scout muttered before promptly transforming and speeding off.  

…  

Knockout remained where he was, wondering whether or not this was some elaborate trap set by the autobots.  

But he quickly dismissed that idea; what would the point in a trap like this be? He’d already been in their custody. Besides, autobots tended to pretend they were above such tactics.  

No, the most reasonable assumption was that Bumblebee had simply forgotten about the stasis cuffs that still clung to Knockout’s wrists and prevented him from transforming.  

The medic found himself glancing backward again, a hint of paranoia sneaking into his spark. If the blue bot found him like this – alone – that would be bad.  

Much, much worse than her finding him with one of her team mates keeping him in line. It would look like a semi-successful escape attempt.  

…  

Knockout really hoped Bumblebee would turn back and come to pick him up soon.   

That pebble – or whatever it was – that still irritated the wiring in his ped was truly beginning to get on his nerves. The thing wasn’t even painful, no, just entirely unpleasant.  

A faint cracking noise reached Knockout’s audials and he near jumped several mechanometers into the air in fright. His optics darted around, servos hesitantly, uncertainly half-raised to signify his unarmed status.  

He didn’t spot anything, no flash of blue, nothing. Still he couldn’t help but feel utterly anxious with every klik that passed him by.  

And a glance at his internal chronometer revealed that hardly a breem had gone by since Bumblebee had decided to honor his name and bumble his way through the least thought-out escape plan Knockout had ever seen.  

Another noise – a snap, this time – made him whip his helm around.  

The fact that Cybertron, despite it not being dead, anymore, exactly, was still lacking in most sorts of life that used to populate it meant it was generally blanketed in a rather suffocating silence.  

Which only made these assorted sounds stand out even more, echoing with the volume of a fusion cannon shot across the grey expanse.  

Hoi!(＾∇＾)ﾉ♪<  

A swear slipped past Knockout’s dermas so harsh it would have made Megatron reconsider his untouchable status as medic.  

His surprise was also – of course – accompanied by a full-body jump that ended with him flat on his aft. Another curse followed the several deep vents he used to calm his spark rate back down to a normal level.  

Only as he climbed back to his peds did he examine the comm message he’d received closer. The sender was none other than…  

>Soundwave?  

Knockout (＾3＾)<  

He shuttered his optics several times as he stood there in silent bafflement.  

Well, this is a surprise. Thought you were dead, commander.<  

Not dead. And neither is Megatron <3<  

The red medic felt the energon freeze in his lines. “That’s impossible.”, he muttered, optics wide. He’d been there – he’d seen Megatron get a stab to the spark and dropping off the edge to the planet below.  

Not even Megatron could survive something like that.  

…Right?  

That’s great! So… what would you have me do, sir?<  

Best to play it safe for now. Since Knockout had no idea where Soundwave was – where was Soundwave, anyway? What had happened to him?  

He just remembered some vehicons mentioning that he’d been incapacitated.  

Regardless, with his untraceable long-distance comm link Soundwave could be anywhere. On earth, even.  

What is your situation?<  

Knockout allowed his shoulders to slump with his relief. A faint grin pulled at his dermas. So Soundwave didn’t know about his current circumstances.  

Or he was pulling a reverse-psychology move of some kind – though Soundwave was far less prone to those than Starscream had been.  

>I’m currently in custody by the autobots. Don’t even have access to a buffer!  

The revving of an engine cut so abruptly through the air that Knockout nearly fell to his aft again. But this time he managed to catch himself, optics moving frantically until he spotted the quickly approaching yellow spot across the field.  

The scout finally remembered, then, did he?  

Knockout did his best to straighten out his posture, pulling on his favorite grin. He hoped he was doing a good job at displaying his usual non-chalance.   

(Not dead! And neither is Megatron!)  

The thought alone sent a shiver down Knockout’s back strut.   

The autobots could use another medic.<  

Bumblebee transformed back into bot-mode, immediately grinding out “Not a word.”, before he moved in and disabled Knockout’s cuffs.  

“Wouldn’t think of it, Bee.”, the medic replied, stretching out his arm joints before joining the other in driving across the field in altmode.  

Knockout had quite missed the feeling of stretching out his wheels properly.  

But the feeling of finally achieving a modicum of freedom was harshly dampened by the prospect that perhaps somewhere across the galaxy, on a blue-and-green mudball of a planet, his previous jail waited to cuff him once more.  

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. This was really the first time that human saying made any sort of sense in Knockout’s processor.  

He didn’t like it.  

Chapter Text

“Oh scrap.”, Bumblebee muttered and Knockout couldn’t help but whole-sparkedly agree.  

“What was that?!”, he exclaimed as he closed in on the bot’s altmode.  

“Predaking.”, the scout responded, voice tense.  

Knockout’s spark flickered dangerously within his chassis. That would explain why the rumbling had sounded so awfully familiar.  

“ Predaking?!”, he repeated nonetheless, sensors already on high alert.  

If patching up Airachnid after a romp with Arcee had been a pain, repairing Starscream after an unsuccessful attempt at ‘training’ the predacon was enough to give Knockout nightmares while he was awake.  

“He’s here?!”, he yelled, before tacking on, “He’s alive?!”  

“ Yes!”, Bumblebee answered, “Now slow down! Our best bet is talking him down – unless you want his hunting instincts to kick in!”  

Just as his last glyphs found the air, the yellow scout hit his brakes, throwing up a cloud of rust flakes.  

A few kliks later, Knockout followed his lead. The bot was the expert here.  

Together they stood, at the edge of an invisible line that Knockout only now realized had been followed quite closely by Bumblebee. Less so by the red medic.  

Frag.  

The ground shook with the weight of the landing predacon. He threw his head back, letting out another mighty roar before angling his head down to look at the two mechs.  

Bumblebee inclined his helm respectfully. Knockout hurried to do the same. “Predaking. What brings you out here?”  

The gigantic dragon took a moment to transform into botmode before answering. His expression read as nothing but displeased. “You are trespassing. The question should be directed at you .”  

The yellow scout raised his helm again, meeting the optics of the giant mech fearlessly. “I did not step a single wheel into your territory, Predaking.”, he remarked, voice resolute.  

The predacon’s gaze slid from the yellow bot to Knockout, who couldn’t quite hide the stutter in his vents.  

“No, perhaps not. But this one did.”  

Immediately, Bumblebee stretched out his left servo, almost as though he was trying to protect Knockout.  

The red medic reset his optics, quite taken aback by the gesture. Yet a glance at the scout’s helm revealed that he was resolutely staring at Predaking.  

“Knockout is not an autobot and therefore not part of our agreement.”, the yellow scout remarked, voice even, despite the latent fear pulsing through his field.  

A field Knockout could only pick up on because the autobot had stepped closer to him, right servo emitting a low whine like combat protocols just at the edge of kicking in.  

Despite the situation Knockout couldn’t help but feel appreciative of the other bot. Sure, a tiny scout would hardly be much of an obstacle to a mech like Predaking – but perhaps Bumblebee’s sacrifice could buy the red medic the few precious breems he needed to escape.  

…Not that he had anywhere to escape to.  

(The autobots could use another medic.)  

“Yet still he intrudes upon my territory.”, the predacon rumbled.  

Once again, before Knockout had even the chance to open his intake and explain himself, talk himself out of trouble – as he’d done many times on the Nemesis – Blumblebee spoke up.  

“Which is my fault. I neglected to tell him that we were driving along your borders. I apologize. It will not happen again.”  

Predaking’s gaze landed on Knockout’s optics again.  

The red medic recalled unfreezing the other’s lines after he had returned to the Nemesis. He recalled buffing out dents and scratches of Predaking’s plating after fixing up Starscream. Because while Shockwave had primarily cared for the predacon, Knockout had taken over whenever the scientist was too busy or otherwise preoccupied.  

He pulled on those memory files now, a calming smile stretching his faceplate. “Just this once, Predaking.”, he said, voice in that same cadence he’d used to soothe the distressed predacon during a routine inspection. They hadn’t realized quite how sentient he was, back then, but the voice still appeared to have an effect on the mech.  

His ruffled plating flattened almost imperceptibly, frown faintly smoothing out. “…Fine.”, the king rumbled, “Just this once. But after today you are bound by the same rules as the autobots.”  

Knockout inclined his helm.  

Predaking remained, the heavy gaze from his optics burning into Knockout’s plating as he and Bumblebee sped away.  

The red medic made sure to follow the scout’s movements exactly, this time. As they were driving, he checked his mirrors several times, but the tell-tale speck of a predacon in the sky did not follow them.  

They were fine.  

For now. Probably.  

“Where exactly are we even going?”, Knockout questioned, his servo slipping from the rough edge of the jagged piece of metal he was currently climbing. A heavy vent of warm air poured out of his frame in an effort to quell his overheating. “I thought you didn’t know where those vehicons snuck off to!”  

“I don’t.”, Bumblebee confessed, turning to offer the medic his own servo. “But when I followed them, I always lost them around the same area. So that’s where we’re going.”  

A strained groan left Knockout’s main intake as he accepted (mildly bewildered) the scout’s offered help and pulled himself the rest of the way up. Luckily they’d reached the top by now, leaving them stood atop of a hill of rubble and distorted metal.  

The medic allowed himself a few kliks of respite, cycling his vents. “Fantastic.”, he muttered.  

The yellow bot shrugged, a mischievous grin decorating his faceplate. “Race you to the bottom?”  

“What do you mean?”, Knockout asked, optics narrowing. He didn’t like the particular twinkle in the bot’s expression.  

The yellow scout turned, jumped and transformed mid-air. “Last one there is a rotten scraplet!”, he yelled.  

His tires turned for a moment, before finally gaining traction. He shot forward, rapidly descending the pile of scrap.  

“You spark of a—“, Knockout exclaimed, a faint bit of amusement curling through him as he transformed as well.  

His altmode was set a bit too low for a race across the uneven, rough surface. He could feel the scratches in his undercarriage.  

But Bumblebee had challenged him to a race and Knockout was nothing if not the fastest race car on Cybertron – or earth, for that matter.   

He floored his gas petal, using a mild transformation to pull his undercarriage a little farther up. It wasn’t like he needed room for passengers right now.  

After a few kliks he shot past the yellow scout, giving him an amused “See you at the finish line!”, as he passed.  

“Hey!”, the bot answered, engine revving as he kicked into a higher gear, “Get back here!”  

Knockout laughed, enjoying the breeze of the wind against his plating. And this time, he didn’t even feel stifled by the latent fear that a predacon would swoop down and grab him!  

Honestly, he’d missed this – perhaps even more than his clean plating. No, no, definitely not more than his mint condition paint, actually.  

But it was nice nonetheless, being able to push himself past his limits like this again. Stretching his wheels.  

Really, it was almost worth----  

Woah!  

Bumblebee cursed the fact that he wasn’t as fast as Knockout – but only a little bit. He felt too giddy to be properly angry. Usually he and Smokescreen would go on races together across Cybertron’s wasteland – when they found the time, anyway – but something about chasing Knockout down this hill felt… exhilarating in a way that racing Smokescreen hadn’t.  

“I’ll catch you!”, the yellow bot yelled, evading a particularly obstructive protrusion of sharpened metal.  

As they raced on, Knockout gained speed, weaving between debris and jutting rocks alike, red paint disappearing between all the obstacles at semi-regular intervals.  

Bumblebee didn’t mind much, the anxiety of loosing the ‘con minimal, considering the volume of his engine and the delighted laughter filling the air.  

…Until the noise of Knockout’s engine abruptly cut off, as did his cackle.  

Bumblebee came to a halt behind the last obstacle he’d avoided, transforming back into bot mode in the process.   

Silence .  

The utter, absolute silence of an undead planet that was still rebuilding itself.  

“Knockout?”, he called cautiously, optics moving frantically to catch a glimpse of that red plating. There was nothing besides the occasional stain of rust. “Knockout!”  

It was Arcee that found him in the end, digging in a pile of rubble, moving pieces of debris, seemingly at random.  

His voicebox had since fallen silent, only his anxious vents filling the dead space.   

Arcee transformed, watching with concern as the former scout collapsed servos clutching his helm.   

As she closed in, footsteps silent, her audials picked up on quiet mutterings falling from Bumblebee’s intake.  

“No, no, no, I lost him, how could I lose him?! No, no, no! Optimus is gonna be--- no, no!”  

“…Bee?”  

The yellow scout shot to his peds instantly, whipping around to meet Arcee’s optics. His stance failed to be anything remotely relaxed, despite his obvious attempt to make it seem that way.  

“Arcee! What, uh, a pleasant surprise! Hey! What, uhm, brings you to this, errr, beautiful spot…?”  

He nearly fell to his faceplate as he leaned against a particularly unstable pile of debris, that, predictably, fell over with a loud crash.  

Arcee raised one optic ridge questioningly. She crossed her arms. “Bee, what’s wrong?”  

“Wrong? Uh, nothing! Nothing’s wrong.”, a fake smile decorated the former scout’s faceplate.  

The motorcycle remained unmoved, simply kept staring at Bumblebee with narrowed optics.  

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the yellow bot slumped with a heavy ex-vent. “Fine… I… may havefreedKnockoutandthenimmediatelylosthim.”  

A heavy vent left Arcee’s intake. “I knew this would happen.”  

The yellow bot’s optic’s shot wide in surprise. He even drifted back into beeping in his puzzlement. “You knew?!”  

“I wasn’t sure why you were sneaking all over the Nemesis but then Knockout’s complaining suddenly and mysteriously stopped. After an entire two weeks with only breaks for refueling.”, Arcee explained, field curling with amusement at the sheepish embarrassment flooding Bumblebee’s. “Besides, you’ve been pestering us about the vehicons almost since we’ve arrived here.”  

“So, uhm… are you going to help me find him…?”  

“I am. And then we’re bringing him back to the Nemesis and nobody has to know about this little excursion, alright?”  

The yellow bot’s shoulders slumped. “…right.”  

Arcee then reached a servo up to the side of her helm. A frown pulled at her faceplate. “You haven’t tried to comm him yet?”  

Bumblebee shrugged. “I can’t. Didn’t ask for his comm line.”, a rookie mistake, really, in the long line of mistakes he’d made today. Starting with getting up in the first place.  

He missed his berth.  

His HUD pinged with a message from Arcee.  

“Here, try this, it’s an old ‘con line we picked up ages ago.”  

Knockout landed mid-transformation, impact pushing all the air out of his systems with a forced vent. After a brief moment of recollecting himself and closing a few pop-ups informing him of bruised parts, he transformed fully.  

His nightvision – while never measuring up to the various miner builds – was still much better than most autobots’. As such he was quite capable of seeing the absolute horror that surrounded him.  

He couldn’t help a sharp invent.  

A wide, rather gigantic room – perhaps a warehouse of some kind, when Cybertron was still populated? – stretched out around him. Throughout the entire thing, in a grid-like formation, lay injured vehicons. Some of them were placed on raised platforms, but most simply rested on the metal floor.  

Yeah, sure, rested .  

There must have been at least, what, fifty? A hundred?  

Sending a careful glance around the room – he was the only visible mech on their peds – he raised his gaze upward. He’d fallen through a hole in the ceiling, after all... Maybe there were a few of those and the drones had simply fallen into a perfect grid…?  

But above Knockout there wasn’t a single pinprick of light coming from the hardly visible roof.   

Lowering his gaze again and finding himself deprived of options, Knockout carefully crept forward.  

Another glance was sent around the room, but he remained the only mech upright, before he knelt down beside the first downed vehicon he reached. From what he could see the poor thing had several snapped struts in his ped, leaving it sticking out at an odd angle.  

There was something haphazardly wrapped around the limb, as though somebody had – very, very badly – tried to fix the mech. But, well. The job was so shoddily done, Knockout felt second-servo embarrassment for the poor sod who’d attempted it.  

Still he reached out to where the drones had their medical ports. Usually hooking oneself up to a mech that was unconscious for unknown reasons was a sure-fire way to get a virus, but Knockout had been retrofitted with special medic firewalls once he’d joined the decepticons.  

A fond memory, really, with Breakdown threatening that upper Iacon medic into giving up the specialty upgrades. He missed his assistant.  

With a shake of his helm Knockout cleared his cache and plugged himself into the vehicon’s medical port.  

To his surprise he found that the mech was still alive. Indeed, he’d only been forcefully put into stasis – a process that must have been about as rudimentary and terribly executed as the botched ‘repair job’.  

The mech’s code was a mess, jumbled and tangled. Whenever he woke up, he’d have to do some intense deep cleaning through his personality matrix before he could properly… be a person again.  

Knockout pulled back, plug receding back into his arm plating. With a considering look he turned to the vehicon at his other side. This one appeared to have received a rather crushing reminder of Cybertron’s gravity – against his torso.  

Not that it looked particularly lethal either, however. The damage appeared quite superficial, really, mostly dented plating. Maybe some bruising on the protoform beneath.  

Still, somebody had gone to the trouble of wrapping an energon compression mesh loosely around the vehicon’s middle. A quite useless affair, even if it wasn’t such an amateur wrap – there wasn’t a single drop of lost energon on the floor beneath the hurt vehicon.  

Plugging into this drone confirmed that he, too, had been forced into stasis and had some scrambled code to sort through, but was otherwise fine.  

Casting another look across the bodies strewn over the floor, the others looked much the same. Superficial damage, broken struts, everyone sporting such a terrible, awful ‘repair job’ that Knockout was certain not even Starscream would have done this bad.  

Not a single drop of spilled energon in sight.  

Maybe another drone had done it? They weren’t programmed in the slightest with medical procedures.  

Looked like Bumblebee’s theory was starting to hold more water.  

…  

Knockout grimaced. When had he even picked up so many human phrases? He felt a little disgusted at himself.  

At least the rock in his ped had not survived the fall from the ceiling, leaving him unimpeded as he stood up again.  

Quite certain that there was nothing to fear, here, except for medical ineptness, Knockout began making his way toward the rectangular hole in the opposite wall. It looked quite like a doorway.  

The hallway beyond it was dim, but a little more illuminated than the room before. A thin string of lights ran along the floor, giving off just a bare minimum of a glow.  

Not that it revealed much besides barebones metal walls and floors. Though in the distance Knockout could see the light turning a corner.  

Throwing a last, paranoid glance over his shoulder strut – and suppressing a shiver at the still quite off-putting sight of offline mechs – the red medic made his way into the unknown. His pedsteps were as quiet as he could make them, yet still not as quiet as he would like them to be.  

While the drones hadn’t been dead, as he knew now, seeing them lined up like that was still… off-putting , to say the least.   

The faint ping of a comm signal drew his attention for a moment, away from the eerily empty hallway.  

>Knockout?  

The enquiry was simple, a quick, careful message sent into an old decepticon channel that nobody had used in several joors. Since the autobots had discovered it.  

Bumblebee! How’s it going up there?<  

Not even a klik after Knockout sent his answer, the reply hit him.  

>What happened? Where are you?  

I have no idea. But I found your vehicons.<  

Knockout truthfully replied, even adding a shrug though nobody was there to see it.  

A faint clanking noise reached his audials suddenly, drawing his attention. For a few kliks he deliberated, before creeping the rest of the way forward and peeking around the corner.  

Hold on.<  

What he saw drew a vent of relief from him. Placing both servos on his hip struts, he strolled past the corner and met the vehicon – Steve, if he recalled correctly – helm-on.  

The vehicon in question dropped the rolls of energon compression mesh he was carrying as he caught sight of the red mech. “Knockout! Sir!”, he yelped, quickly leaning down to reclaim his lost cargo.  

Knockout stopped a few paces in front of the vehicon, crossed his arms and watched the drone with a raised optic ridge. “What are those for?”  

The vehicone stuttered in his movements for a moment, before standing up again, uncertainly clutching the soft material to his chassis. “Uhm, changing their bandages. Sir.”  

A heaved sigh left the medic’s intake. “Really, Steve, you should know better.”  

A frown marred Knockout’s faceplate as he faintly noted the sound of a comm'd conversation. “…I’m sorry, sir.”, the vehicon remarked, clutching his mesh rolls closer. “If you would, just, come with me?”  

The non-sequitur had Knockout lean back, a suspicious slant to his optics. “Sure, Stevie.”, he remarked but followed, just a few paces behind the vehicon.  

>Knockout? What’s going on?  

Still no idea. Found one that’s awake. Will keep you posted.<  

The hallway twisted a few more times before they came to a door. The vehicon had to awkwardly maneuver the cargo in his arms to manage the mechanism and get it to open, but eventually Knockout and Steve stepped into the room.  

A room that was far more brightly lit than the hallway leading there, causing Knockout to squint his optics as he manually re-arranged their settings.  

Before he’d even finished adjusting, a gratingly familiar voice cut through the air and soured his mood.  

“Knockout! What a… pleasant surprise.”  

“Starscream.”, the medic replied, finally finding the mech in question. “A sentiment I can only return.”  

Being stuck imprisoned hadn’t exactly given Knockout the knowledge of what had happened to the seeker, though seeing him now made a twinge of agitation rear it’s helm. The flight-model’s paint wasn’t necessarily impeccable, but he was in far better shape than Knockout. Honestly, even Bumblebee hadn’t quite looked that good, and he was supposedly on the side that had won.  

(And so is Megatron)  

“I’m sure.”, Starscream muttered, optics taking in the absolute disaster of Knockout’s paint. Honestly, the medic didn’t even want to think about what he currently must look like, so he averted his optics, taking in the room around them instead.  

“Yes, well, I’ve seen your collection of vehicons and I must say, Starscream, even for you that seems a strange hobby.”, he remarked, optics trailing the transparasteel tubes lining the walls of the room.  

Some kind of yellow-ish liquid lazily bubbled away in them, though they disappeared through the metal ceiling and floor, leaving their purpose entirely unknown to Knockout. Some of them sported a tap for controlling the pressure within, presumably.  

The other side of the room was taken up by a desks, an array of datapads scattered across their surfaces. A currently off console sat in the very middle of the desks.  

“Hm, I suppose.”, Starscream replied, drawing Knockout’s attention back to the seeker fully. “Though still better than hanging out with those… autobot pests that murdered Lord Megatron.”  

Knockout’s lines ran cold, but his field was already pulled in close and his faceplate betrayed none of his emotions. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  

The seeker huffed out a laugh. “Really, Knockout, you should know better than to use an old decepticon channel.”  

“Starscream, wait—”  

It was too late. He felt a tiny pinprick of pain in the cables along his neck, his medical systems instantly kicking into high gear to find what had just been injected straight into his energon.   

A vehicon that had fumbled even the most basic of medical care could not have hit one of Knockout’s main lines like that, not past his excessive neck plating, especially since his frame had been remodeled quite a few times and his main lines where nowhere near where his standard blueprints would claim them to be.  

A tranquilizer strong enough to knock a predacon off his peds, that was what had just been injected into him, his processor informed him as the world began to blur before his optics.  

His leg struts gave in, and the pain from his knee joints felt muted as they impacted with the ground.   

“You shouldn’t have chosen the losing side, Knockout.”, Starscream taunted from somewhere that sounded far, far away.  

“It was quite illogical.”, another voice joined in, one that Knockout only just identified as Shockwave’s.  

The front of his chassis hit the ground, cool metal against his faceplate acting almost like an anchor, pulling a fleck of consciousness back into him.  

He wanted to curse, beg, talk his way out of this situation – I didn’t side with them, of course I didn’t, I’m just pretending, deceiving – but he hadn’t mentioned his connections out loud, let alone the comms he was sharing with Bumblebee; his defense would be a weak one. An illogical one, most certainly.  

Besides, Knockout’s vocaliser was, by now, far out of the reach of his processor and his intake wouldn’t open far enough to let any noise escape, anyway. Through faint, swirling thoughts that slowly crumbled away to nothing, Knockout sent one last message over comms.  

Frag you, Starscream.<