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The ship is their ship. A little different, with blue spines instead of red, with less damage to the outer hull. But it’s still the Lost Light.
They’re bobbing out in the middle of the black, dead in the water.
Rodimus answers the hail when it comes. It’s not like they can just ignore it. If the universe turns out to be an evil version of itself, then they’re evil, and they’ll deal with it. By all indications of the news and the Big Conversation, though, it seems this world’s just too much softer for that.
“Maybe we’re the evil ones,” Swerve had tried to joke, but it had fallen kind of flat. It’s too likely for any of their comfort.
The hail came after the ship had tripped over their limping engine trail. If anything worked properly then they’d have just turned tail and made a run for it, but even their engines had gone down. There’d be no escape until Brainstorm and Percy managed to pull some Primus forsaken miracle out of their afts.
It’s Rodimus that greets Rodimus. Smiling, with bright optics and bright paint. They look like mirror images of each other, almost. The tell-tale is in the lines around the original Rodimus’s optics, the thinness of his polite smile, the dull patina under the fine gloss of his polish. The wrong Rodimus looks happier.
Rodimus ignores it. “Yo, so I guess you’re this universe’s me.”
The other Rodimus shrugs. “I guess! Man, it’s weird getting a good look at myself like this. Wild to think about!”
“Not really.” He’d already done it once, after all. He’d seen himself dead. “Guess you noticed we could use some help over here, huh?” Keep it light, he tells himself, but he can’t stop from studying the other mech. They’d fallen into an alternate universe, but the abuse their ship had already pounded the space-time continuum with hadn’t happened without consequence. Things were different, and it wasn’t a single point split like the first time. Percy had already warned them that things would get … weird.
Weird was easy, as long as you know what kind. They thought they’d gotten a handle on it by now.
“Yeah. Saw you floating out there and thought we’d get some questions answered about our ship. You know, knock another mystery off the list. Guess not?”
“Maybe we have some stuff you don’t. But you never know what’s changed between universes, it might not all be accurate. If you help us get going again, we can do a quick comparison with your records and see what’s different.”
“Sounds like a plan! Crew exchange, let some folks meet their alternates, yeah, I’ll send you the deets!” His grin is lighting-bright and effortless. Rodimus wants to put him in a jar and shake it until he screams, until he breaks apart into all the same pieces that Rodimus had.
—
They greet the other-Rodimus at the bridge, escorted there by their Ultra Magnus. He looks between the scowling, quiet Megatron and the Rodimus with the mega-watt smile. Other-Rodimus claps his hands together. “Wow! We really do look alike, don’t we?”
“That would be the alternate universe part of things,” Rodimus mutters. “You have the spare parts for the engines?”
“And our Brainstorm to help you install them.” Other-Rodimus is grinning, honest and bright as sunshine. The other mechs on the crew lean towards him like he’s the most beautful thing they’ve ever seen. “You met our Brainstorm yet? He was on the call.”
“I haven’t met anyone else from your ship.” Rodimus says.
The other-Rodimus’s spoiler wings doing a little excited wiggle. “We can do introductions while the sciencebots do the boring bits!” He turns on the tip of his pronged ped, looking around. “I want to meet your Drift! And your Ratchet! And Thunderclash, of fragging course.” He grins, terribly happy, “Not that meeting a new Megs isn’t worth it.”
Megatron, slumped in the captain’s chair, just grunts. “I have no interest in meeting any other version of myself.” He flicks his fingers at Rodimus. “Go off and play with yourself, Captain. I’d rather the bridge to myself for the day.”
Phrasing, Rodimus thinks.
“Phrasing!” Other-Rodimus crows, reaching out to grab at Rodimus’s servo. “C’mon, I want to see how your Lost Light’s different.”
Rodimus lets him, the other captain’s grip tight and warm around his wrist. “It can’t be that different,” he mutters, even as he allows himself to be tugged along.
“Any difference is kind of exciting, you know.” Other-Rodimus tells him. “Your ship’s a different color than ours! And I bet you have different crew, too, since we’re at like three hunded and turn over’s kind of high these days.”
“Maybe.” Rodimus frowns. Their crew turn over hadn’t been high. The jump to the new universe had siphoned off anyone who hadn’t been loyal down to their spark to the idea of the crew, even if the realty hadn’t been so glamerous all the time. “We’ve had a pretty steady roster, if you want to check it against your Mag’s records.”
“Nah, it’s no fun if we don’t get to meet them.” He turns, walking backwards so as to talk to Rodimus face-to-face. “So, you got kids yet? Thunders and I keep arguing if we should wait until after we find the Knights -“
You haven’t found the Knights of Cybertron yet? The disappointment awainting them would be crushing, Rodimus knows. But - spoilers. Time travel and all that. And if they don’t survive, fewer problems for his crew. “You want kids?”
“A sparkling or five, you know, little minds to mold and all that.” He laughs, loud and bright enough to bounce off the hall’s walls. “Thunders only wants one, but I think he’ll get sad when they start getting independent and then I’ll get my way.”
Thunders, Rodimus thinks, scrolling through his mental rollodex of crew. “Thunderstrike?” They’d never spoken, but the mech had been briefly assigned to Earth. He’d thought he’d died.
Other-Rodimus almost stumbles. “Thunderstrike?” He repeats as he rights himself. “That aft? Never in a millennia. In several millennia!” He looks Rodimus up and down. “Thunders! TC! Clash!”
“Thunderclash?” Rodimus scoffs. “Don’t tell me you’re dating that dweeb.”
“Bonded, actually.” Other-Rodimus shrugs. “He’s pretty, you know. And he’s nice. And he keeps my berth warm.”
“So would…” He runs down a list of crew he wouldn’t mind fragging, and comes up devastatingly short. “Broadside!” The Wrecker might be a bore and a griper, but he’s pretty, and he’s a mech to trust at your back. “Or anyone else, obviously. Just not The Greatest Autobot of All Time.”
“You wouldn’t touch Broadside with a ten foot pole.” He rolls his optics, turning back around to look down the hall. “C’mon, I wanna see what your Swerve’s is like!”
—
They are eventually joined by the pair of Thunderclashes, huge loping figures that come up behind them on the way to the sciencebots. Rodimus flinches when he realizes that they’ve come up behind unnoticed. Not-Rodimus peels away briefly, genuine joy lighting his expression as he flings himself into Thunderclash’s arms.
“‘Clash!” He cries, pulling away just as fast. “I thought you were staying back on the ship?”
Thunderclash, the wrong-Thunderclash, gives him a soppy smile. He catches his hands around Rodimus’s elbows to keep him close, leaning down until their noses nearly touch. “I would have missed you too much, I realized, when I heard you would be gone all day. I switched shifts with someone who doesn’t have an alternate on the ship they want to meet.”
Rodimus studies the two of them like one might a pair of predators meeting on the field. Will other-Rodimus bite? Will other-Thunderclash let him get away unscathed? Their softness is foreign to him.
They part after a moment, other-Rodimus taking his place back at his side. “Let’s get on to see this world’s brainy bots, yeah?”
Rodimus doesn’t know what to say. He rolls his shoulders back and reaches for some tired and predetermined line, mumbled between clenched denta. He can’t take his optics off of Thunderclas and Thunderclash, so broad that their shoulders brush in the hallway, their only differentiating feature an ever-present smile on one of their faces.
Soppy, idiotic mech.
He and his Thunderclash exchange glances, coming to a swift if silent agreement that their alterate selves are ridiculous.
—
Eventually he manages to abandon the too-happy other-Rodimus in the labs with Drift and the sciencebots. They were chattering about … something when he slipped out. He couldn’t have told them what if the lives of his crew and ship were in the balance.
He makes a beeline to his office. The crew doesn’t bother him there, and he expected that to be the same for every universe. They can tap his shoulder in Swerve’s, approach him on the bridge, follow him to sword meditation with Drift, but no one bothers with his office. They all know better.
Or maybe that’s just his ship full of idiots that know better.
There’s an idiot waiting for him when he gets there.
Thunderclash, the wrong one, the not-his Thunderclash, smiles at him. His office suddenly feels too small to breath in. “So you’re not hanging all over other me, huh? Decide to see if you could branch out and get double the Roddy?”
Thunderclash shakes his helm, ponderous and slow. Everything about him is like that - slow, and careful, like Rodimus is some skittish little thing that will startle and run if he’s not careful. Maybe other-Rodimus is. “You act like you’re scared of me, you know.” Each word is shaped with care, red optics staring into Rodimus’s blue. “When he’s at the edges of your vision you move so he’s more in your line of sight. And when he speaks and you can’t see him, you flinch.”
“Yeah, well, our universe wasn’t so peachy keen as this one. History, you know, all the unavoidable slag.” He crosses his arms over his chest, suddenly uneasy. He hadn’t realized he did that. “Probably do it for every crewmember that’s fragged me up.”
“Not Megatron. Or Perceptor.” Thunderclash leans forward, elbows resting on the carved surface of his desk. “You’re not afraid of them. You don’t get defensive when they look at you.”
Rodimus feels that hot, ugly thing in his chest rise up. It’s always there when he looks at Thunderclash, big and perfect and unimpeachable, even when he’s betrayed them, even when he’s failed. Measured up against him, Rodimus has always come up short, and he’s never understood why. It’s just another truth of the universe. The Decepticons always lose in the end. Stars burn out. Thunderclash is always better than Rodimus.
Better leader, better Prime, better Autobot.
Thunderclash smiles. There’s too much pity in it to be kind. “He loves you. I love you. I have loved you for decavorns, Rodimus Prime. Hot Rod.”
“Maybe that’s the difference, then. You’ve known that other version of me for decavorns. My Thunderclash has barely known me at all.”
“I've known my Rodimus a long, long time. He’s only known me a few years.” Thunderclash sighs, soft and lovelorn. “I used to watch him on the battlefield. And for a while he was - you were - publishing a video series online, doing these ridiculous stunts. I’d watch every one the day you published it. Cleared my entire evening for it.”
Rodimus stares. “Stalker.”
“Oh, undoubtedly.” His finger traces the carved curve of an aimless doodle. “But I couldn’t stop myself, and I thought if I only kept my admiration to myself you wouldn’t find me so off-putting.”
But that’s not how it worked out, Rodimus knows. He squirms in his chair, unable to look directly at the convoy. “Well, whatever. This Thunderclash is different. We aren’t - we can’t be - whatever you and your Rodimus are.”
“In love. Conjuxed. Happy.” Thunderclash sighs, huge and gusty and tired. “I think you could be all of those things, Rodimus, if you let yourself try.”
“With you? This version of you? You don’t know him any more than you know me.”
“Maybe.” He stands slowly, optics still boring into Rodimus’s. “But the only difference I can see between you and the mech I love is that my world was kinder. That this world is kinder, and in return he allowed himself a weakness that you couldn’t. Allow yourself a moment of weakness, Rodimus. A moment of softness. Let yourself accept a gentle epilogue, and a sweeter sequel. Your world took the chance from you to see the universe without a weapon in your hand, but you’re no longer there. You’re here, and things could be so very much better if you let them be.”
“According to you.”
“According to you.” He shifts, half turned towards the door. “My Roddy told me that maybe what you needed was what he had needed: a gentle push in a better direction.”
Rodimus scoffs at his retreating back. A better direction?
Hardly.
—
He stills throws a party to celebrate meeting not-evil versions of themselves. At this point, it’s expected. Someone had even found a new banner, WE’RE ALL NICE! painted on in dripping red lettering. Someone had added a series of little faces crowded around the edges: a smiling, round-faced Megatron, a blobby yellow Rodimus, too many deeply frowning Magnus faces in bright blue.
There’s high grade and engex passing hands with startlingly speed. The two Swerves seem to be trying to out-compete each other in both how fast they can talk and how ridiculous a drink they can make, mechs crowded around to cheer them on. The other-Swerve stops occasionally to pull a watching Prowl into a messy, wet-mouthed kiss, big hands cupping his face with painful care, like he’s worried the Praxian will crumble under his touch. Every once in a while the Mirages working in sync with them will roll their optics and drop graceful looking cocktails next to their faces to make them stop.
The air is riotous with laughter and talking, mechs exchanging stories of lives just a step sideways to their own.
Rodimus drags Thunderclash into the darkened corner of the bar by his vents, fingers hooked into the slats and tugging painfully. The convoy doesn’t bother to lean away or fight back. He goes where directed. Soft, Rodimus thinks, and for the first time no derision follows. Thunderclash is soft for him.
The other one is. Soft, and gentle, and earnest. There’s a tenderness to him, like if only Rodimus asked he would open his spark up and let him cut into him, knife slicing through corona and core until he’s split in twain. Rodimus could lay him down and destroy him and Thunderclash would let him.
He shudders at the thought.
This Thunderclash - his Thunderclash - is staring at him. The other one was a big, dumb oaf as soon as Rodimus, the wrong Rodimus, had stepped into the room. Rodimus searches Thunderclash’s optics, looking for that familiar love-struck, love lorn look. All he’s getting is bewildered afrontedness. “Is there something you needed, Captain?”
“Did you talk to the other Thunderclash?” He demands. He can feel his spark spinning too hard in his chest, making his fingers tingle. Desire feels too much like nausea.
“No.” Thunderclash hesitates, optics darting between the fingers hooked into his front vents and his captain’s overbright, fevered optics. “I… spent some time with their Captain, however. He explained some things to me.”
“What’d he tell you?”
“That … that, if I wished it, you were there. I simply had to show you.” Hesitantly, he reaches out and lays his hand on Rodimus’s. “That a moment of brief vulnerability might allow you to see my sincerity.”
Sincerity. As if that had been the issue. As if perfect, never faltering Thunderclash was nothing more than a bristling ball of armored parts, closed off and quietly separate from his admiring public.
Thunderclash’s shoulders droop. He looks, suddenly, very tired, as if the weight of time has finally found him. Rodimus is reminded that he’s probably the same age as Ratchet, or maybe older, had lived through a time before the War and all of its horrors. At some point he’d actually seen the universe without a weapon in his hand. He’d been known for more than just his fighting prowess. Thunderclash used to be a different kind of hero. “I have admired you fora long time, Rodimus Prime. Hot Rod. Leader of Nyon and her resistance forces. Wrecker. Stuntmech. Captain of the Lost Light.” He invents slowly. “And that admiration is romantic, and well meant, and I would … I would be honored if you returned my affections.”
You deserve a moment of weakness. And here was Thunderclash, actually able to make himself weak, debasing himself in front of Rodimus.
A stubborn rage fills his chest, that incessant need to see a challenge and meet it. If Dunderclash can be open and honest and all that slag, then so can Rodimus! He’s just as good as the Greatest Autobot of All Time!
“Maybe I could give you a chance,” he tells him, arms crossed. “If you’re as good as other Thunderclash, that is.”
Thunderclash’s responding smile is hesitant and so vulnerable it nearly wounds Rodimus. “A chance is all anyone could ever ask of you. But I hope you see in me some good.”
Rodimus uses his fingers, still hooked into the slats of Thunderclash’s chest vents, to pull him down into an awkward kiss.
—
The new universe isn’t much different from their old one.
There are some - select, important - ones. Megatron’s pardon. The dissolution of the DJD, stripped of their assumed names and lost to the depths of space. The feeling of safety that permeates the entirety of this universe, like some caught cog’s finally worked itself free and everyone can breathe again. But feeling safe breeds the worst of things: safety briefing meetings, because now no one’s being cautious.
“New rule -“ Someone in the crowd coughs. “Okay, first rule, since apparently when we got here we didn’t actually make any new rules -“
“I said we should.” Drift mutters off to the side. “You said no one needed more rules.”
“Yeah well Ultra Magnus had a book, did you want the book? We could have had the book.” The smile Rodimus turns on the crowd has a brittle edge to it. He claps his hands together, looking more like an unpaid teenage camp counselor than the last remnant of a bygone command structure. “And now we’re going to have some new rules! Because none of you guys can behave.”
Someone in the crowded bar raises their hand. “Does the new rule include something about not fragging random sentients in bars? I’ve been treating a lot of new universe viruses and I need a break.”
Whatever had gone brittle breaks. Rodimus looks a little like he’s dying inside as he answers, “We can add that to the list, First Aid. Someone get a chalk board or something, we’re writing down suggestions now! I guess!”
Someone slips out to maybe get the chalk board, or maybe to just ditch a meeting they can already tell is quickly devolving. He hopes they don’t come back. When he turns his attention back to the crowd he can see Thunderclash smiling at him, sitting at the bar out of the way. His expression is soft and soppy and terrible, and it tugs at Rodimus until he feels his own face soften in return.
This new world is theirs, and they will make it good.