Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Soundwave’s steps banged on the hard rock, echoing off canyon walls for miles as he’d skulked through the shadowzone. The war had brought him across planets, entire galaxies in a campaign that shook their universe across the stars.

Nothing could usurp the complete and total misery of Earth.

Earth was too hot, sun baking his metal in its deserts as though he was walking across volcanic ash. Earth was too cold, polar ends threatening to crack his visor if he spent too long in their thermosphere. It was too dry, too wet, too loud and now- too damn quiet.

Soundwave loved the silence of Iacon when mechs entered a recharge and their metal streets sang with a gentle breeze that would air out his ventilation. The shadowzone had been a muted, empty void acting like a split in reality, as he could touch but not break anything. Rain fell on and through him; he was a ghost in a shadow of reality where his world was distorted and all too clear. Colors weren’t right, sounds were always off, and the longer he walked the more he realized his body became a part of it.

It would not do to waste his energon and starve into stasis, so he chose to climb up the rocky cliffs, scaling stones while searching for a signal, any signal.

Megatron had gone missing.

He could not hear his voice anywhere.

A tactical retreat from this wet misery of a planet after so many resources were spent would not be a desirable decision, he knew. But it was better to retreat, restore and return instead of offlining without putting up a galaxy shuddering fight.

So he walked. Listened.

Walked. Listened.

Walked.

How much of this continent had he journeyed?

Pedometer and glitched geographical data showed him he’d walked a megacycle and worse, he hadn’t been going in a straight line as he thought.

Fine.

He could wait.

Megatron needed him but he wasn’t totally dependent.

The megacycle seemed to stretch as days seemed to get longer, nights seeming to stretch on for longer than the standard ten Earth hours.

He walked. Slipped into a meager natural recharge without a slab or power source, and turned his screens back online to more black sky.

It was likely the shadowzone was going to live up to its assigned name as the world around him was still as the forest slept.

And while a natural recharge could ease the strain of not having access to fresh or new energon, he still needed to get out and find it.

He would not offline here. Much less enter stasis from starvation where his body would never be found.

Soundwave had to keep moving, making his recharges longer, powering down processes built for war just so he could spend hours traversing through trees, expanses of rock and finally water.

One step in the river, surface appearing grey without the reflections of the sun, oxygen blue, or surrounding green. Its flow rushed over his legs, and like rain, it both touched and passed through him. As though his presence as an anomaly that shouldn’t interact with the living world around him. Stepping through was like walking through dense air, enough pressure to cause him to push, though not enough to struggle against the westward stream as he was submerged, going deeper into the sunlit depth.

It had become an experience, guessing where he’d pass through and where he’d actually be stopped.

Day turned to night, and he needed another long recharge.

It was important he continue, as the human settlements began to increase and personally he couldn’t stand the whirring and sharp ting of their radio waves. It was just as imperative that he rest. Twenty hours this time. His energon fuel tank would slow burning through fuel to a near cease and he could probably force just a few more percents of energy into his system. Maybe he’d even attempt to fly.

Soundwave checked his equipment, sensors for audio and any sign of Megatron still flat and unmoving, though any hope for a tick, even for traces of Cybertronian steel acted to lull him into a deep recharge as he propped himself up against a building that only came up to his waist. If a human crashed their inferior vehicle against his body as he stretched out his legs, then so be it.

Turning on his screen, Soundwave was unsure if he’d awakened or if he was in what was known as a dream. He was aware of them, in concept. Fanciful, frivolous, and unnecessary. Though he did not move as he scanned his surroundings, messy code and false flagging sensors not assisting as he attempted to determine his world from the one that might be in his head.

He could see.

If it could be called that.

There was color around him, yellow-green and shades in between.

Most strange was how his surroundings appeared human made. Organic cloth floors of…

Soundwave pressed his claws into the carpet material, watching thin tears rip through the threads of synthetic wool leaving fibers fraying around his servos. He could feel the ridges, and then he looked up.

The ceiling was so close to his head, but still considerably high, far too high for a human’s typical building structure. Square lights were placed evenly in rows, florescent glow abysmal on his optics. His olfactory sensors were useless, but he activated them to get more of a sense of wherever he was. And the conventional ceiling seemed to have a smell! Chemical, joint compound.

Was he…

No.

Turning his head from ceiling, Soundwave felt like he was traveling in some human crawl space as he kept his head bent low, attempting any reading that could make sense.

He did not dream.

This was real.

He was somewhere.

But where?

Who could have touched him without activating at least Laserbeak?

Soundwave stepped forward, surprised to feel the chilly synthetic carpet beneath him instead of tepid earth.

He let it distract him for several seconds before turning forward, and taking another.

Cloth walls of some flimsy human structure formed partitions, though the space itself seemed to be entirely empty.

The questions of who and why were at the back of his processor as he focused on the where.

He was in no immediate danger, but activated battle protocols anyway as well as his tendrils, keeping eyes and ears in all directions as he walked at a slow pace.

All he could find was a column, painted over, and easily crinkled as though made of plastic when wrapping a tendril around it and squeezing.

This… building? Soundwave was unclear. This structure was structurally a feat of inferior human ingenuity. And yet, it went on for far longer than what he was most familiar with.

Humans only left buildings abandoned when building, or demolishing. And from the age of what he’d seen, it appeared both old and yet, freshly constructed.

Soundwave was given reprieve as the partitions, cubicles and columns stopped, and he was faced with a human door, both too large for their sizes and too small for him.

With the press of his palm, the wood- his mistake- plywood ripped from its hinges.

A long hallway awaited him, stairs to his left, guarded by painted green railings in a fashion he’d only known from humankind.

Well, if he moved up, he could potentially find a roof. The hallway did not offer him much promise, and with tight room to maneuver, he’d break a wing if he tried to fly to the top.

Cement clacked beneath his pedes, steps far too small and so he found himself taking half a flight at a time, glad no one could witness his traversal through a space that was not made for his body, but clearly too grandiose for any bipeds of their planet.

It would help to have something with treads.

The stairwell disappeared into darkness when he looked up through its center, which did not bode well for his theory on reaching a rooftop.

He was still on Earth, if his readings were to go by. Gravity readings were identical. And only Earth organics would use fragile glass to protect light sources.

So why couldn’t he discern where he was, much less find a way outside?

Turning to a wall, he curled in his fist and punched.

Paint flaked and concrete shattered as he pulled his hand away, finding nothing but standard building components in the crater he’d left.

On the landing he stood on, Soundwave punched, again, using one fist and then another until a gaping hole down to his waist formed, tunneling and leaving debris coating his feet.

Though when looking into it, it just seemed to end with more cement.

Something was off. More than the massive size of the facility, and the fact that he seemed to be out of the monochrome nothing he’d walked through for human days.

Save for bunkers, humans never built their walls too thick.

After he’d eviscerated the wall into something he could fit half of his body in, he stopped.

The effort would continue to waste fuel, and he chose to go up so he would keep going up.

Unlike the forests and greater plains of the outside, it was unknown what could find him here if he went into recharge.

He… hoped something could find him here.

Between interrogating and a vivisection it would give him an answer and something to look at that wasn’t another tiny flight of stairs.

He earned no new answers at one hundred and seventy, ignoring each floor number to chase the never ending darkness above him, and decided that no- he was not reaching a top.

The largest human structure was one hundred and sixty three floors.

Either he was deep underground, or some place within the shadowzone still.

The air was stale, barometric pressure spaghetti code at this point, and even with his tendrils extended as far as they could uncoil, it was becoming clear that wherever he was, the space around him was not natural.

He was an analyst, not a scientist- yet the prospect of resources untouched by their enemy fascinated him.

If only…

Remnants of dust shook free from his feet as he kept himself stable with his tendrils, lifting with legs and extra appendages.

The materials really needed to be more than this human craft.

The dim, silent space was soft on his audiles, save for the buzzing hum of florescent lighting and an rumble of an air conditioning unit somewhere around him. Not a bad sound, constant, and drumming.

There were many corners; angles always seem to be offset despite his conscious decision to keep walking in a straight line.

He brushed aside the partitions, cubicle spaces the only indication this place had some form of function. Though unless humans were the size of minicons, there could be no true use of a ceiling that seemed decidedly shorter than the first at his arrival.

Bent over, head tilted, Soundwave envied the Autobots for their choice to simply fit into tight spaces. Stuck with the full length of his body, the space seemed more in line with typical human architecture and it was wearing at his circuits.

He kept Laserbeak close, and while useful for tracking and gathering data, he was also in an environment where every micron of energon counted.

So, he cursed his luck, and kept going.

At least the soft pat of the carpet was nice.

With every twist, turn and attempt at keeping himself oriented, Soundwave found himself at another door.

It gave at the press of his hand and he crouched low to push himself through the threshold to find… another room.

The impossibility of the space showed in its scale as there were only columns moving forward, and yellow tinged carpeting spanning as wide as the Nemesis was long.

He listened.

Nothing.

His internal clock was never wrong, and he’d been in this place for twelve hours. Prior recharge had been longer to prepare for a long travel time, but it wouldn’t last forever.

If nothing had come for him yet, nothing would come after him now, and thus he shut down his battle protocols, reeling his tendrils in and manually went through a semi-reboot until all he had was a way to tell the time, audiles, and put Laserbeak into full stasis.

At this level of power, he was little more than a citizen that could pick up a rock to defend themselves as even his aim assist was powered down.

In turn, the perpetually angular space felt strange- different. His range of vision remained the same, but there was a sudden lack of awareness far in front of him that kept him alert.

Instead of standing at the door for another twenty minutes, he began to walk, lacking the means to visibly express his disdain for the ceiling that forced him lower to the ground as he bent further to fit in.

He did not complain, remaining silent as he could feel a twinge in his spine strut from the terrible posture he’d been forced in. In front of him, he could see little else but even columns, and a warm distortion of light as dust and fiber particles coalesced, limiting his field of view into what he could only assume was a void until he reached the end.

He chose not to look back, only once checking his sides where he’d spend more time locating a wall than another door.

While he would have liked to just stand up straight, perhaps just withstand the drywall material pressing onto his visor, it would be a pain to lose mobility in his neck from clogging. And worse, his ventilators would need a vacuuming sooner than later as the charming carpet was beginning to leave tears of wool in his joints.

He would not complain. He never complained.

But Soundwave like any mech had patience and limits.

Internal readings told him he’d been moving forward for six hours.

He could fight for days on end, he could tear through a star system with three percent of fuel. But in those cases, there was generally the idea that he’d also die or crash head first into a med bay. Perhaps…

Yes.

He was being impatient.

He’d been on the war front for eons, the trudging monotony of an organics’ building was wearing down at his patience ground into glass sand that was shredding at the metal of his processor. He was lost, which never happened.

Soundwave rolled his arm joints back, arching his body and twisting his neck into another direction, feeling the plated metal strain like he’d been in his drone form for a day.

No, he wouldn’t complain. He’d keep going, for his Master.

Two earth days.

Soundwave turned his olfactory sensors off but knew his chassis smelled of burning energon and charged ozone.

The space was too wide, too open, and if he dared to recharge so vulnerably he’d have had to waste energy on every battle protocol he’d manually shut down to save it.

Vents hot with high pressure air shooting from his internals, Soundwave wanted to lie down on the spot when he reached what he could assume was a divide in reality.

The carpet ended.

In a perfectly straight line from end to end, distorted by the light above, white tile gave way to a waterway. At his worn pedes were a tiny, human scale railing that dipped into the still water, surface clear and depth…

There was a sign on the wall that read ‘5ft/1.5m’ painted onto the ground in even font.

The columns beside him were split down their middles, paint to tile, all white even squares showing no deterioration or chips from wear. Perhaps whatever dwelled here did not take this route often.

Water was not something he needed on his cramped circuitry, but he’d live. It would take a considerable amount of time constantly submerged to develop rust and he’d sooner risk flight over staying in.

Splash.

The clear water crashed around his legs, pollutants from dust and cloth floating around him as he stepped in, relieved to be allowed his full height as the dip no longer kept his head onto the ceiling.

Rust, or cramped limbs…

Soundwave chose not to ponder it, and waded forward, claws cracking the tile where he kept himself stable with one servo.

Where he expected to watch the full span of the room pass him by, the column he passed was swallowed by a tunnel, white light in the distance breaking through the dark.

For the first time, he looked back.

Behind him, there was still the open room, yet in front of him…

Illogical space, something he hated more than Autobots.

He couldn’t risk activating any further monitoring protocols, but he did turn on a temperature gauge. The water was cold, not enough to decrease his core temperature to life threatening levels, but enough to keep in mind.

The water echoed, splashing against the tunnel walls as his legs parted the shallow pool. Curiously, he allowed himself to smell for just a moment and there was a test tube’s worth of chemicals surrounding him.

In a tense panic, he froze, optical sensors reading more into what he was stepping in!

Some synthetic calcium mix, chlorine chemical, solutions that bit at his metal differently from fresh or briny ocean liquid, and the smell was horrendous. Soundwave would have traded his war frame for Starscream’s light chassis in that moment so he could travel along the ceiling with his tendrils instead.

He could not stay in this water for as long as he thought.

Tired, weary, and now aware that he’d corrode if he wasted time, Soundwave walked faster even at the protest of his spinal strut and legs.

The tunnel, while long, was nowhere near as much of a challenge despite spanning the room that took two full days to cross because in minutes, there was a column illuminated by light coming from spiraling stairs that would bring him lower into… wherever he was.

A round tunnel too small for his body collected the water while a slope allowed him dry tile to step onto.

He was cautious, far too aware that he needed a recharge sooner than later, and descended as though walking directly into enemy lines.

Metal tapped on the tile beneath him, steps light, and the winding stairs opened to a cistern illuminated by sunlight. At least. He thought it was sunlight.

Orange-gold glimmered off the still water, casting crystal clear light on the white tile walls. Though the window that was his light source didn’t seem to go to anything.

It was just… white.

Soundwave looked around the massive room, suddenly feeling like he was in a clean Cybertronian sewage system as the ceiling above him stretched, and the sea green water came to his waist. He could see his reflection, and the mirror of his visor when looking down. Wall of empty white windows causing a glare that danced off the sharp ends of his metal like cut and polished diamonds.

The cistern was sizable, adding onto the impossible space because either he was very high in the air, or the concept of outdoors was no longer applicable inside. Using claw and tendril alike, he lifted himself up to the windows, scaling the wall and raining a waterfall of broken tile and chemically toxic water as he saw… nothing.

The outside was just a void that resembled a sunset sky. White, yellow and orange as though overcast with a blanket of even cloud without any indication there was a sun. Nothing below could tell him if the building was in a bubble or even on a planet.

Soundwave lowered his body back into the water, choosing not to let the frustration override any senses he had left.

He needed rest.

That’s it.

Instead of attempting to shatter the glass and fall anywhere from forever to ten feet, Soundwave fell back into the water with a splash, feet leaving a crater of cracked porcelain as he trudged in the direction of a black tunnel.

It was small, tight, and he put his dignity in a box for safe keeping as he crawled, knee joint and claws scraping the tile beneath as there was no way he could walk. Water sloshed over Laserbeak, catching his chin as he stopped thinking about anything else besides just finding an exit.

The various monitors he’d left on told him the water composition seemed dynamic turning to clean fresh water as it diluted and filtered out through tunnels once again, too small for him. The dark tunnel at least smelled better as it opened into a room even larger than he’d been in! Standing on a sizable walkway, he gathered himself to his full height.

Looking up, white tile stretched up. Up. Up.

Soundwave was sure he’d have to fly to hope to reach the ceiling.

A pool as deep as the ceiling was high reflected black as wherever the bottom was, he wasn’t risking reaching it without being crushed by pressure if visuals were to go by. Two days walking was enough. Two days sinking would be like trying to swim through Saturn.

Across a great expanse of mirror still water was a platform with a railing, there was an arch leading elsewhere and a metallic rung that only seemed to extend a fraction of the way down. Though immediately at his side were two identical halls, one pitch, the other up a series of steps.

It reminded him of Iacon, grand, sweeping stairs to Metroplex and the halls their leaders graced with purposed strides. Long, tall windows shed blue, yellow and bright lights from the inside, reflecting off the streets outside. White and gold light from this place’s false sun reminded him of the flames that burned through the night as they burst.

He could see Megatron, strong frame marching back straight up the graceful steps before opening fire on the line of defense guarding their wastrel politicians.

Perhaps, he would dream the next time he slipped into recharge, because the vision was missed as he found himself ascending, taking the hall that was thankfully dry out to…

A dead end.

The room was small, enough room to stand but hardly much to walk through.

A rounded, rectangular pool reflected blue-green onto the tiles, small platform elevating a railing and steps to enter it. Small windows shed light inside, though it was much darker than the great hall he’d just come from.

The water shimmered; but kept mostly still, moved only by the ambient air and noisy ventilation from above.

Soundwave no longer cared.

He had a room that didn’t expose him and while he lacked the means to build a defense, he took a perfectly dry corner with is back to the wall. There was just enough room to stretch out his legs as he propped himself up, and immediately shut down.

Soundwave was aware of space-time phenomena that had low survival rates to being considered close to death itself. The dead dimension, recorded so long ago in their archives that it was more myth than scientific, was a potential they had to consider when or if stranded in it.

The shadowzone was even more of an anomaly, and he woke up, reminded immediately that he was in it.

He needed to get out.

His internal clock said he’d been asleep for fifteen hours, and while his neck and legs didn’t feel like they’d pop straight from the socket, he hardly felt better.

He was an analyst, not a scientist.

But if he had to rip this place apart to build an energy generator he would find a way. The metal was scarce, but unlike the outside, he could still interact with it.

While not Cybertronian and dirty with pollutants, enough of it could be used if he got creative.

And he had an eon’s worth of engineering downloaded for the purpose of being creative.

The railings to the pool were ripped off, tile and cement stubbornly attached to the ends until shaking them loose and scraping it off. He stored them in his subspace, and hoped he could find whatever was generating the hum of distant electricity. He was made of wires and circuitry, yes- but he would prefer to not use his own.

The time of day did not change in the room, still an endless bright, white sunset, orange and gold dancing off the surface like he’d slept to the exact hour before.

Perhaps a recharge that greedy could do him better, but he had to keep going.

Megatron needed him.

Chapter Text

Soundwave took the lower path, as while he could scale the wall to reach the other side, less effort was less effort.

Clear, green water formed a shallow pool next to the large stretch of walkway that lead to yet another arch. It was very shallow, no more than ankle height and he wasn’t going to turn on any analyzers to study its contents. But from the humidity he could feel on his metal, it must have been warmer than the cold, deep pool from the previous room. The thin, long, windows above curved like the side of an atrium, and Soundwave glared with a baleful turn of his head at the fake sky.

Shattering things in a tantrum wasn’t how he dealt with his problems. But he wanted to.

Just for several long, long moments.

The darkness that swallowed him was temporary, and Soundwave stopped.

This…

He looked up.

The sky.

Without hesitation he jumped, claws catching the wall behind him and tendrils shooting out as he climbed, scaling up to see the other side of wherever he was.

It was a roof! He made it, and the relief made his spark spin.

Said roof was some sort of walkway fit for a grand promenade. Deep pools of water stretched to the other end, far to the other side, and walls that looked like where an audience would stand had no doors or ways to get inside. The shade was still bright as the sun beamed down, and over the wall was… nothing.

Soundwave leaned forward, seeing only the building’s immaculate white wall stretch down into blue atmosphere that didn’t tell him if the ground was obscured or just so far he could sooner reach the edges of the universe.

He should have expected as much.

The walls were an impossibility.

Not even the tallest spire of Kaon could be built without crashing down on its own weight at such a height, and their buildings extended out to space itself. This place seemed to not exist within the realm of the Earth’s limitations, and he slowly returned to the white tile that stretched down the empty walkway to another black hole in the wall.

He was grateful to think twice about sending Laserbeak out- if he did, he’d have lost him without a hope of return.

Servos coming to his chest, Soundwave kept walking, claws over Laserbeak’s wings as he ignored the sky, the entrance, and only saw gleaming white tile.

This wouldn’t be his end.

This would never be their end.

Megatron was waiting for him.

He’d been walking for a week, making shelter himself by tearing down the arched, panel thin walls to form a flat surface free of water and two walls to add onto the third already there.

The cistern was expansive, confusing, and a maze of arches that rounded over his head with the mathematical consistency of deliberate placement, which in turn made searching for the end visually impossible.

Shallow, rosy red and pink water reflected the deeper sunset inside, it persisted, never going dark and the only relief Soundwave could feel was that the water only rose as high as his ankle joint.

The arches were easy to break, and he built the only form of security he’d get with one tendril alert, and the rest of him in cautionary recharge.

He was never fully rested. Walking a full day, resting for five hours, and continuing through the endless sunset with only memories of his world in flames to keep him company.

Sometimes he thought of the Nemesis. When scouting for a base of operations, he remembered the glow of Jupiter as they orbited along its ring, giant perpetually casting an orange light into the dark, deep purple of the bridge when monitors were on its exterior.

He could imagine it, massive, taking up their full view, and Megatron reviewing the planet’s gaseous resources before deciding to harvest raw minerals from a nearby spec of rock and moving inward closer to the blue, minuscule, backwater hell he was trapped on.

Perhaps he was already in the Afterspark and he was only belatedly realizing it.

How else could one walk forever and only come to…

Soundwave activated his sensors.

Where…

The arches simply ended, and he stood in dark gold light, overcast by shadow as instead of sky, there was ceiling, and the sun’s rays seemed to be coming from somewhere, everywhere, and he could not find where.

White tiles reflected him looking up in the distance, though with a boost from his tendrils he could scrape the ceiling with his claw.

This place. It was alien, clean, beautiful.

Like home, rebuilt in white, gold and blue.

A bridge with windows stretched from a short walk over, cascading a shadow onto what appeared to be another walkway that met the ceiling. The windows showed nothing inside, he could hear no life.

Shadows and reflections cast onto every surface, and Soundwave stepped into the water that captured him right to where Laserbeak began.

Water would not hurt him, but Soundwave walked with his tendrils anyway, hoisting himself up just enough to remain clear and trying to find the next door.

Bridges spanned out into nothing, going on for as long as the building did down, and despite the natural light and open air, he could not find any opening where the fresh breeze came from. It was like he walked the streets of Thetacon, where the sunsets were bright and gleamed over metal like gold rods that clawed at the sky. He was no philosopher, nor an academic save for war, but Soundwave remembered that stellar glow right before one of their missiles knocked one of their greatest libraries down into a bank, which resulted in civilian deaths as looters and scholars alike tried to take what they could.

However, Thetacon was never submerged nor was it ever this quiet.

Water simply echoed off the tile for miles, lapping at the walls and giving him no clue as to where this maze would take him.

Unlike the arches, there was no systemic placement. Soundwave knew this would be another long walk, but for once, he did not mind.

A shallow walkway provided reprieve, and he followed the angular twists, corners tall and always a coin-flip if he’d find the sky again, or more walls. The white above reminded him of Cybertron’s sky, enveloping their planet with a second surface and always a grey, circuited reminder that their home was truly safe.

The white tile was featureless, save for the squares without fault. Unnatural production made mundane by being a human construct in nature. He knew where he was, and yet, who or what made it? Human constructs began and ended with the limitations of their own understanding of physics and science. Soundwave tended to not dwell on the mud makings of humanity, but what choice did he have?

Nothing else to see but tile, water, tiles, water and tunnels he either had to shimmy or squeeze through.

He’d collected enough railings to smelt something useful be it a weapon or casing for a generator, though the only materials he’d seemed to have gotten were steel.

His energon stores were constantly depleting save for a recharge, and he had to do something fast about his frame which demanded more to function.

It seemed as though he was going to have to use his own body to construct more as he’d abandoned the fount of wealth in the stairwell.

He regretted it, if only for the fact that he couldn’t just turn back the way he’d come without using at least thirteen percent of his energy stores.

Palm on Laserbeak, Soundwave pushed passed it to turn a corner and had the choice of a stretch of shallow water, lake sized pool with a tunnel on one end or…

There were multiple square columns  of white tile that lead to a smaller pool, and a clear entrance back indoors.

The massive black tunnel further in showed no end in sight, and the interior was still tall for a human, but uncomfortably small for him.

He fought his indignation of crawling to sit at the pool side, looking down at the clear water as he took one more break.

Just one more.

If he had to jump off the edge of this accursed, if beautiful, underworld he would if only to crash at the bottom and hope his processor could be onlined.

Tired, tendrils having to carry him through water for so long, he simply reached down to observe it. No chemicals, pollutants, clean. Like a planet that’d just melted from an ice giant and all that was left was magma, rock and H2O.

Rivers cascaded from his claws as he lie on his back, staring at the shimmer on the tiled ceiling close enough to touch this time, and Soundwave left himself completely open.

If something came for him, so be it.

Because right now, he could use some electricity and even an organic could power a generator with enough charge.

Through the gaping maw of a tunnel, Soundwave crawled, squeezing through a round chute and landing on his feet in what appeared to be yet another pool. Though this one was different.

He looked around and saw… metal.

Metal railings, fixtures… light fixtures.

The chute he’d fallen through was bright red, and he tapped with his claw, finding an armor like resistance.

He knew what these were. Human slides that smaller humans used for physical play.

It was cherry red, and even when pressing a claw into its side he found considerable resistance.

For the first time in far, far too long- his spark spun bright.

Soundwave flexed his servos, looking up his thick, armor plated arm and admiring the indulgent shade of blue the synthetic material provided.

He’d traversed room, after room, after room, after room.

Greedily, he’s clawed and used a weak laser to cut the various tubing and play slides into pieces of his old body.

It was no transference job or rebuild from Cybertronian best, but he knew how to handle his own chassis.

The absolute waste of nonsensical materials for decorations and tubing that lead nowhere spent him two weeks in one place, attempting to keep a fire going, and the effort of making it hot enough to smelt steel without melting through what he had.

The more he broke apart fountains and their internal workings, the more it was like cracking open a metaphorical chest of raw material.

His arms had been an embarrassing sacrifice, but they provided enough to get started, even if he’d been leaking energon into the chlorinated waters the whole time. Dizzy with pain, dizzier with starvation, all he had was his own will while using his tendrils to work, always careful in the one dry spot he’d found so as not to slip and waste his progress.

His own blood was carefully diluted and added to fuel the flames, until his arms were rebuilt, just as strong as before the war- using the bizarre, durable scraps he’d found from human children’s play things.

If he had not sworn off vocalizing, he’s laugh.

But really, what good would his oath do him here? He’d broken it already.

As far as his Master knew, he was defeated in battle and Autobot survivability was just as likely as his own. His vow of silence did little to help him here- only upheld because as far as he knew he was the only bot to hear it.

So, he laughed.

Vocal synthesizers buzzing from disuse as he brought them online, Soundwave heard the sound of his own voice for the first time in…

“Eons.” He spoke, quietly, to no one.

His throat intake would have surely worked as a wind tunnel for how much use it got save for playing back the words of others.

His work station was a shamble of animal heads made of mixed materials, keys, buttons of different colors, and he lowered his shoulders at the sight of his old arms. They were beyond useless now. Singed black and marred by his treatment, having to cut and break them into various pieces stronger than the synthetic and mineral derivative work materials.

Soundwave looked up to the dim light.

He’d decommissioned most of the fixture from above, leaving barely enough room to see without night vision activated, though at least he could run most of his processors without fear of complete starvation.

The chimera of metal, plastic and wiring buzzed and sparked, but he’d done it. It would not pass as a full replacement for military Energon, but he could finally rest with his optics open so to speak.

Most of all, Laserbeak was still safe, dry, and he could get energy for them both.

Metal on a foam-padded material, Soundwave connected several cables to his arm, and pressed a yellow duck’s head to turn on the power. The current that flowed into his wiring was slow, but he had time.

The human play room was such a bizarre place. Humans willingly threw themselves into chemical compounds as more of the corrosive material spewed from decapitated mockeries of living creatures. Truly, they would be better fit to use that barbarism against their enemies, though Soundwave would never admit it to his lord. Breakdown’s humiliation at fleshling creature hands was a surprise neither wanted to admit. Nor would they ever admit the relief of capturing their lead.

Soundwave’s optics traveled across what remained of the exposed copper, lead, and iron he did not need for his generator.

To think, they’d even built a shambling puppet out of such base materials that could withstand their ammo as well.

Oh.

He understood now.

He’d learned to daydream.

Soundwave could see battles passed and considered how they could play out differently, if he’d used more human technology against their enemies. He decided, it was not as bad of a way to spend his time, in an embarrassingly droll sort of way.

Ah, Megatron wouldn’t believe him even if he played back his recordings. Would he admonish him for not simply breaking through the seemingly endless walls? Or perhaps taking the chance to jump off the edge.

Dry, rasping and tired, Soundwave leaned his head back on a mushroom as his choice of rest was an emulation of a fairy forest, paintings of frogs and amphibians smiling with their sparkles eyes directly at him.

Soundwave waited, the nine percent of his internals ticking up to ten after one hour.

The generator was loud, far from melodic as it struggled to keep an even flow of power like rickety Junkion scrap.

What he wouldn’t give for at least a radio.

Turning away from his limbs, Soundwave walked with much more ease through tight tunnels.

He hardly saw the white tile bathed in natural light, he was enclosed, flood lights and bright fixtures illuminating everything from all angles as he walked, slid and waded with shorter rest cycles and jamming wires directly into his arm as sparks flew over his new skin.

It was strange to walk within a shell of human and Earth materials, but within the Shadowzone, it was just as alien as he was-

There!

Soundwave stood still, antennae catching radio waves and faint signals.

Still too tight for his alt mode, he ran, crashing through the water and leaving broken plastic, glass and porcelain in his wake as he found one last tile room. The colors were bright, friendly, and a pool with a black depth was his only way forward.

Soundwave stepped over the railing that hardly came to his shins, and plunged in. His body sank, and he let gravity take him until he could see a tunnel, wide enough for him to swim through! While swimming was overall an impossibility, he gripped into the tunnel’s walls with his claws, pushing against the wall of water, and dragged himself up alongside the wall until his head broke surface.

Not needing to breathe, he emerged with a splash, and realized… he wasn’t wet.

The body of water was wide, and when he walked, he realized that the water around him was off, too clear.

Desaturated.

Not only that but he was standing on… sand.

Soundwave looked… listened.

This was a beach.

Seafaring vessels bobbed along the surface as men cast nets, and he realized he could hear voices, piano, bass. A radio. One human was sitting on the deck of his small boat, pipe in one hand, not able to see Soundwave’s face as he peered over the boat’s bow to watch him.

He made it.

The sky was pale with early morning light, but that is not what drew his gaze to the heavens. No. It was the pin prick of something careening to the surface, multiple bright lights illuminating the sky with streaks of smoke as they burned against the atmosphere, and zooming in, he knew Cybertronian steel anywhere.

He brought Laserbeak from stasis, walking to the shore and feeling Earth’s rock under his pedes as sand did not stick. Impact of the distant vessel he’d spotted boomed through the air, and Laserbeak landed on his outstretched arm.

Not only had he made it back, but he had some visitors that didn’t look like they’d been here this whole time to greet as well.