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She couldn’t remember the last time she'd seen him. The night he stormed out of their habsuite fuming or the distant shape of him crowding her scope.
He stood a few feet away, the closest they'd been in vorns. And like before, her optics zoomed in through their specialized lens, drinking in every rough detail.
Trackfire was a little more rugged, his once spotless armor scattered with scars and paint chips. Torn tread hung in thin strips around caterpillar track calves. The cannon barrel of his back warped red with the heat of repeated fire.
The lines of his face were sharper compared to then, harder, but her name still fell softly from his lips.
“You can't hide from me, Chromaflare.” His plating tightened, his helm swiveled, looking. “I know you're there, I can feel it.” But the statement felt like it was being said to a ghost long gone. Like this wasn't the first time he'd imagined her presence there next to him.
Chromaflare shuddered when Trackfire's optics caught hers. He wasn't staring through her like others did, but rather at her. They both startled.
What did she do? She had purposefully stayed out of his way for millennia. The red insignia emblazoned on his chassis was reason enough.
Trackfire was an Autobot, and there was no way he’d accept the Decepticon badge she wore.
But something in her relented, some unspoken desire to have him look at her again. The camouflage pixelated and faded from her plating with a sharp hiss. The vinrant green of her battle torn plating whispering into sight.
“A femme can hope, can't she?” She rasped.
It was only when she was fully visible that the metal lines of his face softened, but only the miniscule amount that war permitted.
“You're leaking,” he said, gruff vocalizer still the same.
The jet rolled her optics, “no shit, Sherlock.” She had been hit by a blast before she had the chance to take off. It blew through several of her main fuel lines. Without intervention, she would deactivate soon.
“What?” Confusion halted his step forward. He was so close now.
“Earth idiom.” She closed the warning HUDs, but they still blocked her vision with their red glare.
“Oh.” He stood above her now. Looking down through that black visor of his. One that still haunted her in her de-frag cycles.
If silence could kill.
This was their first conversation in four million years, and they hadn't left on a good note last time they'd spoken.
To be honest, she had forgotten what their fight was about that night. In slew of the civil war and everything, an argument seemed like a minor thing to mull over. All she remembered was that he had stormed out of the habsuite smoking mad, and shortly after bombs had unloaded from the sky.
Plus, he had to have known that she was the Autobots most wanted femme right now. The most notorious sniper in the Decepticon forces. The very reason they had lost so many important high-ranking officials.
So Chromaflare braced herself for two scenarios, to either hear pedesteps walking past her, or be put down like the cyber-beast menace she was.
That's why when arms wrapped around her, she stiffened. “Wh–”
“Oh, thank the Primes,” Trackfire's voice cracked. “I'm so, so, glad you're alive.” The tank buried his face in her intake. “I didn't—hadn't—I left, then the bombs.”
Chromaflare’s processor was reeling. He…thought she had been dead this whole time?
She voiced that thought. “You…you thought I was dead?”
Trackfire shot back “Of course I thought you wer—oh, you're losing a lot of energon.”
“I-I thought you knew.” She didn’t care about the copious fluids pouring out her fuel pump right now. The panic once set, moved in quick. “I-I thought you knew I was still a-alive. That you chose that side cause you…you." She didn't really know why he had joined the Autobots. Trackfire had expressed minor support for them before the war, when the factions were starting to form. But he had made it apparent even back then that he had no interest in either side. Each had their own set of issues that he hadn't wanted to be a part of.
Lot of good that did them in the end. Shortly into her service she had discovered the decision he'd made.
Trackfire ignored her rambling, pulling out a thrown together med-kit from his sub-space. He threw it open and dug through the meager supplies, looking for something while she continued fumbling.
Chromaflare felt her optics burn. Why was he ignoring her?
It wasn’t until he slapped a cold nanite patch to her wound and slid a bloodied servo up to her face, that he finally spoke.
“It doesn't matter now. The second I saw those bombs drop from the sky, Chromaflare, I stopped caring about a lot of things." the largest smile she'd ever seen split his faceplate, "But now you're here, in front of me, with your spark still spinning.”
She didn't know what to respond with.
“I love you, I’ve never stopped loving you.” He pressed gentle kisses on her helm, her nose, her chin, then her lips. Chromaflare let the tears spill down her face, tears that he kissed away.
“I love you too.” She said through shuddering vents, it felt so good to say. For the first time in ages, she felt that cold wall she’d built around her spark fall away. Every painful, agonizing moment she had stowed behind it broke open, swelling before spilling over into an ugly sob. She hated to admit it, but she missed him.
Trackfire finally broke away, it pained him to do so. “Now, I want to get you to our medic. We’re just a few kliks away from the rendezvous point.” He brushed a thumb under her optics, wiping away the last of the tears. “I’ll carry you there, alright? We’ve already secured the area, so the trek there will be safe.”
Trackfire stood, positioning himself to kneel down and pick her up, but Chromflare stopped him, the fatal stab of reality sinking in. “Y-you can’t!” She coughed, energon trickling down her chin.
He snorted, “I know you think you’re heavy, but how many times have I told you that you’re not? I’m a tank. Your weight is nothing to me. But your wings do get in the way."
She shook her helm. “No. I’m serious, just leave me here. The nanite patch is enough.” She couldn’t go to an Autobot camp, they’d kill her!
He paused, his derma tightening into a frown. “Leave you here?” Exasperated. “Leave you here?” That quick anger was back. Oh, how she’d missed it. “Chromaflare. The last time I left you behind I thought you died, so no! I’m not leaving you here.” His servos slipped under her, lifting her up bridal style, leaving no room for argument.
No.
No!
He didn’t know, did he? He hadn’t noticed the purple insignia carved into her wings at all. An insignia that burned with the first fires of regret.
“Stop.” She begged as he started trudging through Earth’s greenery. “Trackfire stop!” She yelped when tree leaves brushed against her sensitive wings.
Still, he kept walking, running over vegetation and rocks like they were nothing. “I already said my piece, so shut up and deal with it.” He gritted out.
That stubbornness of his…but it was nothing like her own. It wasn’t that night, and it wouldn’t be now.
She allowed herself a small moment to hesitate, just enough to let the sound of the crunch of vegetation fill it.
Her derma tightened, it’s who she had been for the entirety of this war, it shouldn’t be so difficult to admit now.
But the sight of his optics under that visor suffocated her spark. They were determined, happy, weightless with the revelation that she was alive. That was why it was so hard to say what she ultimately had to, before it was too late.
Well, no turning back now.
“I’m a Decepticon you fragging idiot.” Chromaflare muttered. She curled a fist against his broad chassis.
“What?”
"I’m a Decepticon you fragging idiot, so put me the fuck down!” She screeched in a way only seekers could. High pitched and nauseating.
The tank flinched away from the sound, stunned in his tracks. Chromaflare seized the opportunity to continue.
“I will be killed the second you step foot into that camp, and worse yet, if they see you carrying me in like this, they’ll question you for treason. So, put me the fuck down.” The threat falling from her lips with ease.
Nothing happened for several kliks. Trackfire stood in the midst of the green canopy, distant sounds of firing shots popping off east of them. The steady stream of brrps followed by mismatched booms. A twisted replacement of birdsong.
Trackfire’s face was neutral below the visor, showing absolutely no emotion, but Chromaflare felt the minute twitches of his servos. Threatening to crush her alloy plating with growing anger.
“You’re a Decepticon?” His tone low and dangerous.
She had never heard so much venom directed towards her, and she took orders directly from Starscream.
“I…” There really was no way around it. That’s why she had just come out with it, she was a Decepticon, and had been for vorns.
“After the bombing," she hesitantly started. Chromaflare hadn't told this story to anyone. "It was the Decepticons who dug me out of the rubble and repaired me. And…there wasn’t anywhere for me to go, our whole city had been leveled, so I joined them. I didn’t find out you were alive until later. Much later. By that point though, I was in too deep to just leave.”
She weighed the next thought carefully.
“And...after a while… I started agreeing with their cause. Enough so that I didn’t want to defect even when I had the chance.”
There. It was all laid out in the open now. Surely Trackfire would abandon her for this, and she would cherish this moment as their last memory together. It was nice to be kissed and held by him again, and she would miss it just as much as the first time around.
Though Trackfire would be the type to save them the trouble and just kill her now for this betrayal. She knew how Autobots worked. She knew the depths of rage Trackfire was capable of. His brutality had been witnessed through her sniper’s scope as he decimated her comrades.
He in-vented sharply. Every piston in his frame tense under her wings. The tank’s decision hung heavy, unspoken, in the air. Chromaflare braced herself for the killing blow.
Only to be surprised when he turned pede the other direction and started walking.
Away from the rendezvous point.
“T-Trackfire?” Her voice module wavered, she felt his servos trembling beneath her.
“Shut. Up.” He said. “Just shut up.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
They walked for what felt like an eternity in tense silence. The forest around them steadily growing dark with the approaching dusk. The sounds of battle fading gently into nothing, but still it was silent. Local wildlife scattering as the heavy thumps trampled through, branches snapped as Trackfire bulldozed.
Chromaflare flinched every time her wings brushed against the rough skin of a tree. Each time compelling Trackfire to pull her closer to his chassis. Almost like an excuse to give her a loving embrace. But Chromaflare quickly pushed that thought aside, he hated her now.
It hurt almost as much as her injury, which still throbbed with pain. It was slowly ebbing into something duller, which she suspected were the nanites knitting her internals back together.
Nanite patches were a rarity among the Decepticon ranks. They were delicate pieces of technology that required a sterile, stable environment to be produced in and a regular flow of resources. Both something war provided little of. As such, nanite patches were reserved for high ranking officials in the direst of cases, but mainly for Megatron after a fight with the Prime. After all, the snake could only fight for as long as the head was kept intact. A mere tail was nothing to mourn in the grand scheme of things.
Chromaflare didn't know if they were common among Autobot ranks, she suspected they might've been if Trackfire was in possession of one. Not that she knew his rank among them.
She did know that he had been present with other known Autobot officials when she had taken them out. But he, himself, had never appeared on her target list. That was suspect enough to know he wasn't important among them. At most, he might've been a guard, sent to maintain a low security profile, while still possessing the same level of protection as regular sized security unit.
Considering he was the only tank amongst their ranks, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. She had after all, seen that lone shuttle Skyfire sent on similar missions for much the same reason. Skyfire was the only air superiority they had, and Trackfire was the only one with enough firepower to hold a solitary front line.
Trackfire was also the main reason the Decepticons had enlisted her skills as a sniper to begin with. Because for all the strength the tank possessed as a guard, he couldn't bulldoze through something he couldn't see.
That's what Chromaflare was good at, getting in and out without being seen. Using her camouflage ability to creep in close enough for the killing shot. That's why she had chosen to be a sniper to begin with. She could spend long, long kliks sitting still, lying in wait for the right moment unseen. It was the one thing her outlier skill excelled in, the ability to hide in plain sight.
Except for this time, where she had used the chaos of battle as a chance to knock off another name on her list. After she had accomplished that, she quickly ran. Attempting to find a clearing to take off from. But as she reached the outskirts of the battlefield, a dying Autobot had noticed and shot her before sputtering out themselves.
That was the fatal weakness of her ability; it wasn't invisibility. It was simply changing the color of her frame to blend in with her surroundings, and it couldn't change quick enough to allow unseen movement.
She had collapsed right then and there, and hid herself in hopes that a comrade would find her. Only to have her lost lover stumble upon her instead. What he was doing out that far was beyond her.
Said lover had quickened his pace, jolting Chromaflare out her thoughts. She observed quietly as he approached a clearing with a sheer rock outcropping. Tall enough to accommodate their height and wide enough to cover them from above. No possibility of being seen by seekers. Which meant no rescues anytime soon.
Gently he propped her up against the rock wall, mindful of her wings. Night was setting in quick, leaving the last glows of this planet's sky to fade from blue to black. Her night vision flicked on with the subtle change, leaving Trackfire crystal clear in her view with a green overlay. She followed a trail of condensation running down his chest.
He sat heavily across from her, the trees trembling with the weight of his motion. Trackfire was massive, and though Chromaflare wasn't small herself, she still felt dwarfed by him. His servos were thick, now scarred. His chest was broad, broad enough to accommodate the massive canon on his back. His visor glinted with the reflection of her optics, red light, as he looked at her. She felt the way his own optics roved up and down her frame. Drinking in the sight of her much like she was now.
It was electrifying.
They sat in tense silence for a few more moments before Trackfire finally spoke. "I meant it when I said I wasn't going to leave you behind. So, any idea of convincing me otherwise, scrap it right now." He rumbled so low, it almost sounded like a growl. He paused again.
Chromaflare could tell he was thinking, and she'd let him stew on whatever it was without interruption. She didn't need to convince him of anything, he'd realize the hopelessness of this situation soon enough.
He sighed, shaking his helm in defeat.
See?
But she couldn't help the disappointment that squeezed her spark. There wasn't much they could do. They either went their separate ways, only to kill each other another day, or they fought here and now until someone died.
And there was no running away, there was no escape from the war. Just as it had destroyed their planet, it would destroy this one, and the next one it ended up on, and there was always a next one. Earth wasn't the first, and it wouldn't be the last.
"Frag, Chromaflare. What have you gotten yourself into?" Trackfire muttered to himself, "what am I getting myself into?"
She opened her intake to speak, but stopped when he held up a servo. "Don't. I know what you're going to say, and I'm telling you it's useless…" he looked away, then back at her. The next words from him surprising.
"I respect you Chromaflare, but most of all I love you." He drew closer, invading her personal space, she felt the way his EM field rippled against her own. Demanding, but gentle, like it had always been. "But with this idea of mine, it's going to look like I don't. So, I need you to hold onto that knowledge when I do what I'm about to do."
"For frag's sake, what are you on about?" She snapped. "If you're going to kill me, just get it over with." The bitterness was palpable on her glossa, but she wouldn't blame him if he did. Primus, she'd probably thank him for the release from war. "I don't need the theatrics, just do it."
Something like hurt struck her EM field, but it wasn't her own. She saw the way his derma drew tight, softening only after a moment with forgiveness.
"I'm going to sparkbond with you." He said.
And maybe the strike of a canon would've been softer than those words.
Chromaflare remembered now, what they had fought about all those years ago. It came rushing back like an unwelcome tank purge. Is this why he had been so broody and silent during their walk here? That's what he had come up with? That was his solution?
"No."
"Chromaflare--"
"No." She backed into the rock, uncaring of the way it dug into her wings. "No, Trackfire. You know exactly why I refused back then, and the same reason still stands."
They had both seen war on the horizon in the early days. Trackfire, in his worrisome, fragging suicidal love for her, wanted to sparkbond before they lost the chance. He wanted to be connected to her for the rest of their nigh-eternal life. Wanted her innermost energon with him always, and vice versa.
But that's the thing, a sparkbond in a war was a death sentence. If one part of the bond died, then the other faded with it.
That last thing she wanted was to go into battle worrying if a mistake would doom not just her, but Trackfire as well. She would die twice in that moment, physically and with the agony that she would be killing him too. He didn't deserve that. No one deserved that.
That's why she had been so adamant about it that last time. "I refuse, Trackfire." She desperately argued as he drew closer. She felt the panic set in as he enveloped her both with his frame and EM field. Both moving with a calm, underlying determination. He knew she couldn't run.
Fuck.
"Stop. Stop! You'll kill us both!" She tried to stand, but a sharp stabbing pain seized her and she collapsed again. Trackfire easily pulled her into his lap, cradling the side her injury was on to protect it from her thrashing. He started pushing their chassis together, his strength far out-matching hers.
"Chromaflare, I love you. I love you. I love you." He repeated with desperation. Trying to ignore the awful screech of her pleas.
She had to resort to other means. Before he made a terrible mistake. Before he doomed them both.
"I'm the assassin! I'm the assassin whose been killing your commanders!" The confession was cruel in its intent. It was meant to push him away one last time. The same method she had used to send him fuming out of their habsuite. The same method she had used when she revealed her allegiance. And the same one she was using now.
"I've been the assassin the Autobots have been trying to hunt down, I'm the one. It's been me this entire time." The final sentence broke off with sobs, but she knew she had succeeded when Trackfire released his hold on her, letting her fall to the ground.
It twisted her spark when he felt him shove her off his lap.
Again. She had done it again.
Chromaflare flinched when a loud blast sounded off directly in front of her. Momentarily blinding her night vision with its flash.
This was a depth of rage she had never seen before.
Her vision faded back in to see that Trackfire had shot the trees along the meadow's edge. His canon was drawn, white hot and smoking over his shoulder. He transformed it back into it's sitting position, slumping down heavily onto his knees with a thud.
He slammed his helm hard into a tree with a crack, shaking everything around them, and loosening pebbles from the outcrop. Chromaflare flinched when she felt them pelt her plating in a staccato clatter.
This was a depth that shook the world around them.
After a few moments, Trackfire's frame shuddered, and with an exhaustion only war could leave behind, he stood up and stomped back towards her.
Chromaflare didn't move. Unsure of what to do, so she let him approach. Let him slump to his knees in front of her. Let him vent hard and angry for as long as he needed. She listened to the sound of his fans click on, feeling the heat they released blow in her face.
Finally he spoke, broken and cracked, but underlined with an emotion deeper than any devotion Chromaflare had witnessed. "I don’t want to know who you’ve killed." He started. Chromaflare couldn't meet the optics behind the visor.
"I get it, okay? You’ve shot friends standing right next to me without a second thought, but I can bet I’ve killed just as many of yours." Chromaflare knew this was true. She knew full well the brutality he was capable of on the battlefield.
"It doesn't matter," her optics widened at this admission. He held up his servo again, silently asking her to let him finish. "You’re the only thing that matters to me in this primus-forsaken war. I don't care who lives or dies as long I have you.”
Chromaflare started, "but," it was weak and Trackfire bulldozed over it like he did everything else.
"But nothing, sweetspark." The endearment slipping from his glossa with ease. "I know that you said that to sabotage yourself. Just like that night. But I'm not making the same mistake twice. I want to sparkbond with you. It's the only way to keep the Autobots from exacting their justice." He ex-vented when he saw her solemn expression. "But mainly because I want to. This war will be the death of us at some point, and I'll admit. I had hoped it would be the death of me many times, because I thought you had already died. But knowing you're alive now, I can't live through that husk of a life. I won't let you ask me to live like that again. I can't bear the thought of you dying alone, without me to follow."
He pulled her back into his lap, gentler than before, and smoothed the nanite patch over again. Quietly, oh so quietly he spoke.
"So, I'm telling you this again. I love you. I respect you. No messy fucked up part of you is going to convince me not to do either." He took her servo into his, kissing the connector joints. "My servos are just as dirty as yours, if not more so. So, for the last time, open up. Or I kill you and myself and save the war the trouble of doing it instead."
It was hard to argue with that, all of her reasons crumbling to dust at the look on his face. Because he was right, this war was going to kill them both someday. So why post-pone it? Why post-pone something she, deep down, had always wanted with him?
The war had taken so much from her already, she wasn't going to let it take this chance away either.
"Okay." She finally said. "I'll sparkbond with you."
Finally, that smile she loved so dearly was back.
She let him pull her close to his chassis again, this time without a fight. Their chest plates transformed away, revealing the bright light of their sparks. The purple light of their war-frame souls intermingling with each other.
Chromaflare shuddered as his spark reached for hers, an action repeated in his own frame. He pressed his helm against hers. Shuddering as their sparks made the first tentative connection.
"Ah!" She moaned when his spark lunged for hers. Trackfire grunted as the first tangible lines of connection started to form. Their sparks merged into one for a brief moment, sending floods of electric memory through their processors.
Every painful, agonizing, brutal moment of war overwhelming them both to the very core. Chromaflare watched and felt the energon life blood of Trackfire's comrades bleed out in his arms. Over and over again.
And she knew that she had done it, been the killer of each one. And she knew that at the other end of this Trackfire was watching her pull the trigger. Every time.
But instead of anger or sadness pouring through them both, they only felt forgiveness for the other. And that forgiveness felt euphoric. The most freeing thing she had ever felt since the start of this war, was the solid brush of Trackfire's forgiveness.
She watched as he shot gaping holes through her own comrades, through her own friends on the front lines. But she had already witnessed those, and she let him know that she had already forgiven him then through the feedback loop of connection.
After what felt like an eternity of the most spark-wrenching, euphoric ride of her life, the connection had established and their chestplates snapped closed. They slumped into each other, exhaustion pulling at both their lines.
Trackfire was the first to gather her up, trudging to lean against the wall with her in his lap. He pressed a kiss to her helm and sunk down.
They both felt the ache of their sparkbond. White hot and sore with it's newfound presence between them.
She wrapped her arms around his frame. Pressing her face into his intake. She didn't know how the Autobots would react to his decision to sparkbond with her. She didn't want to fathom what the Decepticons would do to her. To them. If they ever found out.
"I love you." She whispered. But that was something for them to discover. Together.
He tightened his hold, gazing at the night sky beyond the outcrop. Watching the last of the light fade from the horizon line. "I love you too, sweetspark."