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Chapter Text

Today has been a lot for Stargazer, she knows that, and it's only a few hours past noon. She's used to the dark lighting of the Nemesis- not the bright lights of the Autobot base- so everything is very bright. It doesn't help that the people here also talk more than she expected.

They greeted her with open, welcoming arms, something she's always believed in.

She had never seen that before. And now here she is, sitting on the couch, zoned out while Bumblebee beeps happily and is telling her about everything.

Ratchet reminds Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee of the time- almost three pm- and they all get up to go somewhere.

She doesn't dare ask where they're going as she doesn't want to cross boundaries.

When the three get back to the base, they have three little humans with them. Stargazer immediately perks up in curiosity, sitting a bit straighter on the couch. She's never seen a human before.

A little one, built like a femme, buns, and pink streaks in her hair immediately walks over to Stargazer and starts asking a million questions.

"Are you a new Autobot? Can you fight people? What are the wings for? What about the glasses? Why do you have a staff? Why's your glasses big, round, and gold? Can you fight people with your staff-"

Stargazer just lets the tiny creature mumble, one she later finds out is named Miko.

Stargazer has completely zoned out to her talking until one part, "You look like a fairy!"

"That's nic- wait, what? What's a fairy?"

"They're like little humans with wings that cause chaos and sometimes kidnap people."

"I'm sorry, what," Stargazer is now staring at Miko like she's gone insane.

Miko then goes into a long discussion about things along the lines of cryptids, failing to mention every time that they're not necessarily real. It's when Bulkhead sees Stargazer's face and starts laughing that it finally gets explained.

"They're not really real, some people believe in them but most don't. It's a weird human thing," Bulkhead says, struggling to speak between his laughter and Arcee is smirking.

Stargazer looks down at the ground, slightly ashamed but more embarrassed than anything about the fact that she believed a fake human tale, "Oh."

Optimus puts a servo on Stargazer's shoulder that makes her flinch and jump, something not missed by the others based on the way they're all looking at her.

Optimus speaks in a seemingly level tone, but there's a slight hint of concern behind it at Stargazer's behavior after he merely touched her shoulder, "Perhaps you would bond with Rafael more than you do Miko. You're a chemist and he has a passion for science."

She can hear the other bots whispering about her, how she holds herself, how tense she is, and the way she jumps. She's got big audials, she can hear what they're all saying.

Stargazer looks over at the quiet little human that Optimus is motioning to. He hasn't said a word to her yet. She relaxes marginally at the idea of talking with him since he's quiet so she goes over to speak with him.

"Hi," she says quietly, so quiet he almost doesn't hear but he does and looks up.

"Hey, I'm Raf," he's typing on a small device, one that looks like the big computers that the bots use.

"What are you doing?"

That one, simple, small question leads Raf into fifteen minutes of talking about coding and science. When he's done talking he looks incredibly shy, like he just did something wrong, but Stargazer is significantly more relaxed, her optics are brighter, and she's got a soft smile on her faceplates.

She turns to Bumblebee and Optimus, "I love him so much."

Bumblebee beeps out a laugh and Optimus just gives her a bit of a small smile. Raf looks up at her in shock from the very direct attention after having just rambled about science for a while.

Stargazer looks back at Raf and holds her servo out which he climbs onto, "I love you so much. You're adorable and you remind me of a sparkling. You're mine now, I'm adopting you, you have no choice."

She takes Raf to her desk and that's how the rest of her day is spent; listening to the little human ramble about all the science and random facts he knows.

Chapter Text

The others have gone out on a mission, leaving just Stargazer and Ratchet at base. They're both quietly working at their stations, Stargazer balancing equations and Ratchet working on new medical practices.

Stargazer is shifting uncomfortably, wanting to say something to Ratchet but not knowing what to say. He doesn't even notice her, clearly completely focused on his work.

She looks over at Ratchet then speaks up, her voice coming out quiet and unsure, reflecting her feelings of not knowing what to say or how to act, "What are you working on?"

Ratchet looks up for a moment then turns back to his work, his tone reflecting his slight annoyance, "A new way to fix stabilizers by using less resources."

Stargazer pauses for a moment, seeing how he fidgets with his hands and gets irritated when his intense focus is interrupted and connecting the behavior to that of some of the sparklings she took care of.

"You're wired different."

His helm snaps up and towards her, his optics narrowing as if trying to figure her out.

"Excuse me?"

"You're wired different," she states, in a matter of fact manner.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I was in charge of taking care of sparklings during the war, mostly those who were different because I'm kind and patient. You have the same mannerisms. You fidget and get irritated when broken out of intense focus. You also completely missed the fact that I was anxious and trying to figure out what to say to you."

"You're too observant for your own good. You took care of sparklings?"

"I'm a chemist, I spent most of my time in the lab, so I was put in charge of taking care of some sparklings, mainly those who had been abandoned by their creators, were wired differently so no one else knew how to take care of them, and sparklings with special needs."

Ratchet scoffs and rolls his eyes, carefully reading over a datapad now, "Why would a chemist ever want to do such a thing?"

Stargazer at this point is disassociating her optics, the only thing keeping her from completely disassociating being the conversation, "I like sparklings. I can't have sparkling of my own, so I like taking care of the ones that need a little extra help or the ones that don't have creators of their own."

"Sounds like a distraction in the lab which is a disaster waiting to happen. How did I not hear of you or see you? I was in the lab occasionally during the war and especially now."

"I didn't talk to many other bots," she lies quickly and in such a way that it seems completely neutral.

It's not wrong, she doesn't talk to very many other bots, that's just not the reason why Ratchet has never heard of her or seen her.

Ratchet looks up and let's out a little chuckle, "Obviously. You're not very social."

Stargazer finally looks up from her disassociation and goes back to working, pausing a moment before answering, "Do you want me to be?"

Ratchet takes a moment to respond as well, humming in thought during the pause before looking to her, "Not particularly. I like that you're quiet. You look like you'd be quiet anyways."

"The others are loud."

"Very much so. It's incredibly annoying," Ratchet says, returning to his work and reading through a datapad.

"We're both super socially awkward, aren't we?"

"That's an understatement."

"Miko stresses me out."

Ratchet stops scrolling through his datapad to grab another and cross compare, "Likewise."

"She's very loud."

"So is Bulkhead and Wheeljack. It surprises no one that they get along so well."

"I haven't met Wheeljack and based on that sentence alone I'm not sure I want to."

They both half smile and half smirk at each other for a moment before returning to their respective work.

Ratchet is the first to break the silence, "You have social anxiety, don't you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Very much so."

"So we're both a bit odd, aren't we?"

"A bit is an understatement."

They spend the rest of their time working in comfortable silence before the ground bridge opens and the group of loud noise and chaos comes back.

Chapter Text

Stargazer hums while she works and sings in Cybertronian, but it's not a dialect any of the other bots know. It's got clicks, and squeaks, and chirps, and it all sounds like it's supposed to be there but none of them even knew a bot could make that noise.

They've never been around seekers for long periods of time, they don't understand the significance of her songs.

The humans are at base today as she's singing to herself in Cybertronian. Raf is always fascinated by it, Miko thinks it's hilarious when she slips into Cybertronian on accident while talking and usually responds in Japanese, while Jack always secretly listens even if he pretends he doesn't to avoid making Arcee jealous.

Stargazer is tapping her pede on the hard floors of the base to a beat while singing. The other bots could make out a few words she says at the best of times, but it seems like she sings pretty fast, but really it's just because they don't understand what she's saying.

Arcee recognizes it as something from Vos, but can't figure out what exactly it is. Optimus walks in as Stargazer closes her optics to just have them offline for a moment while she continues to sing in the strange dialect.They've all heard her sing before, but it doesn't get any less strange each time, especially with the odd chips, clicks, and squeaks that they didn't even know a bot could make.

It's odd to them.

But not to Stargazer.

To Stargazer this is more normal than them not singing along.

Optimus's optics light up this time as he finally recognized the songs, "Before the war I read a datapad in the archives on the songs Stargazer sings. They're unique to seekers along with the seemingly odd noises she makes. The language she's speaking is a Vosian seeker dialect."

Arcee just hums in response while Bulkhead actually responds, "I didn't even know that bots could make that noise. Bee makes beeps because of his damaged voice box, but the noises she makes sometimes sound organic."

Jack makes a connection for the humans when Stargazer pauses her singing for a moment, "You sound like a bird."

Stargazer looks up at him and at the others and just responds by trilling which makes the whole room go quiet. They haven't heard that one from her before and didn't know it was possible for a bot to make a noise even close to that.

"What," she responds to the silence and shocked faces, not entirely understanding why they're confused and shocked.

She had grown up in a place where those noises were normal and everyone knew what they meant. Even the bots that weren't seekers knew what they meant.

Ratchet is the first one other than Stargazer to say anything, "What in Primus's name was that?"

"A trill. You've never heard one before?"

"Beeeeep beeooow beep *No, but it sounded cool,*" is what Bumblebee responses with, being the second one to recover from shock.

"Seekers communicate with our wings," she demonstrates by moving her wings up and down, "and with the noises like the trills."

Miko runs to the edge of the platform to get closer to Stargazer and jumps up and down, clearly very excited, "Do it again!"

She trills again in compliance and adds a chirp at the end too.

Everyone basically shrugs it off and accepts it as something she does then goes back to what they were doing while Ratchet immediately goes to his work station and starts to do research.

Stargazer can't lie, she's disappointed and lonely, but she won't tell any of them that. She's used to trilling and getting a seeker noise back in response, usually another trill. Her wings droop in melancholy and she turns back to her work, not very interested in it anymore.

She misses the way others would pick up on her songs before since they knew what she was saying. Usually when seekers sing they open their fields to each other so they can feel the emotions and story, seeker songs commonly telling stories, behind it, sometimes even just leaving them open most of the time. She misses that closeness. None of these bots know anything about seekers.

Primus, she misses the Nemesis and Starscream, the one she was closest with and considers a brother. She can't think of him any other way because of how close they were, literally calling each other siblings. She can't think any other way about the others either but it's harder with Starscream because she was closest with him. Knockout, Breakdown, Soundwave, and Starscream were her family. She knows she has it better here with the Autobots, but Primus, she can't stop missing the Nemesis and her little fragged up family there.

Chapter Text

It's been three weeks since she got to the Autobot base, Stargazer hadn't had any energon for two weeks before she got there. Five weeks. She's gone five weeks without any energon.

It's making her tanks hurt and turn. She's desperate, she won't lie. Yes, she's gone longer without energon, but she's never gone this long without anything in her tanks.

She has spent the entire day looking for blank datapads, which everyone else figured is to put new chemistry information on. They're all doing their own work so they don't pay much attention to what she's doing, how her wings sag slightly, and her movements slowing.

Till they hear the crunch.

Ratchet immediately sighs, assuming Bulkhead broke something or Stargazer accidentally broke a datapad. That is till everyone else turns to face Stargazer and notices what she's doing. He turns around at the silence and the repetitive crunching.

"By the AllSpark! What do you think you're doing?!"

There's Stargazer, standing there, eating a datapad like it's the most casual thing ever. She doesn't like eating datapads, she has no urge to, but she's starving and just wants her tanks to stop hurting.

She swallows the part of the datapad in her intake then speaks, "I'm hungry."

Arcee goes over, puts her servos on Stargazer's shoulders, and looks her in the optics, "Go purge."

"No! If you purge it could cause even more damage to your intake," Ratchet immediately blurts out, clearly trying to figure out how to deal with this.

Optimus moves Arcee to the side by simply just telling her to move, then gets on his knees in front of Stargazer so they're at almost optic level, Optimus now actually being slightly shorter than her, "Why did you feel the need to eat a datapad?"

"I'm hungry," she shrugs, thinking it's the most obvious thing in the world.

On the Nemesis it was common for hungry bots to eat a something they weren't supposed to just to quell the pain in their tanks.The datapads were a trick Starscream taught her. She quickly realizes that this isn't the case here and now she'll have to play it off to keep them from finding out.

Something in Optimus seems to soften at the fact that she thinks this is normal to be so hungry that eating a datapad seems like a good option, "Have you not been getting energon?"

"Nobody gave me rations."

With the looks everyone is giving her she realizes that the energon doesn't have to be given to her and they might not even have rations.

"Can I just go get energon whenever I'm hungry," she asks, tilting her helm to the side as she does so, wings picking up slightly at even the idea of it.

Bulkhead is the one to speak up this time since everyone else doesn't really know what to tell her, "Well, yeah. Have you not gotten any energon the entire time you've been here because nobody gave it to you?"

Stargazer's wings droop at the realization that she didn't have to starve to entire time, that she could've gotten energon instead of eating a datapad and tearing up her tanks, and just shakes her helm "no" to say she hasn't had any energon.

Ratchet immediately walks over and scans her with concern of what this could've done to her systems, "Primus, you've gone at least three weeks without energon and who knows what damage that datapad will do to your tanks now that you've ate it alongside the side effects of such severe energon depletion."

"My tanks can handle it. It's not exactly comfortable, but it never really hurts," Stargazer says, not realizing what it implies while everyone else does.

"Wait a minute," Arcee cuts I'm before anyone else can, "have you ate a datapad before?"

"Yeah, you haven't?"

The room goes completely silent and Ratchet drops the tool he has grabbed as everyone freezes. Bee is the first to recover from the extreme shock and moves in between Optimus and Stargazer then grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her.

"Beeeooow beeep beeow *Why would you ever eat a datapad more than once*?!"

"I got hungry," she says again with a shrug, "energon was in short supply on Cybertron, so datapads and metal were snacks."

It's not completely a lie; she did eat that stuff during the war, she just didn't mention what side she happened to be on at the time.

Ratchet gets fed with the whole issue and brings her a cube of energon to which she chugs it and he brings her another to stabilize her levels.

A few days later Bulkhead notices that Stargazer hasn't gotten any more energon, so the group decides to test a theory. Over the next few days they see what determines if she gets energon or not.

She still hasn't unlearned the need to be personally given her energon and still doesn't feel comfortable just grabbing energon whenever she wants it. The Decepticons have controlled rations and their ration was given to that, so she hasn't unlearned that. If she isn't given energon then she just assumes she's not allowed to have any not given to her.

The rest of the bots don't know why she does it, but she'll gratefully accept any energon given to her; she won't get any herself though.

After they figure that out Stargazer never goes hungry again. Someone always brings her energon whenever they can remember too so that she doesn't. It's the first time in her life that she's never been hungry. The first time she gets full she thinks she's malfunctioning and goes to Ratchet in a panic. The feeling is still foreign to her every time, but it's a nice kind of feeling that she's accepted she'll get used to.

Chapter Text

It's a nice clear Friday, the kids are staying the night at base, and the day hasn't been too chaotic. Everything seems to be perfect. Except one thing. Rafael is upset about something. Stargazer assumes it's something that happened at school, and Bee has been trying to cheer him up.

Eventually Bee has to go on a mission with Optimus and Raf looks, as Miko would say, "like a kicked puppy". Ratchet is busy working and Bulkhead, Miko, Jack, and Arcee are all hanging out. Miko and Jack are playing videogames and there's only two controllers so Raf can't play right now.

It seems like none of the others have noticed that Raf is upset so they're not including him in anything. He was reading a datapad Ratchet had gave him and was having Bumblebee tell him what the words he didn't know meant, but with Ratchet busy and Bee out on a mission he can't read it.

Stargazer holds out a servo to Rafael and he climbs onto it, something that's a regular occurrence now. She starts walking; her work left abandoned in favor of being with the human boy. She turns her comms and location off too so he can have her undivided attention. Raf seems to do the same by turning his phone off so they can have a conversation without interruption.

She takes them up to the top of the base- colors from yellow to dark blue painting the sky now as the sun dips below the horizon- and sits down on the edge of the cliff. Her pedes hang off the edge in a way that would make any other bot's tanks feel as though they're doing flips as she sets Raf down on the ground beside her.

"What was the datapad you were reading about?"

Raf looks up at her in surprise that she didn't ask what's wrong before answering, "Cybertronian culture. Holidays you guys had and stuff."

"How was your day at school," she asks, not turning her gaze from the horizon where the sun has almost entirely disappeared to.

"Not too great. Some of the people in my class make fun of me for being smart or having glasses, usually both. We were talking about chemistry in science and I watch you work so I knew most of the stuff and they wouldn't stop bothering for answers then made fun of me after I told them no."

"You think I'm cool, right?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Well, those are all the things that you have in common with me, glasses, smart, knows chemistry. They must just be jealous that you're cool," she nudges him slightly with her servo and he laughs which makes her smile.

"You're fun to talk to, you know that?"

"Thanks."

"Why do you always seem so nervous around the other humans and the bots but never me," Raf asks with genuine curiosity.

"I guess you're just easy to talk to. You remind me a lot of myself and you're just easier to talk with. I don't feel like I don't fit in with you."

"You feel like you don't fit in with the other bots?"

Stargazer looks down at the ground for a moment before looking back up at where the sun has now completely dipped below the horizon, "No, I don't. I know I don't fit in with them."

"Why's that?"

"Long story."

"Long story as in actually long or you just don't want to talk about it?"

"Both. See? This is why I like talking with you you're easy to. You always seem to know without me having to say it."

"You're always more comfortable and casual with me."

"You're more open with me than anyone else."

Raf looks out at the night sky too, carefully looking at every star, "Why's that matter?"

"Seeker culture. We're mostly naturally open with each other."

"Seekers have a different culture than ground bots," Raf looks up at her with curiosity practically oozing from his very being and clearly wanting to know more.

"Yeah. We're very different from ground bots. We were some of the last to basically industrialize and we stayed wild the longest. That's why we still have the click, squeak, and wing movements as a prominent language and the dialect of Cybertronian from Vos includes the clicks and such and some of our words are different. Despite being the last to industrialize we did it quickest and created the city of Vos, my home city. It basically translates to "City of the pure" or "city of angels" because we were seen as Primus's chosen people by ground bots with our high carrying rate and ability to fly. Our small frames were seen as highly attractive. Both points being ironic when you take into account that we're more likely to lack the coding making us able to conjunx, carry, or even feel any desire to have either. When we're together we'll leave our em fields open to each other so we know what they others are feeling; especially when we're singing. All our songs tell stories, normally about our past. We nest when we sleep, especially in groups. Our holidays and beliefs are slightly different as well. We also refuel more often but we don't require as much energon at a time in comparison to a ground bot."

"So, there's basically two different species of Cybertronians, seekers and grounders?"

Stargazer takes a minute to think that over then nods, "Pretty much. Sorry for info dumping on you like that, I just haven't told anyone in a long time, mostly because I haven't had to."

"None of the other bots know that stuff?"

"Like you said, we're like different species. We don't interact very often. It's also considered a pretty high honor to be a nonseeker and a part of seeker nests, cultural celebrations, or religious things."

"So a human being involved in that stuff-"

Stargazer cuts his sentence off, "Would be unheard of. I would make an exception for you though."

Rafael looks up at her in surprise, "Wait, really?"

"Yeah, you were my first friend here."

She notices him now looking out at the stars and how he looks like he wants to touch them with his very own fingers, "You wanna go for a fly?"

Raf looks up at her then back out at the night sky and nods, "Yeah, I'd like that. Where would we go?"

"Wherever our sparks take us. C'mon, climb in my servo."

Raf climbs up into her servo without hesitation and she jumps up just a bit so she can transform carefully, making sure he's in the cockpit, then starts to fly.

They just fly in silence for a long while before Stargazer takes him out to a part of the desert with no people and no lights. She can feel him press against the glass of her cockpit as he tries to reach up and touch the stars. The swirling beauty of the Milky Way shines above them along with the many stars that look as though there's tiny holes poked in the sky.

"You wanna land out here?"

"Yeah, that sounds nice."

They both land on the ground, it being surprisingly flat and dust kicking up as she lays down with Raf on the ground.

"It's beautiful out here."

"Yeah, it really is. You're staying true to your name right now."

Stargazer laughs a bit then nods, "Yeah, guess I am. That's actually how I got my name. I used to stand out on the balcony when we still had our house in Vos and look at the stars. That was before the war broke out though. I was pretty much too young to remember any of it starting since the political climate was already iffy when I emerged."

"You don't remember your childhood?"

"Not the early days of it. I know humans can't either. You try and tell me something from when you were like three."

"True. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, hit me with it."

"Why don't you let people call you Star instead of Stargazer," Raf asks, turning his head slightly to hear her answer while they both continue to lay on their backs, Stargazer having to lay a bit weird because of her wings, in the middle of the night and look at the stars above.

"Star is a family name. Any seeker with the first part of their name being Star is related to any seeker who also has Star, but sometimes very, very distantly because of how old the tradition is. There's also a few other family names, but Star is honestly the most common one because it's easy to stick personal names on it. It's like a human last name. You wouldn't call another person by their last name instead of their first."

"Yeah, that's true. Guess seekers really are different from ground bots. So since you and Starscream both have Star to start your names?"

Stargazer takes a minute to answer, smile fading, then answers carefully, "I trust you more than you know, so that's why I'll give you this option. Do you want the truth or do you want to not have to keep secrets from the others?"

Raf sits up and looks at her, sensing the shift in atmosphere with that one question, "Truth. I can keep secrets from people. Obviously, I know about your existence and the entire world doesn't. I want the truth."

She sighs before starting, then focuses solely on the galaxy above so she doesn't have to face the small child's reaction right away, "Starscream and I are technically very distantly related. We're closer than that though; we consider each other siblings. I used to be a Decepticon. I wasn't actually traveling through the galaxy before I got here, I was on the Nemesis. They were basically my family. Most of the Decepticon forces are seekers too so going from being around seekers all the time to none at all was an adjustment to say the least."

"You were a Decepticon?"

"My creators sided with the Decepticons under the promises of power and control. Also to avoid the seeker genocide Megatron had started on any seekers that hadn't sided with him yet. It was bad, really bad. A lot of seekers sided with him to avoid the genocide. He just wanted to make sure that the Decepticons had complete control of the air so seekers with the Autobots were targeted the most out of anyone. I was too young to make any other decision, so my creators took me with them."

"Why'd you leave?"

"Megatron abuses Starscream and as much as I love him, I couldn't stay and watch my adoptive brother get almost killed every day. Megatron also wanted me to do experiments on bots and I wasn't going to do that. So, first chance I got, I ran."

"What did the others have to say about that?"

"They helped. Knockout gave me one of his staffs and took my Decepticon symbol off, Breakdown distracted most of the others, and Soundwave did a convenient system update where the cameras went offline for a few moments. All but one helped. I ended up getting in a fight with Starscream when I was at the hangar because he didn't want me to leave."

"Sounds like what happened what happened when one of my older sisters moved out. She was the only one somewhat like me so when she moved out I got upset at her and wanted her to stay. She hasn't been back home since she left."

"So your sister was me in this relation?"

"Yeah."

"I doubt you and your sister broke like me and Screamer did."

"Why's that?"

"I told him that he was just holding me back and I needed to do something good with my life for once. He said that with all I've done it's hilarious that I thought I could change."

"What'd you do?"

"I'm really good at lying and fighting. Knockout called it stretching the truth out of shape. I was applauded by Megatron for being a true Decepticon in the deepest parts of my spark. I want to do good things, I want to be better, but I don't know how. I still lie to keep myself safe and I still fight to kill because that's all I've known. It's what I grew up around. I know you guys and the Autobots do it way different, but that's how I do things. I don't know how to do it any different. I know it's ironic to say, but I do truly trust easy and basically greet the world with open arms, but once my fight or flight response- as Jack has called it- kicks in I do what comes naturally. Most of the time that's manipulating people to my favor. I hope so hard to be different, I try so hard, I hope for a better world so hard which is so ironic when you consider what I've done before."

"You do trust easy, and you're really kind, you just don't know how to turn down that anxiety you have that people are going to hurt you after you trust them. Also, when all that was all you've ever known, then it's not your fault. You hope and try for a better tomorrow and that's what matters."

"You're really smart for a twelve year old human."

"Parents use me as a therapist."

"Ah. Sorry for doing that with you tonight too then."

Raf stands up and brushes himself off before pushing his glasses back up his nose, "It's not a problem with you, I like listening to you. It also shows just how much you trust me. We should probably head back, it's getting late."

Stargazer sits up and has him climb into her servo before standing, "True. I really like talking with you, you know that? You just can't tell anyone about what we talked about, got it?"

"Got it."

"You're a good kid."

"Thanks!"

"C'mon, let's get you back to base," she says as she transforms.

The ride back to base is silent as they fly, the stars now slightly blurring with the speed being faster than before but Raf still pressing against the glass as if he could touch the stars.

When they both walk back into base everyone freezes and the entire base looks like it's been torn apart, Ratchet is at the console that has everyone's location, Bee was pacing, and the others are spread out in different positions of the base basically tearing it apart.

Stargazer takes a look around for a moment before her optics widen behind her round, golden glasses, "What happened here?"

Chapter Text

When Optimus and Bumblebee walk through the ground bridge Bee is the first to notice the absence of both the bot and the human.

"Beeeep beow *Where's Raf*? Beee beeep beeow *And where's Stargazer*?"

That's when Ratchet, Arcee, Bulkhead, Jack, and Miko look up from what they were doing before. Only then, not a second before.

Jack just shrugs and Miko goes back to playing the video game. Both clearly assuming that they're somewhere in base.

Ratchet and the other bots seem to know better since they all move to look at the big computer screen where Ratchet has the location of the bots and the vitals of each. When Stargazer's is gray, signalling it's turned off everyone, including the two humans tense.

"Hold on, before anyone panics, let me just call Raf," Jack states calmly.

He puts his phone on speaker and when it goes straight to voicemail Bee starts to panic as he runs off to check the outside of base. Arcee goes with him just in case Rafael and Stargazer got kidnapped by Decepticons and there's still some out there.

When they both come back in, Arcee looking suspicious of something and Bee straight up panicking it's clear that they saw not even a speck of the desert dust kicked up or moved.

Ratchet sighs and goes more in depth into tracing Stargazer's last location, "Bumblebee, calm yourself, I'll find where her-" he pauses, momentarily frozen then recovers, "her location was turned off in base."

Arcee goes stomping off after turning sharply on her pedes, "I knew it! I didn't trust her for a minute! She stole Raf!"

Bulkhead and Optimus have already started turning things over, Optimus being the more careful of the two, and looking for Rafael.

"When was her location turned off," Optimus asks in his ever calm voice.

Ratchet responds with a sigh, which tells everyone his answer won't help the situation, "Almost the very moment you two left base. Same with Rafael's phone. A few human hours ago."

Bee immediately goes into full panic and is pacing while Arcee, Miko, and Jack join in looking for Raf and Stargazer in hopes their still on base.

A few hours of searching later and almost the entire base is close to torn apart and the perimeter is searched from trying to find them.

When they hear large footsteps from one of the entrances they all freeze up, including Bee who hasn't stopped his nervous pacing since then.

They all let out a collective exhale when the see Stargazer and Raf walk in, except for Arcee who transforms her arm into her gun and powers it up.

Stargazer's optics widen behind her big, round, circular glasses as she sees the mess the team has created and the mild panic, "What happened here?"

Arcee warms up her gun and points it at Stargazer, "Could ask you the same thing, kidnapper."

"Excuse me, what," Stargazer asks, genuinely very confused as to what's happening.

Raf steps in front of her and speaks up, "She didn't kidnap me. She noticed I was having a bad day, we talked, went for a fly, looked at the stars and the milky way, then came back here."

Bee immediately relaxes and goes to pick Raf up then Arcee transformers her arm back into her servo after powering down her gun.

Optimus goes over to address both Stargazer and Raf while Ratchet scans both their vitals, "Rafael, Stargazer, why did you turn your forms of communication off?"

They both share a look before Stargazer just shrugs and Raf walks off with a yawn, "Wanted to have some time to ourselves without interruptions."

Raf goes to the couch while Stargazer just walks off like it's not a big deal. Everyone else is stuck, frozen for a moment at the fact that they just walked away from a Prime.

"How dare you walk away from someone chosen by Primus himself without fully answering his question?! Why is the stupid scanner not working," Ratchet yells at Stargazer while trying to recalibrate his scanner.

"Seekers have different anatomy that your scanner can't figure out. Also, why do you all act like Primes are such a big deal? You preach equality then follow his orders blindly, you're no different than peasants kneeling to a king and following his every order without question. It may not be out of fear, but it's still no different."

Everyone falls silent as they realize what talking with Raf actually did. It made her confident and sure of her words, and they're faces say that they're realizing talking with Raf and being around him makes her more comfortable than it did before.

Arcee is the first to speak up, looking thoroughly shook by the comparison, "What did you two talk about out there?"

Stargazer and Raf just look at each other again then Raf falls asleep and Stargazer walks out, leaving the others to simmer in what she said and their questions about what happened out there.