Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gently. Carefully. Megatron was acutely aware of each step he took. How heavy or light his peds fell. Heel to toe. Toe to heel with an ankle tilt. Carefully, cautiously. All to keep from jostling the seeker clinging to existence on his back. Alas, the wastelands they were traversing were cluttered with jagged protrusions, making each step an effort to keep steady.

Skywarp was in an awful state. A gaping hole was present in his upper-left chest piece. It didn’t go all the way through, but it was most certainly leaking energon, and his warp drive could be seen, sparking erratically. The seeker himself had a faint purple glow that had enveloped his body. The glow’s strength shifted over and over, getting stronger then weaker, and weaker then stronger. All the while, the flight frame drew in and let out ragged, pained ventilations, his body’s physicality flickering and making him rather difficult to hold.

Feeling his conjunx starting to slip, the grey mech paused his hike to adjust his grip on the seeker, methodically shifting his digits to interlock so they wouldn’t slip out from under Skywarp’s thighs.

“How are you holding up?” Megatron rumbled as he turned his head to peer over his shoulder at the glowing seeker.

Skywarp’s response was lethargic and wheezy. “Are we… Are we getting close to a city or… or something…?”

Evidently, not well.

“I’ve not seeing anything come over the horizon yet,” Megatron reported, shifting his focus to the scenery ahead as he began striding forward once more. “If we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll be spotted by a coincidental passerby.”

“Out in the middle of fragging nowhere…?” his conjunx pointed out with disbelief. “Come on, Megs, get real… Just let me warp us—”

“No, you ‘get real’!” the grey mech snapped, casting an unseen scowl behind him without turning his head. “Teleporting while your warp drive is in this state—while you’re in this state—is a stupid decision and can only make our situation worse. You’re barely holding together as is!”

An uncomfortable curtain of silence draped itself between them as Skywarp began to sulk. There weren’t going to be any words of consolation that he’d accept at this point. Not that Megatron had any to give. How was one to assure a bot desperately gripping his existence when there was nothing but wasteland as far as the optic could perceive?

However, as the two of them brooded over their predicament, the faint noise of engines and thrusters caught their attention, and Megatron paused his traipsing to search the skies for the source. It wasn’t immediately clear. Not until the noise had grown closer and the grey mech was able to tell that it was coming from behind. At which point, his gaze locked onto a very familiar red-and-white shuttle.

“The hell…? Is that Jetfire…?” Skywarp murmured, utterly befuddled by the sudden appearance.

Given the shuttle’s occupation, Megatron at least knew that it wasn’t so much strange that he was out here so much as it was strongly coincidental. Would Jetfire even lift a digit to assist them, though? That was the only question running through the Decepticon leader’s mind as he watched the Autobot slow down the closer he got.

Performing a partial swoop for clearance, Jetfire transformed and landed on his peds with a hard thud that crushed some of the jutting terrain beneath him. His vibrant red visor peering at them with scrutiny, the large mech made no move to close the distance between them. “You’re both an oddly long way from Iacon,” he remarked. “Out on some business gone wrong?”

“That would be an accurate summarization, yes,” Megatron confirmed grimly. There was absolutely no way this mech would help them. Why he even landed to interact with them was beyond the grey bot’s understanding. But Megatron knew he had to swallow his pride and make some sort of attempt to negotiate with him if Skywarp was going to get any care.

“Where’re we…?” the dark seeker mumbled.

“The Neutral Territories,” Jetfire informed. “Like I said. Quite a ways from Iacon. The closest settlement is roughly fifty-six hundred kilometers away.”

“We’re not making that walking…” Skywarp groaned miserably, slumping against Megatron’s back even more.

“I take it you need some assistance.”

The partially subtle prompt was not lost on the ex-warlord. Jetfire had cracked the door open, waiting to see if it was worth his time and effort to lend a hand. For Megatron to prove they were worth investing in and aiding.

Feeling Skywarp’s legs slip through his hold, the grey mech mentally panicked for a second as he swiftly ducked and adjusted to keep his conjunx on his back, ignoring the discomfort from the iron grip Skywarp had on his shoulders. Once he was certain the seeker wasn’t going to fall, Megatron turned his attention back to the shuttle standing away from them. “I am aware of your thoughts on me,” he rumbled, working to keep his tone level as he listened to Skywarp’s ventilations becoming more strained. “Aware that you—”

“Megatron, don’t overcomplicate this,” Jetfire interrupted somewhat impatiently, raising a hand to get him to stop. “I don’t need your poetry or some speech. Just tell me what you need.”

The ex-warlord couldn’t help frowning as he processed this, but swiftly shook himself from his stupor to fix the Autobot with a grim look, the barest hint of pleading flashing across his optics. “Skywarp is clinging to existence and I don’t know how much longer he can last. Jetfire, I would be forever in your debt if you would do what you can to aid him.”

“I suppose that’s as close as you’ll ever get to ‘please help’,” the shuttle remarked dryly, stepping toward a flatter patch of ground. “Lay him over here.” He then took a moment to utter into his commlink, “D.O.C, research of the ship can wait. Rendezvous with me at the coords I’m sending you.”

Megatron stepped over to the patch of ground with him and very carefully shifted to get Skywarp off his back and laid down. As he did so Jetfire got down on his knees and began pulling tools out of his subspace.

“What caused this?” the shuttle probed, calmly and professionally examining the wounded seeker before him.

The ex-warlord stood close by while still giving Jetfire room to work, watching every move, every tool used, every twitch of his conjunx attentively, his stoic scowl masking his fritzing nerves. “As you summarized, business gone wrong. Skywarp and I had finished checking in on those within the rehabilitation program and were on our way back to our habsuite when we were attacked by an unknown, rogue bot.”

“Fragger was fast…” Skywarp wheezed with a grimace, glancing at Jetfire as the shuttle picked up his hand and prodded it a bit. “Caught the move… outta the corner of… my optic… Barely had enough time…”

“You shouldn’t have dived in like that!” Megatron chided firmly. “I can take an energy blast that powerful! You cannot!”

“Frag off…” the seeker growled in return, shooting him a frustrated glare. “I’ll jump in… all I want…”

“Right, well, already I can see the problem is your over-active warp drive,” Jetfire informed decidedly as he moved one tool to the side and began doing what he could to care for the open wound. “I’m not going into the whole explanation; it’d just go over your heads. As soon as D.O.C. gets here, that’s being suppressed.”

“Whoa whoa, wait…!” Skywarp protested. “Suppressed…?!”

“Yeah, that’s broken beyond my capabilities,” the shuttle elaborated brusquely. “D.O.C. and I can ensure your stabilization by suppressing your warp drive, but you’ll need a proper medibot to fix that later.”

This seemed a reasonable course of action to Megatron, but evidently Skywarp had other thoughts because he snapped at the Autobot before Megatron could voice his approval to proceed. “You can’t shut that off…! I’m Skywarp, not Skywalk…!”

“You’re not going to be anything if I don’t disable this,” Jetfire rebutted pointedly.

“Do it,” Megatron bade the Autobot. When Skywarp opened his mouth to argue again, the grey mech narrowed his optics and snarled, “You can kick as much of a tantrum as you like, but I am not giving you a choice in this! If your warp drive is detrimental to your life, then you will do without it!”

His injured conjunx glowered at him, hurt and frustrated, but he shut his mouth and stopped trying to fight as Jetfire’s little droid companion found them and began helping the shuttle work on suppressing the problematic warp drive. From that point forward, Skywarp refused to look at Megatron.

The Decepticon leader paid the brooding pout little mind, more preoccupied with watching Jetfire and D.O.C. operate while also trying to figure out how they were going to get out of this wasteland and back to the rest of the trine.

He supposed the next step would be to ask Jetfire for directions to the nearest city in the Neutral Territories. Or for a lift… Depending, of course, on how much the shuttle was willing to aid them.

Megatron could only hope.