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We laid together. Berthed in my bunk.
When I'd crashed home, I'd told Cliff and Bee to beat it. They saw my grin. They saw Chromia on my arm. They could see I still hadn't washed the sheen of 'Con energon from my chest plating. My servos were still tense, ready for another fight. They beat it before I tossed'em out our barrack's door.
She was on me before the door could snap shut in a in tight iris. Her valve, my spike, were open even quicker. Our probing tendrils from our spark chambers lit the room after I smashed into the wall lighting. We joined, crying out.
War did these things.
Before we knew it, it was over. We stayed together, our sparks lighting the room. It was peace we craved.
"'Hide?" She asked. The soft, silicon tips of her digits played on my closed spark chamber.
"Yeah?" I pulled her closer, tighter inside my grip.
My poor-bot's red paint job had rubbed off on her blue in spots. Better I left my mark on her than the 'Cons. She'd already lost lots of that perfect blue right down to the chrome because of them.
"What...?" There was a hesitation in her voice. "Why are you in this? Why are you fighting?"
I turned my head to see her face in the glow. "Why do you?"
"I asked you," She returned my glance. High-sparked princesses didn't need to explain anything. They gave a command: you did. They asked a question; you answered.
"What else am I going to do?" I flexed my paws. "Beatings are what I'm good at. Some bots spend their whole time struggling to find a calling. Some just do it."
I smirked. "I just do, and I do it good."
"Ironhide," she hissed. "Enough bravado. I'm not a recruit. I want to know." She moved, straddling me. Her optics bored down into me. "You shouldn't have had an insecticon in this fight."
"And you should have been killed or scampered off like the rest of your kind," I countered. "But here you are."
"Here we are," she agreed.
"Prime's right," I said. "Maybe if we win..." I shrugged. "Maybe some of that goodness will rub off on all us bots. Until the towerbots come back, and we go back to business as usual, and I'm sent back to the docks. Then a few hundred vorns later we line up and do it all over again."
She looked back at me, nearly looming in the dark. "You really think that? We're doing this for nothing?"
"Nothing?" I scratched my head. "Naw. There's scores to settle first. Credit tabs that need paid in 'Con energon."
"How can you think that?" She climbed off me, standing. "How can you stand next to Optimus Prime and think its all about retribution?"
"Who's shootin' at who, here?" I asked. "An' who started shooting at who?"
"Does it matter?" She asked.
"You weren't there--" I pointed up at her, unwilling to move. "You weren't there when they blew up the docks, killed a bunch of innocent bots who were just unloading iron ore from the shuttles. Blew up one of the big slaved fraggers they were supposedly helping too."
"No," She grimaced. "But I was there when they brought down my tower. Arcee was so banged up, we didn't know if--"
She yelled, slamming her fist into the wall before she started to pace.
"So you're not in this for the most altruistic of feelings as you think," I reminded her. "Its energon for energon."
"But when does it stop?"
"When the light goes out of Megatron's optics," I grinned. "And Optimus is standing over his offlined corpse?"
She exvented.
"Come back to the berth," I said. "Philosophy is for Prime, or Alpha Trion. Not us grunts."
There were low thuds above us, explosions. We both looked up. It was another Seeker strafing run on Iacon.
Our comms buzzed. Chromia answered hers.
"Chromia," Flareup's head swirled to life in a hologram in room. "You're being summoned. If you see Ironhide, so is he."
"Very well," Testily, she glanced at me. "We'll be there." Flareup disappeared.
Joints creaking, I stood. I pounded my fists together. "Time for payback."
"And again, and again," She said, checking her electro-cross bowstring, and the missiles that filled her quiver. "Until peace."
"Or the Pit," I added, slinging my blaster over my shoulder. I grinned. "Let's send some 'Con's there to get it ready for us."