Archive of Our Own

“Die, Autobots!”

Megatron’s scream was nothing the Autobots defending the Ark hadn’t heard before. The assault on their home ground was a little unusual, true, but it was nothing that the Autobots couldn’t handle, and the fight was nearly over in any case. Megatron’s posturing was just that – empty words to cover the Decepticon retreat.

“You first!” Sideswipe launched himself at Skywarp as the Seeker screamed overhead, despite his jetpack being nearly out of fuel and his mangled leg – courtesy of Thundercracker – leaking energon and hydraulic fluid.

“That’s not Megatron, you idiot!” Sunstreaker shouted at his brother, hands buried to the elbows in Starscream’s internals. Starscream took advantage of Sunstreaker’s distraction to wriggle away. Cursing, Sunstreaker looked around for another target.

“Skywarp!” Megatron shouted. Skywarp abruptly changed trajectories, banking and then soaring upward in a near-vertical climb in an attempt to dislodge the front-liner clinging to his canopy. Unseen by the Autobots, Ravage slipped out of the Ark and transformed back into a cassette to be safely stored in Soundwave’s chest. “You always were susceptible to a distraction, Prime,” Megatron said softly. “Decepticons, retreat!” he called, loudly enough to be heard by all, and the Decepticons vacated the field.

“Get slagged, Autobot,” Skywarp said, now high enough that frost had started to form on his plating, and transformed into root mode.  Sideswipe was holding to the wrong parts of Skywarp’s kibble, and the transformation did what Skywarp’s aerial antics had not.  Sideswipe’s grip loosened, fingers scrabbling over suddenly smooth plating, and Skywarp caught him by one wrist as they both tumbled back toward the Ark. “Oh, wait, that’s what I get to do to you!” Skywarp added enthusiastically, and fired his blaster twice.

The first round hit a crack in Sideswipe’s chest armor.  The second hit the jetpack.  Skywarp, laughing, teleported away as the jetpack exploded. The blast knocked Sideswipe offline, bare seconds before he crashed onto the battlefield into the widening gap between the two factions.

“Sideswipe!” Sunstreaker slid to a stop in the sticky mud pooling around Sideswipe’s mangled chassis, reaching out with shaking hands. He’d never seen his brother damaged this badly; they were both supposed to be tougher than that. “Sideswipe,” he said again, not knowing where to even start.

“Get the wounded inside!” Optimus snapped, optics darting back and forth. “Prowl, Jazz, secure the perimeter.”

Hoist carefully maneuvered Sunstreaker aside. “I can’t move Sideswipe, boss.” His voice was as calm as his hands were steady, clamping down on fluid lines before Sideswipe bled out entirely. “His spark casing’s cracked.”

“Stabilize him as best you can, and then bring him inside.” Optimus was clearly still running on battle coding; it wouldn’t be out of character for Megatron to sound a retreat and then return after the Autobots had let their guard down. “It isn’t far to the Ark’s medibay.”

“Are you trying to get him killed?” Sunstreaker demanded.

“Stand down,” Optimus said. He flicked a searching gaze over Sunstreaker, concluding that the front-liner wasn’t badly damaged. “Assist Prowl,” he added, not unkindly. “Ensuring that the Decepticons do not return is the best chance your brother has.”

Static poured out of Sunstreaker’s vocalizer for half a second before he forcibly rebooted it; now was not the time to disobey a direct order. “Understood,” he ground out, and transformed into vehicle mode. The bright yellow Countach spun its tires briefly in the earth before gaining purchase and skidding away.

“Ready for transport.” Hoist sped toward the Ark’s entrance, Sideswipe in tow, without waiting for more than the barest of acknowledgement from Optimus. “Ratchet, you’re needed in the medibay now!”

“I’m already in the slagging medibay with the first casualties! Where are you?”

“Incoming wounded,” Hoist returned. “Sideswipe.”

“Status,” Ratchet snapped back as Hoist screeched to a halt just outside the medibay doors. Sideswipe’s spark was flickering, its brilliant radiation washing the ceiling in a deeply unsettling blue light.  The doors opened, letting the light spill over Ratchet as he worked to repair Cliffjumper. First Aid was farther from the door, wrist-deep in Windcharger’s chest. “Primus,” Ratchet swore. “Hoist, take over here.”

“Yes, sir.” Hoist laid Sideswipe out on the nearest medical berth.

Sunstreaker made all of one sweep of the outside of the Ark before concluding that Optimus’ orders had been properly followed; the Decepticons were clearly not coming back, and he’d let Sideswipe get far enough out of his sight already. For all that he was outwardly contemptuous of Sideswipe’s shortcomings, Sunstreaker wasn’t about to let his brother die.

Apparently the rest of the Ark’s crew had other ideas.

 “I thought you were supposed to be covering the perimeter,” Smokescreen said from the very unsafe position of between Sunstreaker and the medibay doors. His position as unofficial morale officer meant he’d gotten the unenviable job of talking Sunstreaker away from interfering; if he failed, it was down to Ironhide’s cannons.

“The perimeter is fine.” Sunstreaker looked as though he were ready to go right through Smokescreen if the other mech didn’t get out of the way.

“Let Ratchet do his work,” Smokescreen said, producing a cube of high-grade energon – one he’d acquired from Sideswipe’s latest batch – and putting it in Sunstreaker’s hand.

Sunstreaker, taken off guard and for once at a loss for words, looked between Smokescreen and the cube. 

“You won’t be any good to him if you don’t refuel,” Smokescreen pointed out gently and completely irrationally; fortunately for him, the frontliner wasn’t quite thinking rationally.

Sunstreaker shot him a black look and knocked back the cube. “Happy now?”

Smokescreen waited a few seconds before producing another cube. “Not quite.”

“Oh, slag off,” Sunstreaker muttered, and drank the second cube. 

“Come on.” Smokescreen guided him away from the doors.  “Ratchet will let you know when he’s finished.”

“I need to be there.” Sunstreaker planted his feet, stubborn now instead of belligerent. Despite Sideswipe’s distillery, he didn’t drink high grade very often, and it was affecting him more than he would admit.

“Careful, Sunny. We’re all going to start thinking you actually like your brother,” Smokescreen said lightly. It was a miscalculation, and Sunstreaker had him shoved against the nearest wall before he could blink. Sunstreaker’s fingers were poised just above the cables in Smokescreen’s neck, rigid and bare millimeters away from causing serious damage. Smokescreen held very still, keeping his body as relaxed as possible.

“Don’t call me Sunny,” Sunstreaker said after a moment of staring convinced him that Smokescreen had backed off.  “And nobody fucks with my brother except me.”

“Human slang, Sunstreaker?” Smokescreen said. Sunstreaker let go and moved out of Smokescreen’s reach.

“Shut up,” he muttered. Smokescreen took a step away from the wall.

“Ratchet will let you know,” he repeated, slowly and deliberately getting within range, and this time Sunstreaker let himself be guided down the hall.  There was a secondary lounge not far from the medibay, used either when the rec room filled past capacity or – in rare instances – as a waiting area. A third cube found its way into Sunstreaker’s hands once they were in the door; he drank it more slowly than the others, sinking down onto one of the chairs and staring at nothing.

Several more Autobots wandered in and out of the room over the next several hours; Sideswipe was well liked among the crew.  No one outside of Smokescreen spoke to Sunstreaker, though, and he didn’t care. His social circle began and ended with Sideswipe.

“You might want to recharge a little,” Smokescreen said finally. He’d left the auxiliary lounge for some rest and returned to find Sunstreaker still there, mud and scraped finish and all.

“Not until I know he’s going to be all right,” Sunstreaker said, still stubborn.

“Your finish looks terrible,” Smokescreen said, making a rather obvious attempt to appeal to Sunstreaker’s vanity. “At least clean up a little.” 

“And then, once I’ve been to the washracks, and once I’ve gotten my finish back up to spec, you tell me that I should recharge, and I might as well at that point, because Ratchet clearly isn’t finished, and then I’m not there when he is finished. No.” Sunstreaker folded his arms.

“Fine, fine.” Smokescreen consulted the duty roster. “I’m supposed to be on patrol in an hour. Let me know how he is, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Sunstreaker didn’t look around.  He’d been removed from the duty roster until Sideswipe was stabilized, officially for medical reasons. Practically speaking, split-spark resonance was so rare that it wasn’t well understood, and nobody knew what would happen to Sunstreaker if Sideswipe didn’t survive. Unofficially, Sunstreaker could be mobilized quickly enough in case of Decepticon activity, and otherwise it just wasn’t worth the headache to ensure his presence anywhere he was assigned. “Thanks,” he muttered, almost inaudibly.

For the sake of keeping the peace, Smokescreen didn’t react.

* * *

“Sunstreaker.”

Despite his best intentions, Sunstreaker had shut down while waiting. Ratchet’s voice pulled him out of a basic defrag cycle, leaving him disoriented.  He came up swinging.

“Sunstreaker.” Ratchet caught his fist and barely dodged the uncoordinated kick, moving as if exhausted.

“Sideswipe?” Sunstreaker made it a question as soon as he could boot up his vocalizer.

“Stable for the moment.” Ratchet swayed slightly in place, and Sunstreaker glared.

“If you’ve damaged him with your lack of stamina –“ he started.

“Shut up,” Ratchet interrupted. “Follow me.” 

In almost any other situation, Sunstreaker would have taken a swing at the medic for the blatant discourtesy; however, if he hit him now, he was fairly sure he would offline Ratchet, and that would make it rather difficult for Ratchet to explain whatever was still wrong with Sideswipe.

“I’m working with substandard parts here,” Ratchet said almost conversationally as they walked past the other injured from the battle. Trailbreaker was recharging, as was Cliffjumper. “Our supplies are low. The human substitutes aren’t as sturdy as they should be.”

Sideswipe was stretched out on a repair berth, apparently more or less in one piece.  His chest plates had been cracked open to allow various lines access to his internal workings; some of them were carrying fluids, the rest were probably monitors.

“He’s hooked directly into the Ark’s mainframe,” Sunstreaker said after a moment. He could see how and where the cables were connected; it wasn’t that much of a leap. “I thought you said he was stable.”

“He’s not going to die,” Ratchet said bluntly. 

“He’s got lines for coolant and hydraulic fluid, and that’s an energon drip. There’s an external oil filter. No part of that implies stable!” Sunstreaker kept his voice low, the words grinding in his vocalizer.

“He’s not going to die,” Ratchet repeated. “He’ll be off the support lines by tomorrow morning, if nothing else goes wrong.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Sunstreaker snapped.

“The repairs as they stand won’t take much stress.” Ratchet adjusted the filter slightly, avoiding Sunstreaker’s optics.

“So the idiot has to wait a few more days before tangling with the Decepticons.” Sunstreaker moved to stand across from Ratchet, absently putting a hand on Sideswipe’s arm. He could barely feel Sideswipe’s spark resonating with the physical contact; its vibrations should have been much stronger.

“No.” Ratchet drew in an exaggerated amount of air and ex-vented. “I mean we need to procure raw material and then synthesize the proper alloys to repair his spark casing, his power cells, and his fuel pump. Until we can do that, he’s not going to be able to function normally.”

“What about his self-repair systems?” Sunstreaker asked, trailing his hand along Sideswipe’s arm.

“They’d fix the damage eventually, but he’d still need the raw materials. Which we don’t have.” Ratchet rubbed the bridge of his nose, an irritating human gesture he’d picked up at some point that had somehow never bothered Sunstreaker before. He hated it now. “Let him rest, Sunstreaker. You can see him tomorrow, when he’s awake.”

“Huh.” Sunstreaker didn’t move, except the hand still stroking carefully up and down Sideswipe’s arm, and Ratchet started glaring.

“Watch out f’r Skywarp, Sunny,” Sideswipe mumbled into the resulting silence, clearly not entirely awake.

“Cycle back down,” Sunstreaker said, letting affection creep into his voice. “Everything’s under control.”

“Okay,” Sideswipe agreed.

“Out.”

With a final glance at his brother, Sunstreaker followed Ratchet’s instructions.

* * *

It was another three days before Sideswipe was cleared to leave the medibay, during which time Sunstreaker suggested with all the subtlety he possessed – and it wasn’t much – that it was about time the Autobots obtained various clearly needed supplies. Optimus Prime agreed with the general concept, but not that said supplies should be forcibly acquired from the Decepticons.

“There will be no raiding party,” he said with an air of finality. Sunstreaker tried not to look mutinous. “Sunstreaker, this does mean you,” Prime added. Apparently he hadn’t quite succeeded.

“In that case, we’re going to have to go to Cybertron,” Jazz put in from where he technically shouldn’t have been listening to the conversation. Sideswipe wasn’t the only one who needed materials and equipment that just wasn’t available on Earth, but he was apparently the final straw, and Jazz had apparently been putting together a potential plan. “There are some storage facilities that might be more or less intact.”

“Oh, good, time to hack the space bridge,” Sunstreaker muttered.

“You’re staying here.” Optimus laid a hand on Sunstreaker’s shoulder. What he wasn’t saying, and what Sunstreaker knew wasn’t true, was that he thought Sideswipe’s injuries would make Sunstreaker a liability – either due to distraction or some facet of the twin bond that nobody understood. “The Ark will need to be protected while the strike team is away,” Optimus continued.

Sunstreaker didn’t usually pick and choose his battles, but he could see he wasn’t going to win this one. “Yes, Prime,” he muttered, and stepped back to let the in-depth planning begin.

The push to reach Cybertron via the space bridge was two-pronged; the distraction, composed of a team headed by Prowl, and the actual strike team co-headed by Optimus and Jazz. Sunstreaker was part of neither team; he was patrolling the perimeter around the Ark, checking Red Alert’s security network and remotely monitoring the pulse of Sideswipe’s spark. It hadn’t gotten much stronger since he’d woken, which did not make Sunstreaker happy.

To make matters worse, it started raining at the tail end of Sunstreaker’s shift, and he rolled back into the Ark dripping with mud.  The only high point he could see was that the strike team had successfully made it to the space bridge and the distraction was on its way back to the Ark with no casualties reported.

“Sunstreaker, report to the medibay.” Ratchet’s comm just irritated Sunstreaker more; he didn’t want to know if something else was wrong with Sideswipe.

“I’ll be there once I’ve gotten this Pit-spawned filth off my plating. Whatever it is can wait until then.” He cut the comm channel and then took his time in the washracks, not that restoring the shine to his finish dented his irritation in the slightest.

* * *

Sideswipe came online to the sensation of pain. Everything hurt, from the top of his head all the way to the bottoms of his feet, and he couldn’t see.  He couldn’t stop the staticky groan seeping out of his vocalizer, but he could turn it into words. “It’s dark,” he said.

“It might help if you activated your optics,” came a dry voice, and Sideswipe recognized Ratchet.

Blinking twice booted up his optics, bringing the hideous orange paint of the Ark’s medibay ceiling into focus.  Sideswipe blinked again, and the pain resolved into a dull throbbing in his torso. The memory of the fight three days before returned in a rush. “Slagging Seekers,” he muttered, and his leg twinged in counterpoint to the rest of the hurt.

“You’re the one who insists on leaping on top of them,” Ratchet said, poking around at his chest. The touch itself wasn’t precisely painful, just uncomfortable, no matter that Sideswipe had more or less gotten used to the sight over the past few days. “Your leg’s more or less repaired, by the way. The welds need a little more time to set properly while your self-repair systems re-integrate the new material.”

“Oh, good, that means I get to leave.” Sideswipe was expecting the answer to be no, given that Ratchet generally had him more or less stuck to a repair berth far longer than he thought necessary every time he ended up in the medibay, and he’d barely started his first escape attempts this time.

“Yes,” Ratchet said, removing the only line still running between Sideswipe and the monitoring station. He latched Sideswipe’s chestplate closed with an audible click.

“You know, it’s not fair for you to keep me in here and what did you just say?” Rather than give Ratchet time to take back his sudden and unexpected permission, Sideswipe swung his legs over the side of the berth and started to make a perfectly legitimate if hasty exit.  He got as far as putting his feet on the floor before Ratchet pushed him back down.

“You’re off-duty entirely,” Ratchet said, the which Sideswipe already knew. “You’re not to transform.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Not that he was about to admit it, but he didn’t quite feel up to transforming yet. 

“Don’t think I won’t make you stay here if you’re not going to follow instructions,” Ratchet said, optics glinting.

“Remember to refuel regularly, because my self-repair functions are working overtime,” Sideswipe repeated tonelessly. “The leads into my spark chamber and fuel pump aren’t properly conductive, so I’ve got an increased rate of code fragmentation in my primary processor as it compensates along with decreased level of overall energy, and that means recharging more often. And then my spark chamber isn’t properly reinforced due to lack of appropriate materials, so I need to avoid strenuous activity and also getting smacked around so it doesn’t crack in half like an egg.”

“So you have been paying attention,” Ratchet said, sounding almost pleased. “As soon as Sunstreaker arrives to collect you, you can go.”

“What?” Sideswipe didn’t bother to keep the dismay off his face. It wasn’t enough that he’d been stuck in here for three days, nor that he’d been injured badly enough to require a team of Autobots to go all the way to Cybertron to get materials for his repair, but apparently Ratchet had decided that he still needed a keeper and of all the mechs on board, he’d chosen Sunstreaker. “Why him?”

“He’s your brother,” Ratchet said, proving once and for all that he didn’t get it. “And you shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll just stay here, then.” Sideswipe pulled his legs back up onto the repair berth.

“Did I miss damage to your processor?” Ratchet leaned over and grasped his head, turning it back and forth as he searched for external signs of injury.

“He’s going to hate me,” Sideswipe muttered.

“He isn’t going to hate you,” Ratchet said.

“I’ve let him down,” Sideswipe tried to explain. “Look at me, I’m useless. I can’t fight, I can’t transform, I can’t even repair my own damage without extra materials that aren’t on this planet, I’ve forced our soldiers to go all the way to Cybertron and risk their lives because I screwed up, I-“ The medibay doors opening interrupted him before he got himself worked up any further, Sunstreaker stepping inside with his finish shining and perfect and no sign of injury.

“Stop whining,” he said, but there was no trace of the contempt Sideswipe had expected. “Come on.”

“Make sure he refuels and recharges properly,” Ratchet said to Sunstreaker, the attempted explanation of why Sideswipe didn’t want to give his brother further reason for disdain apparently having gone completely over his head.

“I’m not a sparkling,” Sideswipe muttered. “I can take care of myself.”

“Apparently not, or you wouldn’t be in here,” Sunstreaker said, still without a trace of contempt. He was almost smiling. Sideswipe stared at him suspiciously.

“Oh, shut up.” He planted his feet on the floor and stood, gyros overcompensating briefly and sending him swaying forward. Sunstreaker steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. Sideswipe pulled away as soon as he’d regained his balance. “Can we go now?”

Instead of taking him back to his own quarters, Sunstreaker led Sideswipe to his and shoved a cube of energon at him. “Drink it.”

Sideswipe’s internal system ping told him that his fuel levels were well within acceptable limits, and the sight of the cube made his tanks churn. “Later.”

“I don’t have time to indulge your immaturity.” Sunstreaker glowered at him, and oh, there was the first tinge of the contempt he’d been waiting for. Resigned to the inevitable, Sideswipe accepted the cube. Apparently mollified, Sunstreaker stalked toward the rear alcove. “I’m going to recharge. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Wouldn’t,” Sideswipe said, waiting until Sunstreaker had powered down to subspace the cube. A few more minutes meant that Sunstreaker was deep enough into his recharge cycle that Sideswipe could escape his quarters with impunity, which he did as quickly as he could.

Sideswipe’s quarters were fairly close to Sunstreaker’s, but far enough that he could at least have the illusion of stretching his legs.  The error messages popping up on his HUD – and accompanying increased pain around his spark casing – by the time he reached the door destroyed even that illusion, and Sideswipe growled. He flung himself sulkily down on his only chair, wincing when that produced another spike of pain, and pulled his Earth game console controller toward himself.

If nothing else, Sideswipe reflected, he could at least devote himself to beating Bluestreak’s high scores. Ignoring everything else, he lost himself in the latest competitive game acquired from the human market. He was seconds away from succeeding when Sunstreaker stormed through the door, wrenching the controller from his hands. “Aw, Sunny, you wrecked it!” he complained.

“You aft-headed glitch,” Sunstreaker returned. “Was there a reason you couldn’t stay put?”

“I was bored?” Sideswipe offered.

“You’ve been here all night,” Sunstreaker said. “You weren’t in my quarters long enough to get bored.”

“It’s morning?” Sideswipe blinked. 

“Glitch,” Sunstreaker repeated. “This is exactly why you can’t be trusted to look after yourself.”

Sideswipe had no answer for that one, particularly since the exhaustion he hadn’t noticed while focused on the game was now making itself insistently known. Fragmented code in his primary processors glitched his vocalizer when he tried to answer Sunstreaker, and the only thing he could produce was static. Rebooting his vocalizer didn’t help much either. “Slag off,” he said finally, tone garbled.

“Wow, you are completely useless,” Sunstreaker said, now laughing openly.

Rather than show off his fritzing vocalizer again, Sideswipe gave Sunstreaker the very human gesture of the extended middle finger.

“So if I leave you here to start my next duty shift, you’re actually going to stay here, right?” Sunstreaker pulled him out of the chair and pushed him none too gently toward the berth alcove in the rear of the room.

“Oh, fine,” Sideswipe said, and because he never actually lied, Sunstreaker gave a satisfied nod before leaving. 

“Refuel,” he added as a parting shot, but since the door closed before Sideswipe had a chance to answer, he didn’t have to offer any promises there. He pulled the full energon cube out of his subspace pocket anyway, but the very sight of it made him want to purge his tanks. Another ping to his internal sensors told him his fuel levels were still within tolerance levels anyway, and Sideswipe shoved the cube into a storage slot with a sense of relief.

A ping at the door coincided with him finally being able to lie down, the very act of being horizontal doing wonders for the rolling sensation in his fuel tanks. “It’s open,” he called, raising himself up on one elbow.

“Just stopped by to see how you were doing,” Bluestreak said, hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

“Fine,” Sideswipe said, lying back down. Bluestreak edged into the room at Sideswipe’s impatient gesture.

“You’re coming to movie night tonight, right?” Bluestreak asked, and then just kept talking without waiting for an answer. “We’re having movie night, unless the auxiliary strike team has to support the primary team coming back through the space bridge, but we should have enough advance warning for that, so movie night should be a go in any case…”

Sideswipe dropped into recharge with the somehow comforting sound of Bluestreak’s voice washing over him.

The list of errors scrolling across his HUD was shorter when Sideswipe came back online, and Bluestreak was nowhere to be seen. Checking his internal chronometer told him that he he’d been under for half the day, so of course the other mech had gone. He did, however, have a considerable chunk of time before Sunstreaker was off-duty again, and nothing with which to fill it.

“Movie night,” he said quietly, after a few moments’ thought. He was fairly sure Bluestreak had mentioned movie night. “Movie night needs a few additives.”

Specifically, the still he had in the back of one of the storage closets should have completed its latest test batch, and a small amount of high grade wouldn’t hurt anyone. Sideswipe tapped his fingers against his berth and then asked Teletraan where Prowl was.

In short order, Sideswipe learned that not only was Jazz not currently on board – the TiC was most likely to look the other way when the high grade came out – but that Prowl was currently in charge. Optimus had taken command of the strike team, and in addition to Jazz, he’d chosen Wheeljack and Hound (both good for testing new batches of high grade) to be part of the strike team. Sideswipe was rather surprised at the number of Autobots who’d been part of the mission to Cybertron, which made him hope even more that it wasn’t entirely his fault.

Before going to check the still, Sideswipe shot off a brief message to Sunstreaker. :Bored and taking a walk.:

:Try not to inflict any further damage on yourself,: Sunstreaker sent back, which Sideswipe took to mean he was released from his promise to stay put.

Almost humming, he set out from his quarters toward the storage closet housing the makeshift still. There weren’t many Autobots in the halls at this hour, but every single mech he passed got the same expression when they saw him – Sideswipe interpreted it as a blend of sympathy and pity, and it was starting to piss him off. He wasn’t a mech to be pitied; he was a front-line fighter, one of the best they had, and his injuries were a fluke. Skywarp had gotten off a couple of lucky shots, that was all.

By the third time he passed a third mech – Inferno, who to his credit greeted him perfectly normally after making what Sideswipe was now terming The Face – Sideswipe was making a concerted effort to move normally.  Given the not quite healed injuries to his leg and the lack of his standard weaponry, it wasn’t easy; Sideswipe managed to pull it off through sheer determined swagger and leaned gratefully against the storage room door when he finally reached it. “Better than yesterday, anyway,” he muttered to himself.

The still had in fact nearly finished its test batch, which was enough for a small beaker per mech on any normal-to-crowded movie night.  After running it through the final set of filters, Sideswipe eyed the color, which was a little deeper than he’d been expecting – it was closer to raspberry than magenta, and he wasn’t sure exactly how that would translate into either taste or effect.  

Getting the container full of high grade back to his quarters without eliciting comment was rather more difficult than Sideswipe had anticipated; it was ridiculously heavy, for one thing, and awkwardly sized for another.  Sideswipe got no closer than halfway before running into Trailbreaker.

“There you are,” Trailbreaker said cheerfully, the first mech not to make The Face. Sideswipe was oddly cheered by Trailbreaker’s perfectly normal greeting, until he spoiled it with his first question. “Need a hand?”

“No,” Sideswipe said automatically, just as the container slipped out of his left hand.  Trailbreaker caught it easily, hoisting it to his shoulder.

“Where to?” he asked. “And how are you doing?”

“I had that,” Sideswipe said, although he couldn’t exactly be annoyed with Trailbreaker. The other mech was too good-natured.

“Well, yeah,” Trailbreaker said, flashing an abashed grin. “But you gotta let me feel useful once in a while, too, Sideswipe.”

“Heh. Okay.” Sideswipe knew exactly what Trailbreaker was doing, but the container had been heavy. “It’s for movie night.”

“Ah, you’ve got another test batch,” Trailbreaker said, and then his pleased smile turned into concern. “Are you sure –“

“It’s not enough to do any damage if the strike team suddenly needs backup,” Sideswipe interrupted, not sure if that was the direction Trailbreaker had been going with his question or not. Trailbreaker, for his part, just nodded.

“I take it we’re hiding it from Prowl in your quarters again?” he asked.

“That’s the plan,” Sideswipe said cheerfully, and then it occurred to him that if Sunstreaker was determined to play his role of caretaker to the obnoxious and irritating hilt, he would probably object to the high grade. “Actually, would you mind keeping it in yours?” he asked. Trailbreaker was there, after all, and Sunstreaker wouldn’t go looking for high grade he didn’t know about in another mech’s quarters.

“I suppose not,” Trailbreaker said slowly. “But wouldn’t you rather –“

“I trust you with it,” Sideswipe said, clapping the larger mech on the shoulder, and Trailbreaker’s smile returned.

“I’ll see you tonight, then.” Sideswipe nodded and Trailbreaker veered off toward another section of the crew quarters, barrel still balanced lightly on one shoulder.

The rest of the afternoon seemed to almost fly by as somehow, even though he always looked forward to movie night, Sideswipe found himself reluctant to step outside his quarters when the appointed hour rolled around. He didn’t want to face the rest of the Ark’s crew looking down on him, mirroring Sunstreaker’s disappointment, his contempt – or worse, the pity he’d already seen. He sank deeper into his chair, considering just not going. Trailbreaker would bring the test batch either way, and he could get someone to tell him how it was later.

“Oh, good, you’re still here,” Sunstreaker said, stepping through the unlocked door. “I’m glad you’ve decided to do the smart thing.”

“Eh?” Sideswipe blinked at the intrusion. He’d started cycling down into recharge without noticing, and his subroutines were taking longer than usual to reboot.

“Instead of straining yourself,” Sunstreaker said, and smirked.

“Does that mean you’re not going to movie night?” Sideswipe realized that his retort made no sense after it had already left his vocalizer, but it was too late to take it back. He settled for getting up and moving around Sunstreaker instead. “We’ll miss you.”

“Pfffft,” Sunstreaker said, and made himself comfortable in Sideswipe’s chair.

“Knock yourself out,” Sideswipe said, and walked toward the rec room.

Movie night was something of a tradition, at this point, introduced by their human friends initially as a way to get to know Earth culture and continued later simply because it was fun. None of said humans were around this particular week, but they had sent the usual selection of tapes. Sideswipe arrived as the rec room lights dimmed and found a seat on a couch next to Trailbreaker, although the fact that fewer mechs were present than usual meant that he could have chosen virtually anywhere.

“Where is everyone?” he asked in an undertone.

“Uh,” Trailbreaker said.

“Strike team support?” Sideswipe guessed, fighting down a stab of jealousy for the mechs who still got to go out and punch Decepticons.

“No, no, they’re not due back yet,” Trailbreaker answered, waving both hands in denial. “Something weird going down in South America, the Aerialbots and a few others are checking it out.”

“Sunstreaker didn’t say anything about it,” Sideswipe said, almost too quietly to hear, the jealousy morphing into depression. A solid weight seemed to settle around his spark; he and Sunstreaker had a running game of trying to predict which Decepticons would show up next, and Sunstreaker hadn’t even told him about this group. He’d given up on Sideswipe completely.

“Well, he probably didn’t want you to worry,” Trailbreaker said, showing the same failure to understand Sunstreaker’s motivations that Ratchet had, and then blatantly changed the subject with a wave of a beaker still half-full of brilliantly colored high grade. “This batch is pretty good, by the way.”

Belatedly, Sideswipe noticed several empty beakers around the room.  “Oh,” he said lamely. “That’s, uh, good.”

Music welled out of the speakers, making further conversation difficult, and Trailbreaker returned his attention to the screen. Sideswipe leaned back against the couch, not really paying attention to the movie’s opening credits. It felt colder than usual in the rec room, but his internal heaters weren’t engaging like they should have been; he pulled his legs up towards his torso to conserve heat instead.  Trailbreaker radiated warmth beside him, and Sideswipe found himself leaning ever so slightly closer as the movie continued.

The next thing Sideswipe knew, something was buzzing in his audial. It was so cold, and he was so tired, and the buzzing just wouldn’t stop. He tried to swat it away, but his limbs were too heavy to move.

“Go away,” he tried saying instead, but didn’t come out right, and then the buzzing finally quieted long enough to let him slide back into blessed unconsciousness.

* * *

“Where is he?” Sunstreaker demanded, stalking through the medibay doors.

Ratchet straightened up from the far side of the room. “Sunstreaker,” was all he said before returning his attention to the red minibot in front of him. “This looks fine, Cliffjumper. You’re cleared for active duty.”

“Finally,” Cliffjumper said, hopping off the berth. He left the medibay, skirting around Sunstreaker with a sullen sideways glance. Sunstreaker paid him no attention, looking instead for his brother.

“Sideswipe is fine,” Ratchet said, motioning to the rear of the medibay. Sideswipe was prone on a repair berth, an energon drip patched into what Sunstreaker could tell was a primary fuel line even from a distance.

“Being in here is not fine,” Sunstreaker returned, relief making the words sharper than they would have been otherwise. “My idiot brother has clearly done something wrong.”

“I seem to recall telling you to make sure he refueled and recharged properly,” Ratchet said, deceptively mildly, and Sunstreaker suddenly remembered Ratchet’s temper. After a brief pause, Ratchet continued. “His fuel levels reached a critical low, which combined with the excess code fragmentation in his processor to nearly put him in stasis lock. Trailbreaker brought him here when he noticed something was wrong.”

“So he’s fine,” Sunstreaker muttered, moving toward his brother. “More or less.”

“His internal system status pings are malfunctioning, which won’t get resolved until he’s completely repaired,” Ratchet said. “The rest, you know about. But yes, he’s more or less fine for the moment.” The look he directed at Sideswipe was somewhere between exasperation and affection.

“Ah.” Sunstreaker looked down, letting one finger trail across the energon drip. He felt guilty about letting Sideswipe down; it was a new sensation, and he didn’t like it. His brother had never really needed help before, and Sunstreaker apparently didn’t know how to give it. It was not a pleasant thought.

“You can have him back once he finishes the defrag cycle, and if either of you pulls this stunt again, I will weld you both to the walls.” Ratchet smiled, all traces of affection gone, and Sunstreaker decided that on this one occasion, discretion was likely the better part of valor and went to harass Prowl on a likely ETA for the Cybertron strike team instead. The sooner Sideswipe was back on his feet, the better.

“Hasn’t it been way too long?” Cornering the SiC wasn’t generally something Sunstreaker engaged in; Prowl actively disliked him and Sunstreaker returned the sentiment with enthusiasm. He was happiest if Prowl just aimed him at a target and let him do his job without excessive instructions and ridiculous calculations, but right now he felt the need for a distraction. “Shouldn’t they be coming back by now?”

“The strike team has been gone less than 24 hours,” Prowl said coolly, remarkably composed for being all but cornered behind a desk. His doorwings jutted out behind him, the angle relaxed for all of how precisely they were positioned. “Projections indicate a twelve hour return window beginning just over 48 hours from now.”

“Projections,” Sunstreaker snorted. “You can’t predict everything.”

Prowl smiled tightly. “Yes, Blaster?” he said, just before Blaster sent a message through the comm system.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Sunstreaker complained.

“You’re excused,” Prowl said, and returned his attention to the comms.

Sunstreaker lurked outside the door, listening. In addition to potential Decepticon activity in South America, it seemed there was potential Decepticon activity off the coast of Florida. From what he could hear, none of the Cons’ plans made any sort of sense, but they never really did. Sunstreaker didn’t particularly care how the Cons thought they were going to pull off their schemes, only that he got to pound them into scrap before they succeeded.

“You’re not going,” Prowl said, and Sunstreaker twitched before edging around the doorframe. Prowl was looking right at him. “You’re part of the team on standby to clear the space bridge.”

“Oh joy,” Sunstreaker said. “Who else gets to play decoy?”

Prowl considered for a moment. “You’ll be chasing Dinobots,” he said finally. “With Bluestreak covering all of you.”

To be fair, the Dinobots were a pretty effective distraction. On the other hand, Sunstreaker actively hated all of them. Then Prowl’s word choice struck him. “Chasing?” he repeated.

“Chasing,” Prowl confirmed, and shooed him away.

The Ark was starting to look rather empty, with teams on the ground in Florida and South America and the Cybertron strike team still not back. Having taken the time to both recharge and restore his finish, Sunstreaker prowled through the halls, bored, making obscene gestures at Red Alert’s cameras for no reason other than to aggravate the security director. He was technically on-call for any security incidents within the ship for this particular duty shift, which meant that unless someone else was causing trouble, he had nothing to do.

The rear of the ship, the part most badly damaged and full of rock, had even more cameras than the rest of it, and Sunstreaker briefly considered setting up some kind of smoke and mirrors distraction to make Red Alert even crazier than he already was, but that was more Sideswipe’s area.

As if the thought of Sideswipe had conjured it, Ratchet pinged Sunstreaker to let him know that his brother was awake again.

“Get him out of my medibay,” Ratchet said. “He’s driving Windcharger crazy.”

“Only Windcharger?” Sunstreaker returned. “Then he’s off his game.” Come to think of it, he vaguely remembered seeing the minibot getting repairs from the same fight that had damaged Sideswipe. “You could just make Windcharger leave instead,” he offered, and Ratchet sputtered something incoherent before closing the channel. Sunstreaker grinned; baiting Ratchet was almost as fun as baiting Red Alert.

Sideswipe was looking mutinous when Sunstreaker strolled in the door, body tense and radiating suppressed shame and fury.

“Nearly going into stasis lock at movie night is a new low for you, Sides,” Sunstreaker said, relieved at seeing his brother up and functioning, and trying to prod him into letting some of that emotion out instead of bottling it up.

“Shut up,” Sideswipe retorted. “I’m not going anywhere with him,” he said to Ratchet.

“Like I like being stuck taking care of you,” Sunstreaker retorted, pleased that Sideswipe seemed to have regained some semblance of spirit, but the promising argument was derailed by First Aid poking his head through the doors.

“I’m not going to be on the next shift,” he said. “Prowl’s sending my gestalt to Antarctica.”

“Of course,” Ratchet said, throwing his hands in the air once the Protectobot had left. “Hoist goes gallivanting off to South America, First Aid is wandering down to Antarctica, Wheeljack is off on Cybertron, and…” He trailed off. “Well, none of my staff went off to Florida.”

“Wheeljack counts as your staff?” Sunstreaker asked, genuinely curious.

“He’s a better medic than you are,” Ratchet snapped. “Although given the number of times you and your Pit-spawned twin have blown yourselves up, you should be able to put yourselves back together by now.”

“I can totally put him back together,” Sideswipe said, jerking a thumb toward Sunstreaker. It was such a normal reaction that Sunstreaker nearly smiled.

“Oh, you cannot,” Sunstreaker said, falling into the routine instead.  

“Can too,” Sideswipe said.

“Out.” Ratchet pushed them both toward the door. “Before I put Sideswipe’s claims to the test.”

“You wouldn’t,” Sunstreaker said.

“Watch me.” The glint in Ratchet’s optics wasn’t particularly reassuring. Sunstreaker grabbed Sideswipe’s elbow and hauled him out into the hallway.

“Time to go, Sides.”

Sideswipe went willingly enough, but he pulled roughly away as soon as the medibay doors closed. “Get off me.”

Taken off guard, Sunstreaker let go obligingly, holding his hands in the air. “If you say so.” Sideswipe wasn’t sticking to the script, and now Sunstreaker was worried all over again.

“Leave me alone.” Sideswipe stalked off, heading for the control room.

Sunstreaker jogged to catch up. “No can do, little brother.”

“I’m not your little brother. Go harass someone else.”

“Where do you even think you’re going?” Sunstreaker asked, starting to get annoyed. There was no reason for Sideswipe to be this prickly. “You have zero clearance,” he pointed out, both because it was true and because he wanted to prick Sideswipe back.

“Shut up,” Sideswipe said, shoulders hunched.

“You have zero clearance and you managed to end up back in the medibay less than a day after you got out of it by doing nothing,” Sunstreaker continued. “That’s just sad.”

“I said shut up!”  Sunstreaker didn’t see the punch coming, although in retrospect he should have. Sideswipe followed it with a roar and a flying tackle, and Sunstreaker reacted instinctively by throwing him into the nearest wall. He realized what he’d done seconds too late, as Sideswipe bounced off the bulkheads and hit the floor in a clatter of limbs.

“I didn’t mean –“ he started, and Sideswipe launched himself upwards.  There wasn’t much force behind the blow but Sunstreaker went down anyway, surprised into ineffectiveness for the second time in less than a minute. “What do you think you’re doing, you glitch?”

Despite Sideswipe’s best attempts, Sunstreaker had him pinned to the floor in a matter of seconds.  “You wouldn’t last two seconds against a Decepticon right now,” Sunstreaker hissed, trying to impress the gravity of the situation on his apparently clueless brother. “So do yourself a favor and try to keep yourself online until Ratchet can finish putting you back together.”

“I’m not entirely useless, you know,” Sideswipe snapped back, struggling, still not getting the point. Sunstreaker flicked his head with one finger and tried to make it clear.

“And yet, here you lie.” Sunstreaker extricated himself, climbing to his feet and checking to see if his finish had been scuffed anywhere. It hadn’t.

“You’re just afraid that if I go offline permanently, you’ll follow,” Sideswipe said from the floor, and that was a cheap shot.

“Fine, get yourself killed,” Sunstreaker said, stung. “See if I care.”

His grand exit was spoiled by Prowl’s ill-timed communication. :Sunstreaker, report to the Ark entrance.:

“With the Dinobots?” Sunstreaker asked, throwing a glance over his shoulder. Sideswipe was sitting up, leaning against the wall, not obviously listening. Sunstreaker lowered his voice anyway. “I thought you said your window wouldn’t open for another day.”

:We’re moving out,: Prowl confirmed, and Sunstreaker broke into a jog.

The Dinobots were clustered just outside the Ark, with Bluestreak and his rifle standing uncharacteristically silent a few feet away. Red Alert and Prowl were making enough noise for everyone present, their argument increasing in intensity as Sunstreaker entered the brilliant sunshine.

“You don’t see a pattern? You?” Red Alert leaned into Prowl’s space, jabbing a finger toward his chest. “Over the past two days, the Ark has been systematically emptied, and now you want to go off too?”

“My presence is required to make the distraction effective,” Prowl said, his tone not nearly as calm as his words. “Megatron must believe –“

“Megatron clearly already knows something is going on!” Red Alert screeched. “Whether he has spies in the Autobots or just in the Ark, he knows! This is his attempt to break in here and… and…”

“You will not be alone,” Prowl said. “Inferno and Windcharger will remain here, as will Sideswipe. In addition, Perceptor and Ratchet will continue to man their posts.”

“That’s not the point!” Red Alert said. “There is classified information here!”

“This is a calculated risk,” Prowl said. “Autobots, roll out.”

Sunstreaker transformed and followed instructions, wondering if maybe Red Alert was on to something after all. Of over thirty Autobots plus three gestalts, only six were left in the Ark. Then he shrugged mentally; it wasn’t as though there hadn’t been Decepticon activity on multiple fronts before, either by design or because Megatron’s command structure wasn’t always completely under his control.

* * *

The rec room was completely empty when Sideswipe wandered in, just like the rest of the ship. He’d tried asking where everyone else was, but Windcharger – apparently on monitor duty, and his best chance for sating his curiosity with Teletraan no longer answering his questions – had chased him out of the control room, and he hadn’t really wanted to talk to Ratchet. Red Alert had come storming past him at one point, but Sideswipe had figured that wasn’t a conversation he was willing to start either.

The end result was that he was now staring at the rec room ceiling, which was indistinguishable from the medibay ceiling, which was itself indistinguishable from the ceiling in his quarters, bored out of his mind and with nothing to distract himself from the ever-present ache around his spark.

“Hey, Windcharger,” he said, over the comms.

:Not now, Sideswipe,: Windcharger sent back, and cut the channel.

“You would think he was as bored as I am, watching absolutely nothing, since there is apparently nobody here,” Sideswipe growled to the room at large. “And look, now I’m talking to myself.”

The room, predictably, did not answer.

“Teletraan, where is everyone?” Sideswipe finally said to the ceiling. Teletraan promptly announced restricted information, and Sideswipe waved around a middle finger on principle. Boredom drove him back to the control room, where Windcharger – apparently sick of arguing – proceeded to ignore him entirely. Sideswipe settled into an empty chair, stared at monitors showing precisely nothing, and counted the error messages stacking up on his HUD.

“Buddy, I need you to be very, very quiet,” Windcharger suddenly hissed into Sideswipe’s audial, and Sideswipe twitched. He’d last seen Windcharger on the other side of the room, and for a moment he had no idea what had happened. 

“What?” he asked, vocalizer garbled and staticky, and then his boot sequence finished running and he processed what Windcharger had actually said.

Windcharger clapped a hand over Sideswipe’s mouth. “We’ve got trouble,” he said quietly, and Sideswipe realized the Ark had gone into lockdown mode.  The external blast doors were closed, the vents had been sealed, and non-essential systems were dormant. “Comm systems have been compromised.”

Sideswipe nodded slowly and looked at the screens. Soundwave was standing in front of the Ark entrance, Laserbeak perched on his shoulder. None of the other cassettes were visible. More worrisome were the three Transformers standing around Soundwave – Shrapnel, Bombshell, and Kickback.

“Aw, what,” Sideswipe whispered. “I thought they didn’t get along with the Decepticons.”

“Yeah, well, now apparently they do,” Windcharger hissed. “I don’t see Ravage.”

“Or Rumble or Frenzy.” Sideswipe couldn’t see any other Decepticons on any of the camera feeds. “Does Red Alert know about this?”

The look Windcharger gave him told Sideswipe he’d said something remarkably stupid. “Rumble and Frenzy are in Antarctica,” Windcharger said. “It’s Ravage I’m worried about. That and the comm system is now completely blocked.”

“Slag,” Sideswipe said. “What do you want to do?”

“Inferno’s still out there,” Windcharger said, and then shook his head. “He’s going to have to take care of himself. You get to the medibay. Warn Ratchet.”

Sideswipe wanted to object – injured or not, he wasn’t useless – and then he remembered that his weapons were in the medibay. “Got it,” he whispered back, earning a startled glance.  “What? I know how to follow instructions.”

“Get going. Keep quiet.” The Insecticons were just standing in front of the locked-down Ark, staring holes in the armored blast doors.  Windcharger eyed the screens, clearly upset.

“Where are you going?” The external defenses wouldn’t keep out a concerted assault, but they’d last long enough for the Autobots inside to mount some sort of counterattack.

“Ravage might be listening.” Windcharger was doing a credible impression of Red Alert, Sideswipe did not say. He gave up and left the control room, moving as quickly and quietly as he could.

“Sideswipe!”

The sheer volume of the greeting nearly sent him staggering into a wall out of pure shock. Sideswipe grabbed Perceptor and yanked him out of the center of the hallway, gagging him with one hand and motioning for quiet with another. “We’re being invaded,” he said as quietly as he could.  “Follow me.”

Instead of reacting with the appropriate sense of urgency, Perceptor twisted around and peered at Sideswipe’s face. “Are you experiencing any other symptoms?” he asked into Sideswipe’s palm.

“What? No, I’m not delusional – just shut up and follow me.” He was going to physically drag Perceptor into the medibay if he had to.

“I really think –“ Perceptor started, and Inferno walked around the corner.  “Inferno, I require your assistance.”

“I don’t –“ Sideswipe said, and then Inferno started firing on them. “Go!”

To his credit, Perceptor moved quickly enough to avoid being shot, hauling Sideswipe with him.

“Not in a straight line,” Sideswipe gasped, and Perceptor pulled him down the corridor, zigzagging back and forth. Inferno kept moving steadily forward, shots ricocheting off the walls. Sideswipe had the time to notice that Inferno’s aim was absolutely atrocious before he thought to tell Perceptor where to go.

“I surmise that Inferno has been compromised,” Perceptor said, changing directions to head for the medibay. “Might I presume the presence of Bombshell or was some other method utilized?”

“Bombshell,” Sideswipe said. Perceptor was now flat-out sprinting, faster than Sideswipe could manage at this point on his own.  An engine growled from behind them, the squeal of tires on the Ark’s smooth hallways telling them that Inferno had transformed to run them down.  The medibay doors loomed in front of them, and Perceptor bodily threw Sideswipe through them as they opened. He followed a split-second later.

“Barricade the entrance!” Perceptor called.

The doors slammed closed, Ratchet locking them without question.  “Well?” he said, glaring at them both.

Sideswipe shook his head, trying to clear the errors from his processor. Pain spiked through his spark chamber.  “Insecticons,” he said finally, the pain subsiding to a dull ache. “Inferno, cerebro shell. Soundwave.”

“Slaggit,” Ratchet cursed. The door vibrated as Inferno started trying to break it down. “That’s not going to last very long.”

“Worse,” Sideswipe said. “If he’s in here, the outer doors are open.”

:Autobots, this is Red Alert. The outer defenses are still active. Remain where you are.:

“Windcharger said the comm system was compromised,” Sideswipe sent back.

:Not any more. No time to explain.: The transmission definitely was coming from Red Alert; he’d encrypted it with one of his particular algorithms.

“Inferno is attempting to break down the door,” Ratchet sent, motioning for Sideswipe to be quiet. “He’s presumably operating under the influence of a cerebro shell.”

“It will take him perhaps four minutes to succeed,” Perceptor added, which wasn’t helpful at all in Sideswipe’s opinion.

:We’re coming to get you.: Windcharger was using the same encryption algorithm. :Stay put.:

“Right,” Sideswipe muttered. “And when Soundwave and the Insecticons actually waltz on in here?”

“You’re not going anywhere near them,” Ratchet snapped. “I can see the stress on your systems from here.”

“Whatever.” Sideswipe looked around the medibay, searching for the weapons Ratchet had removed. “Inferno is the issue right now.” The doors cracked, as if in emphasis, and then bowed inward. “Aha.”

“You’re going to end up in stasis lock or worse,” Ratchet said. He and Perceptor were barricading the door, which wasn’t going to get them much time. Sideswipe clicked his shoulder cannon into place, readjusting to the weight.

“I don’t see how I have much choice in the matter.”

The door shattered, and Inferno stumbled against the barricade. Perceptor swung a chair at his head. “Hold still!”

“Can’t stop,” Inferno said, all but vibrating, all his attention fixed on Perceptor. 

Sideswipe aimed his rifle. “Get out of the way!”

“What?” Inferno’s finger tightened on the trigger as the barrel of his gun swung toward Sideswipe before he suddenly went entirely limp.  Ratchet caught him, easing him to the floor.

“What did you just do?” Sideswipe lowered the rifle, trying to look like he wasn’t leaning on it.

“Severed his neural linkages. He’s in stasis lock. Perceptor, give me a hand.” The two of them had Inferno restrained on a repair berth in short order.

“You’re still alive. Good.” Red Alert peered through the wreckage of the door. “We’re setting up a defensive perimeter.”

The plan, communicated via encrypted short-range transmission, was simple - Sideswipe, Windcharger and Red Alert would keep the Decepticons in one place long enough for Ratchet and Perceptor to literally freeze them there using a jury-rigged system.

“Simple?” Ratchet cuffed Sideswipe on the side of the head, with no real force behind the gesture. “Your part in this is the only thing that’s simple.”

“Whatever.” Sideswipe shouldered his rifle and headed for the door. Ravage had apparently transmitted Inferno’s failure to subdue his fellow Autobots, for the Decepticons had started their assault; Sideswipe could hear the rumble of the external defenses shake the hallways as he pulled himself up into the ceiling.  It was a narrow space, but without his jetpack, Sideswipe just barely fit. A narrow grate gave him access to the hallway.

Once the Decepticons made it through the blast doors, Sideswipe would possibly have enough cover to fire on them without being pounded into scrap. He didn’t hold out much hope for making it through the fight in one piece, but at least the other Autobot teams wouldn’t come home to an ambush. “Not a bad way to go out, I guess,” he said softly, and rechecked the rifle.

When the doors finally buckled inward, only Shrapnel forced his way into the Ark. The other three were nowhere to be seen.  Sideswipe aimed carefully and took his first shot. Shrapnel batted it aside as if it were nothing and looked straight at Sideswipe. Still firing, cover blown, Sideswipe sent a transmission to the rest of the team.

“Kickback, Bombshell, and Soundwave are somewhere else. Shrapnel is the only one here!” Static was his only answer; whether Soundwave had jammed the transmission again or whether his comrades were already down, Sideswipe didn’t know.

Shrapnel laughed, stalking toward Sideswipe. “Too late for you, Autobot, Autobot.”

“I have missiles.” Nothing in Sideswipe’s arsenal was making a dent in Shrapnel’s armor, as far as he could tell, but he kept at it. Shrapnel reached up, ripping the ceiling panels out and throwing Sideswipe to the floor. Sideswipe was as ready as he could be – he jammed a blade pulled hastily from subspace into Shrapnel’s neck and hung on for dear life.  His momentum opened a jagged gash into Shrapnel’s torso, and the Insecticon screamed in rage and pain.

“Got you.” Sideswipe grinned, and sent a missile at close range into the gaping wound. The resulting explosion knocked him back into the wall, drowning his senses in static and sending a cascade of errors over his HUD.

Shrapnel’s hand reached out of the smoke, and Sideswipe tried to dodge. The wall brought him up short, but Sideswipe couldn’t do anything except push at it ineffectually. Shrapnel’s hand was followed by his torso, looming through the dissipating smoke and flickering lights. “Die, Autobot, Autobo…” Voice trailing off, Shrapnel collapsed in a puddle of his own burning fluids.

“Gotcha,” Sideswipe said again, and then something changed. Static still flooding his vision, Sideswipe barely made out silhouettes crowding the hole in the Ark’s wall.  He tried to bring his rifle to bear, fire on the intruders, but his limbs refused to obey him. “Ratchet. Perceptor. Con reinforcements,” he sent over the comm system, the white noise ringing in his audials building to a crescendo before abruptly hurtling him into darkness and silence.

* * *

“Welcome back, sunshine.”

“That’s your name,” Sideswipe returned automatically, systems still in mid-boot. When his optics finally came online, the first thing he saw was Sunstreaker sprawled in a makeshift chair. Anyone else would have called his pose casual or even relaxed, but Sideswipe could read his tension.

“I saved your skidplate, I get to call you anything I want.” The bored tone in Sunstreaker’s voice just hid yet more tension, and Sideswipe frowned at the uncharacteristic signs of stress from his brother.

“What did I miss?” he asked, trying to get up.  There were no warnings currently on his HUD, but he couldn’t actually move.

“Stop that,” Ratchet said from across the room.

“I didn’t do anything!” Sideswipe protested.

“And see that you keep it that way.” Ratchet stalked over to the repair berth, poking at something in his chest. Sideswipe couldn’t feel it, and panic started welling upwards.

“Oh, calm down.” Sunstreaker folded his arms, but most of the tension had drained away. “You’re fine.”

“I told you he was fine,” Ratchet said, with a note of tolerant affection Sideswipe had heard directed at him but never at his brother.

“Bah.” Sunstreaker shifted, edging closer to Sideswipe. It was comforting, in a way, even if he’d never admit it to Sunstreaker.  

“No one answered my question,” Sideswipe felt compelled to point out.

“We came back just in time to stomp the Insecticons and rescue your sorry afts,” Sunstreaker said airily, but he was looking at Ratchet when he said it.

“You were an unnecessary but not unwelcome distraction. We’d have handled the Insecticons just fine on our own,” Ratchet said. Sideswipe got the distinct sensation that they’d had this conversation before, and an uncomfortable feeling he refused to acknowledge as jealousy at how easily Sunstreaker was bantering with Ratchet welled up into his throat.

“Would that be before or after they yanked out all your spark chambers?” Sunstreaker returned.

“They were in the process of freezing when you got here,” Ratchet said.

“Please.” Sunstreaker smirked. “They would have melted within seconds.”

“We’ll never know now, will we.” Ratchet poked at something unnecessarily hard, and Sideswipe flinched, distracted from his wayward emotions. “Felt that, did you?”

“Hey, yeah, I – that hurt.” He could feel Ratchet’s fingers in his systems now, and the errors he’d expected to see earlier were finally flooding his HUD. None of them were critical, though, and most of them were warnings he associated with being patched up after getting scrapped. “What, is everything fixed?”

“If you’d bother to check your chronometer, you’d know how long you were down,” Sunstreaker said sharply, finally obviously manifesting the last vestiges of stress.

“I have you to tell me,” Sideswipe said with relief, because baiting Sunstreaker was easy, and now that everything was apparently fine, he could finally go back to the familiar routine.

“Sunstreaker decided it would be better for you to remain in stasis until your repairs could be completed,” Ratchet said, glaring at the bot in question and ruining the moment. “Your fight with Shrapnel left you in pretty bad shape, and he thought it would be less traumatic.”

“I can handle trauma,” Sideswipe muttered, resentful all over again at Sunstreaker treating him as though he wasn’t up to par, and at Ratchet for assuming it came from concern rather than condescension, and at both of them for getting along so well. “You could have asked me.”

“You nearly got yourself killed. Again.” Sunstreaker stood, spitting the words out as if trying to get them off his tongue as quickly as possible. “Sorry for trying to keep you alive.”

“This hasn’t been easy on Sunstreaker, either,” Ratchet said, and Sunstreaker threw him one more baleful glare before storming from the medibay. Ratchet stared at the door for a moment and then turned back to Sideswipe. “He was worried about you.”

“No, he wasn’t. He just thinks it reflects badly on him if I get slagged.” Finally able to move, Sideswipe craned his head upwards in an attempt to see what Ratchet was doing.

“I don’t think you’re giving your brother enough credit,” Ratchet said after a moment.

“I don’t think you know him well enough,” Sideswipe shot back, feeling somehow betrayed. The whole wretched week was finally behind him, he was back to being able to handle himself well enough to make Sunstreaker happy, and Ratchet had to go and ruin everything by poking holes in the status quo.

“Sideswipe…” There was a pause, and then Ratchet shook his head. “Okay, you’re free to go.” Sideswipe’s chestplates clicked closed. “I’ve talked to Prowl, and you’re off-duty for the next two days to let your self-repair systems integrate the new material.”

“Yeah, yeah.” At the mention of Prowl, Sideswipe had pulled up the duty roster. He wasn’t scheduled with Sunstreaker any time soon, for which he was grateful.

“Try not to fall off any more jets.”

Sideswipe laughed and climbed off the repair berth. “But that’s the fun part.”

“At least try to make sure they’re closer to the ground,” Ratchet shot back. “And go talk to your brother.”

Sideswipe made his escape without actually promising anything; he wasn’t going to ruin things any further with Sunstreaker. Everything was going to be fine.

END